They may not be your family tunnels, but a very complex network of tunnels which served as hospitals, living quarters, communication and supply routes, as well as storage areas for that weapons and food of the Viet Cong guerrillas. These were constructed without resorting to any sophisticated machines or tools however only crude tools and human resilience. The Viet Cong guerrillas began building them in their proof against french within the late 1940s. Its original purpose was for communication between villages without getting detected from the French army. In 1960, however, Vietnam's National Liberation Front began excavating and increasing the tunnels. The tunnel system was very strategic causing the victory of the North Vietnamese Army contrary to the Americans.

A large number of secret tunnels were built underneath American bases. Its importance wasn't only limited to military purposes but additionally took over as the hub of the Vietnamese community life as the Americans burned and destroyed villages. Everything proceeded normally for your Vietnamese during these tunnels where lovers met, couples got married, children attended school, and performances were held.



All was not normal, of course. The Vietnamese needed to face the difficulties of just living in cramped quarters where ants, scorpions, vermin, and poisonous centipedes thrive. In addition to that, they need to ration everything because food, water, and in many cases air were scarce. Usually, they merely got out of your tunnels through the night to scavenge whatever can be a good choice for the neighborhood whether or not they were supplies or food. If the Americans bombed and infiltrate villages, that they had to keep in these claustrophobic quarters for what gave the look of endless days. Those living conditions made sickness, especially malaria, rampant. Actually, it is the next major cause of death one of many Vietnamese in that time. Adding to that, almost all of the tunnel inhabitants had serious installments of intestinal parasites.

While the Cu Chi tunnels was really a haven for your Vietnamese, it was a source of frustration for your Americans. They had tried various types of detection and infiltration which are all an inability. The American troops conducted large scale operations burning villages, bulldozing jungles, and destroying rice paddies. They deployed planes which sprayed chemicals to defoliate other places burning it afterwards. Through these offensive attacks, the Vietnamese guerrillas, with the remaining portion of the villages, remained safe and secured within their tunnels. Regardless of this, only 6,000 Vietnamese through the original 16,000 tunnel inhabitants could actually survive after the war.

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