Cu Chi Tunnels

Written by Jonathan Smylie

They raked the dirt into rice paddies, poured it into streams, and dumped it into bomb craters so the Americans couldn’t tell they were digging under them. They started these tunnels in the late 1940’s when they were fighting the French. By the mid 60’s their underground world included kitchens, theaters, dormitories, printing ships, weapon cashes as well as 125 miles of tunnels.

When they were not excavating, they were extracting gunpowder from unexploded bombs or artillery shells fired by the US or they were setting booby traps made of bamboo spikes or waiting out the constant shelling the Americans threw at this province just north of Saigon.
Using only short handled hoes and small reed baskets for carrying out this hard clay, the VC created a three-tiered network of tunnels that dropped to depths from 10 to 30 feet.

As I crawled through them, they zigzagged every few yards. They were designed never to run straight for long, it helped limit damage if there was a fire fight. The tunnels were almost pitch dark because the few navigational lights that the museum strung along the walls were far apart and gave off little light. I crouched on my toes, curled up into a tight ball and used my hands as a second set of feet, swinging forward like a monkey. This way I was able to move quickly and not have to crawl on my knees.

At one point the tunnel dropped down a small square hatch and I found myself on a deeper level. The place felt like the inside of a maze and I could have easily taken a turn or two and not known from which direction I had come or which way was out.

I passed a small opening on my left side, an off shoot; probably a body’s length long and I imagined it was where someone would have slept. I imagined them feeling the ground shake as the bombs fell around them, fearing their exit would be caved in by the next explosion. The US bombed the area so extensively it damaged 70% of the tunnels. I imagined the man or woman, they worked and fought side by side, whose niche this was waiting and listening to hear whether the US would, after the bombs stopped falling, next try to fill the tunnel with water or flames or chemicals or send in a tunnel rat, a volunteer with a rope tied to him, who would start shooting at the dark. I imagined lots of things and was grateful when the exit appeared and I climbed the ladder to sunshine.