Villagers who lived in the demilitarised zone received a constant hammering from American bombs. In particular, near the coast, 7 tons of bombs fell for every inhabitant. In 1966 one of these villagers took a pick axe in their hand and started to dig. The village joined in, trying to find a solution to escape the cascade of bombs. The villagers initially dug down 10m, to move their entire village sous-terrain.
The Americans received intel that these Vįnh Môc villagers were supplying food and weapons to the North Vietnamese army on the nearby island (Con Co). The North Vietnamese troops on Con Co were proving to be an obstacle for American planes flying up to bomb the daylights out of hallowed Hanoi.
So the Americans designed bombs that could plunge down to 10 metres.
(The two lying down at the front were sea-based missiles, the rest hurtled down from the sky)
Those bombs could do some serious work - our armspan (fingertip to fingertip) is about 1.75m. Check out the size of these bomb craters.
With so much destruction happening on the surface, the villagers dug more tunnels, these ones as deep as 15m and 22m. The Vįn Môc tunnels gave up to 60 families underground housing until early 1972.
9 000 tons of bombs fell in this area, and not one villager lost their life. The tunnels grew to include a small room for each family (maybe 1.8m in length, by 1.5m in height and width), a couple of cooking spaces, wells, meeting rooms, a maternity room, a hospital, and one toilet. Can you imagine?!
17 babies were born in the tunnels, they were only born a couple of years before us. All of a sudden that terrible war seems closer to home.
(Photo not ours, but shows the cramped living quarters of a family)
7 exits/escape routes face the South China Sea, and yes the villagers often transported supplies to their mates on Con Ca island. 6 exits/escape routes coming out at the top of the inland hills. The escape routes were all rather camo-ed from the air and sea. The villagers dug with hand tools, and it took 18 000 labour days to complete. The tunnel complex is a total of nearly 2km.
Asking the guide if these irrigation channels were built by the villagers too, he laughed. Those were actually trenches for soldiers. Oh how blissful to live in our naive peace-filled worlds.
The large memorial plaque in the museum is pictured below. To be or not to be, even if it means relocating your whole village underground! What an exceptional story of creative thinking, gritty hard work, and the power of synergy.
Hien Luong Bridge
Riding over the Bên Hâi river felt quite eery. This was the principle highway through the country, and for 21 years also drew the line between the former North Vietnam and South Vietnam. The 17th Parallel was what the demilitarised region was known as, but in real life the line was demarcated by the river. The DMZ was 5km wide, and most of that region is flat alluvial plains.
The bridge is called Hien Luong, and means the peace bridge. During war time, the northern end of the bridge was painted red and the southern end painted yellow/blue. Hope there was a multi-coloured little smudge somewhere right in the middle!
The monument shown in the photo below is taken from the northern end of the bridge. This bridge was bombed tons by the southern allies during the war, but always reconstructed.
South side's monument is a bit curious - a mother and son look longingly to the north, surrounded by six tall feather-like items, but they look more like bombs. It's called the Reunification Monument, and was an eye-opener to the fact that families were separated, and neighbours were divided diplomatically, politically, and physically. The monument depicts the way villagers used to come to the river to share news with their family or friends on the other side. Wearing a white scarf around their head meant someone had died, hands behind their back meant someone was arrested.
Trúông Són Martyrs' Cemetery
Vietnam's national war cemetery contains the graves of northern soldiers killed in the DMZ and in the Trúông Són Trail, known to us as the Ho Chi Minh Trail.
More than 10 000 graves are headed with the word liet si (martyr), this being only a fraction of the North's casualty list of 300 000 dead or missing.
An amazing day - inspiring at Vįnh Môc, poignant at the Peace Bridge, and sobering at Trúông Són.
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