CU CHI TUNNEL THE UNDERGROUND VILLAGE

Cu Chi Tunnels is known as an underground village. This place is a battle of resistance of Cu Chi people during the war. With its glorious feats, Cu Chi Tunnel has become the symbol of the Vietnamese people as a legendary page in the journey of the twentieth century, and today becomes a famous tourist destination.

This is a unique wonder, unlike anywhere else with a number of more than 250 km of tunnels like spider webs deep inside the ground. The tunnel structures include trenches, ammunition magazines, living quarters, meetings, military medicine, Hoang Cam kitchen, especially a hidden food storage.

The process of forming the tunnels

Initially during the resistance war, bunkers were simply constructed, with an entrance just enough for people to pass through. When the hatch cover was turned over, people walking on the ground can hardly be detected. However, such tunnel carried a weakness, that is, when being discovered, people would be likely to be besieged. From there, the idea of upgrading the bunker was born, moving from creating single bunkers to creating complex tunnels, and bringing them to the surface with multiple entrances, allowing for flexible shelter and attack. This is the foundation for the formation of Cu Chi tunnels.

- Since 1948, in the two communes of Tan Phu Trung and Phuoc Vinh An, short tunnels were created for the simple purpose of hiding documents and weapons. After that, the tunnel system expanded to many different communes.

- From 1961 to 1965, the guerrilla war of Cu Chi people developed strongly, and six communes in the north of Cu Chi district completed a network of tunnels called “backbone”. The units then develop branch tunnels, which connect to the “backbone”, forming a network of interconnected tunnels.

After that, the movement to dig tunnels quickly spread everywhere. From children to the elderly, young men and women all participated in tunnel construction. With simple tools such as a hoe and a bamboo shovel, the people of Cu Chi have built a miracle with hundreds of kilometers of tunnels running horizontally and vertically in the ground, connecting communes and hamlets with each other as an “underground village”.