Cu Chi Tunnel is in the Northwest of Ho Chi Minh City (about 70 km). With the huge underground maze, Cu Chi Tunnel played an important role in Vietnam Wars (against the French and American). Cu Chi Tunnel ranges from 120km to over 240km long. It is the most special architecture underground with spares for living, meeting and fighting. It includes many stake traps, dormitory, firing post, kitchen with remote smoke outlets, first aid station, ammunition dump, water wells, etc.

Just creep down into the tunnel, we can easily understand why a small country – Vietnam defeated the French and American in Wars. In over 21 years, Cu Chi, which is a barren and poor land, could against strongly the army that is warlike and equipped modern war weapons. The American invader had to face so fierce resistances from Viet Cong in tunnels. They suffered heavy losses and they cried out, “Dangerous secret zone”, “Underground villages”, “We cannot see any Viet Cong but they appear everywhere”, etc.

Click to Enlarge the Map

During the war, American invaders tried to attack continuously to Cu Chi tunnel system by the following main “techniques”:

1.Watering the tunnel:
The invaders planned to use machines for pumping water into the tunnel’s system because they thought that underground system would be stuffy by water. They discovered many main gates of the tunnel so that they used helicopters to load water barrels and flushed to the tunnel. However, they could not flood all the tunnels. They only destroyed 70m of the tunnel compare with hundreds km of the Cu Chi Tunnel. During this time, Viet Cong killed 1,600 enemies, destroyed 77 tanks and 84 planes.

2.“Sewer-Rat” Force:
American organized a “sewer-rat” army with 600 infantry soldiers who were “small” body to ruin the tunnel. Each “Grown rat” group had four soldiers; two would go down the tunnel. They were equipped by lighters, gas masks, iron sticks, submachine guns, poison blowers, daggers, etc. By this way, the invaders had destroyed some short lines of the tunnel. The enemy had suffered huge damages (3,500 soldiers dead, 130 tanks, and 28 planes). Finally, American Invaders must confess a bitter truth: “This tunnel cannot be destroyed”.
3.Berger dogs Force:
3,000 dogs were brought to Cu Chi Tunnel. These dogs were easy to scent human smell and Viet Cong suffered damages in the first time. Viet Cong tried to use dry chilies and mixed with pepper powder to sprinkle in the top outlet ports. However, the enemies would attack when they saw dogs coughing. That brought Anti-dog jobs became more complexity. Finally, Viet Cong found the easy way to solve the problem. They bought American body wash, soaps and used them to scatter above tunnel outlets. As a result, Dogs realized America smell so that they passed these outlets.

4.Using mechanical vehicles

5.Seeding grass to destroy terrain

In recent years, Cu Chi tunnel become the most popular tourist destination.