They may not be your normal tunnels, however a very complex network of tunnels which served as hospitals, living quarters, communication and provide routes, and also storage areas to the weapons and food with the Viet Cong guerrillas. They were constructed without the need for any sophisticated machines or tools only crude tools and human resilience. The Viet Cong guerrillas began building them in their resistant against french in the late 1940s. Its original purpose was for communication between villages without getting detected through the French army. In 1960, however, Vietnam's National Liberation Front began excavating and extending the tunnels. The tunnel system was very strategic causing the victory of the North Vietnamese Army against the Americans.
A large number of secret tunnels were built underneath American bases. Its importance has not been only tied to military purposes but in addition had become the hub with the Vietnamese community life because Americans burned and destroyed villages. Everything proceeded normally for your Vietnamese during these tunnels where lovers met, couples get wed, children went to school, and performances were held.
All was not normal, naturally. The Vietnamese had to face the challenges of living in cramped quarters where ants, scorpions, vermin, and poisonous centipedes thrive. In addition to that, they need to ration everything because food, water, as well as air were scarce. Quite often, they merely got out from the tunnels at night to scavenge something that could be useful for the city whether they were supplies or food. If the Americans bombed and infiltrate villages, that they had to remain of these claustrophobic quarters for seemed like endless days. Those living conditions made sickness, especially malaria, rampant. The truth is, it is the 2nd major cause of death one of many Vietnamese in that time. Adding to that, a lot of the tunnel inhabitants had serious cases of intestinal parasites.
Even though the Cu Chi tunnels was really a haven for that Vietnamese, it has been a method to obtain frustration for that Americans. That they tried various ways of detection and infiltration that had been all a dysfunction. The American troops conducted major operations burning villages, bulldozing jungles, and destroying rice paddies. They deployed planes which sprayed chemicals to defoliate areas burning it afterwards. Through all these offensive attacks, the Vietnamese guerrillas, combined with other villages, remained safe and secured in their tunnels. Not surprisingly, only 6,000 Vietnamese from your original 16,000 tunnel inhabitants could actually survive following your war.
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