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derivative filename/jpeg
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363-04784.pdf
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Digital Object Identifier
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363-04784
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Title
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Viet Cong Make Like Moles
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Description
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Article published in the New York Herald Tribune about the Việt Cộng's use of tunnels and foxholes to assist in their guerilla warfare, page unknown
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Date
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1965, Nov. 14
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Subject
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Mặt trận dân tộc giải phóng miền nam Việt Nam; Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Guerilla Warfare; Intrenchments ; tactics
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Location
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Saigon, South Vietnam
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Coordinates
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10.8231; 106.6311
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Container
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B4, F6
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Format
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newspaper clippings
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Collection Number
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MS 363
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Collection Title
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Beverly Deepe Keever, Journalism Papers
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Creator
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Keever, Beverly Deepe
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Copyright Information
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These images are for educational use only. To inquire about usage or publication, please contact Archives & Special Collections.
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Publisher
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Archives & Special Collections, University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries
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Language
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English
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extracted text
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By Beverly Deepe
A Special Correspondent
SAIGON.
Viet Cong Make Like Moles
The Viet Cong guerrillas'
camouflaged tunnels and foxholes represent one of the
greatest tactical problems of
United States combat units.
Low-ranking American field
officers indicate that some are
camouflaged so well that U.S.
units walk past them and then
are shot in the back.
In the heralded "Operation
Starlight" conducted near Chu
Lai by 5,000 U. S. Marines in
_August, an estimated 75 per
cent of the U. S. casualties
were shot in the back, according to the commanding general.
During past eng•agements,
the Viet Cong, heavily armed
with mortars and letihal reco!lless rifles, have been able
to rain in fire from their foxholes and tunnels on advancing American units.
In the guerrilla-controlled
areas of the countryside, the
Viet Cong h ave constructed
"combat hamlets." Each village perimeter is protected by
a series of tunnels. Within the
village each home' is equipped
with aircraid bunkers . Paths
·in the v!llage are dotted with
mines or traps of steel spikes.
Village fences and gates are
fus ed with explosives .
The v!IJ:agers know to avoid
the dangers ; advancing Vietnamese or American units do
not.
On occasions, u. S. commanders have used smoke
grenades and tear gas pumped .
through a !blower to counter
the guerrillas' use of tunnels
but these techniques have not "011e day I see a tunnel about
been effective.
60 -meters long; the next day I
"I fly over this terrain every fly over that same area and
day," one American helicopter that tunnel has been covered
pilot based in Da Nang said. with Jogs, grass and mud and
another 50-meter extension
ha-s been built. These tunnels
may all lead to Da Nang."
Viet Cong defec tors have
reported that the guerrillas
are dig,ging tunnels under
Saigon's Tan Son Nhut Airport, but attempts to locate
them h ave proved unsuccessful for government officials.
During the nine-day siege
of the Piel Me Special Forces
camp, 18 miles from the
Cambodian border, the guerrilla troops dug an intricate
series of foxholes as close .as
50 yards f.rom the cam:p perimeatr. The one-man holes
viewed by this correspondent
were about four feet deep
and five feet wide. At the
bottom, there was a long
niche for sleeping or for protection against U. S. bombings or mortar attacks.
"One of our patrols overran a guerrilla bunker," said
Capt. Harold Moore, the
American detachment commander at Plei Me. "The
Communists had built a lot
of foxholes and trenches, all
leading into one bunker. This
was only about one-quarter
of a mile from our camp;
from this bunker the Communist.9 could see everything
we were doing in our camp,
but it was so well camouflaged we couldn't see them
from our positions .
"The Communists had dug
their holes and then covered
the tops with mud, logs, dirt
and weeds for protection. We
couldn't even see the Communist positions only 30
meters from our camp: we
could see tracers coming out
of the weeds, but we couldn't
see their foxholes.
A defector from a North
Vietnamese Army unit told
this correspondent that the
Communist cadre had recently
Issued orders to dig trenches
deeper and narrower.
"Digging trenches was more
Important than eating," the
defector said. "Even if we
were hungry and tired, the
first thing we had to do was
to dig trenches.
"I remember one day my
group arrived in one place,
dug trenches for two hours,
stayed there for an hour, then
moved on to the second place
and started digging a.,gai "
