The Tunnels of Cu Chi. Note: This documentary is hosted on: Google.com During the war in Vietnam, thousands of people in the Vietnamese province of Cu Chi lived in an elaborate system of underground tunnels. Originally built in the time of the French, the tunnels were enlarged during the American presence. When the Americans began bombing the villages of Cu Chi, the survivors went underground where they remained for the duration of the war. The secret tunnels, which joined village to village and often passes beneath American bases, were not only fortifications for Viet Cong guerillas, but were also the center of community life. Hidden beneath the destroyed villages were schools and public spaces were hospitals where children were born and surgery was performed on casualties of war: underground were schools and public spaces where couples were married and private places where lovers met. There were even theaters where performers entertained with song and dance and traditional stories. THE CU CHI TUNNELS, a Mickey Grant film, is the story of life underground told by the people who lived the experience. It is a story told by a surgeon, an artist, and actress, an engineer, and the few survivors of the guerilla band who left the tunnels each night to fight against an enemy of vastly superior strength. Attached to the guerilla bands were Viet Cong documentary cameramen and camerawomen whose footage of the war from the Vietnamese point of view and of love, life and death in the tunnels has survived and is used in the film. This extremely rare footage povides a fascinating kind of echo; we see and hear an actress perform in the wartime tunnels and then hear her describe the experience nearly thirty years later.
About the CU CHI tunnels. |
 CU CHI tunnels The district of Cu Chi is located 40 kilometers to the northwest of Saigon near the so-called "Iron Triangle". Both the Saigon River and Route 1 pass through the region which served as major supply routes in and out of Saigon during the war. This area was also the termination of the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Because of this, the Cu Chi and the nearby Ben Cat districts had immense strategic value for the NLF. Mai Chi Tho, a political commissar stationed in Cu Chi describes the region as a "springboard for attacking Saigon." He goes on to say: "We used the area for infiltrating Saigon-intelligence agents, part cadres, sabotage teams. The Tet Offensive of 1968 was prepared-the necessary troops and supplies assembled-in the Cu Chi tunnels."
In the beginning, there was never a direct order to build the tunnels; instead, they developed in response to a number of different circumstances, most importantly the military tactics of the French and U.S. The tunnels began in 1948 so that the Viet Minh could hide from French air and ground sweeps. Each hamlet built their own underground communications route through the hard clay, and over the years, the separate tunnels were slowly and meticulously connected and fortified. By 1965, there were over 200 kilometers of connected tunnel. As the tunnel system grew, so did its complexity. Sleeping chambers, kitchens and wells were built to house and feed the growing number of residents and rudimentary hospitals created to treat the wounded. Most of the supplies used to build and maintain the tunnels were stolen or scavenged from U.S. bases or troops.
The medical system serves as a good example of Vietnamese ingenuity in overcoming a lack of basic resources. Stolen motorcycle engines created light and electricity and scrap metal from downed aircraft were fashioned into surgical tools. Doctors even came up with new ways of performing sophisticated surgery. Faced with large amounts of casualties and a considerable lack of available blood, one man, Dr. Vo Hoang Le came up with a resourceful solution. "We managed to do blood transfusion" Vo said "by returning his own blood to the patient. If a comrade had a belly wound and was bleeding, but his intestines were not punctured, we collected his blood, filtered it, put it in a bottle and returned it to his veins." By the early 1960âs, the NLF had created a relatively self-sufficient community that was able to house hundreds of people and for the most part, go undetected by large amounts of American troops based, literally, right on top of the tunnels.
American soldiers used the term "Black echo" to describe the conditions within the tunnels. For the PLAF, life in the tunnels was difficult. Air, food and water were scarce and the tunnels were infested with ants, poisonous centipedes, spiders and mosquitoes. Most of the time, guerrillas would spend the day in the tunnels working or resting and come out only at night to scavenge supplies, tend their crops or engage the enemy in battle. Sometimes, during periods of heavy bombing or American troop movement, they would be forced to remain underground for many days at a time. Sickness was rampant among the people living in the tunnels; especially malaria, which accounted for the second largest cause of death next to battle wounds. A captured Viet Cong report suggests that at any given time half of a PLAF unit had malaria and that âone-hundred percent had intestinal parasites of significance.â In spite of these hardships, the NLF managed to wage successful campaigns against a conscripted army that was technologically far superior.
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