The Tunnels of Cu Chi (44 page)

Lieutenant General Jonathan O. Seaman, who was in charge of Operation “Cedar Falls.” He said he had turned the legendary “Iron Triangle” into a military desert: 750 Viet Cong killed; 280 prisoners. But when it was all over, the survivors came up from the tunnels once more.

Seen from the air, the insignia of the 1st Infantry Division and the US Army Engineers (a huge castle) were carved in the jungle by bulldozers during “Cedar Falls.”

One of the biggest finds during “Cedar Falls” was a tunnel complex believed to be the underground headquarters of the Viet Cong's 4th Military Region. Tunnel rats of the 196th Light Infantry Brigade sent for their commander, Brigadier General Richard T. Knowles (
left
), who supervised the search. Platoon Sergeant James Lindsey (
center, with field phone
) was killed inside this tunnel two days later by booby-trap explosives.

Two Viet Cong nurses prepare for an operation inside a tunnel hospital. The medical equipment was mostly American, bought on Saigon's black market. Parachute nylon hangs on the walls of the hospital to keep earth and infection away.

Dr. Vo Hoang Le, the famous tunnel surgeon, and his wife Nguyen Thi Tham in 1974. He performed hundreds of operations inside the Cu Chi tunnels. Amputations were done without anesthetics (“half died of shock but half lived”), and he did brain surgery with a household drill. He has become a national hero in Vietnam; she died from her wounds in 1982.

Tunnel rats, including Sergeant Bill Wilson (handling phials), inside the captured tunnel hospital at Lai Thieu in April 1967.

Vo Thi Mo, the tunnel guerrilla. A ruthless killer who softened long enough to let three GIs escape from her rifle sights.

“Rat Six” and “Batman” standing together. “Rat Six,” Lieutenant Jack Flowers (
center
), is congratulated by Major General Orwin Talbott, commanding the Big Red One, on receipt of his bronze star. “Batman,” Sergeant Robert Batten, is on the right. Later Batman was to warn his officer: “You're not a killer … and that's your problem … you'll screw up somewhere.” His officer was indeed to be ordered back to the United States after one nightmare tunnel operation.

The sign that hung on the door of the 1st Engineer Battalion Tunnel Rats' “hootch” at Lai Khe base. They saw themselves as hard-drinking, mean-mouthed, fast-shooting sons of bitches. The reverse was true. They were cool, calculating, and ruthless.

Tunnel Rat Sergeant Pete Rejo in action. He was one of the meanest, working alone, hating and killing the Communist fighters in the holes. His squad called him the Human Probe. “I loved it down there … when they told me they had a VC down there, I came unglued.”

The nucleus of the 1st Engineer Battalion Tunnel Rat team in 1969. Left to right: Kit Carson Scout Hien, Sergeant Pete Rejo, Lieutenant Randy Ellis, Kit Carson Scout Tiep, and Rick Swofford, the demolitions man who blew the lid off a tunnel like a scalp from a skull.

U.S. high technology warfare ultimately triumphed. Pictured above is the AH-1G Cobra attack helicopter. Some, like this one, were painted with a shark's mouth and swept low across the defoliated scrub killing anyone caught out of the tunnels. Captain Nguyen Thanh Linh called them “Red Headed Beasts.” “We feared them very much; they killed many comrades.” Once a decoy dummy VC soldier was used to lure a Cobra into a waiting ambush, and it was shot down. But it was the B-52s that finally destroyed most of the tunnels.