DON WILDMAN (VOICEOVER): Today,
Vietnam is a booming country of 84 million people spread
across an awesome landscape from its bustling cities
like Ho Chi Minh and Hanoi to its thick jungle
and rugged mountains. It hardly resembles the bombed
out bloodsoaked battleground left over from the Vietnam War. This is the part of the war
you don't really get to see. DON WILDMAN
(VOICEOVER): But there's still a secret world from that
deadly era hidden underground. From 75 mile long
handcar tunnel systems-- I don't know how they fought
a war down here, much less won it. DON WILDMAN (VOICEOVER): And
an underground Viet Cong nerve center filled with deadly traps. Man, it's tight. [grunt] I don't know how you
wouldn't get lost down here. DON WILDMAN (VOICEOVER):
To mountain caverns that would transform into
covert military headquarters. This is insane. It's huge. DON WILDMAN (VOICEOVER): And a
top secret subterranean bunker that was a lifeline
to the Pentagon. This is really
where the last stand was made, in these hallways. DON WILDMAN (VOICEOVER):
Vietnam was the perfect venue for an underground war. And that's exactly where
it was fought and won. The war you know
from TV and movies barely scratches the surface. We're peeling back
the layers of time on Cities of the
Underworld, Vietnam. [music playing] Deep beneath the cities,
villages, and jungles of Vietnam are the secret
battlegrounds of the Vietnam War. The tunnels, trenches,
caves, and bunkers used to fight the war have
been swallowed by the jungle abandoned or just forgotten. But they're still there. You just have to
know where to look. I'm Don Wildman. I'm in Ho Chi Minh City,
Vietnam, a booming metropolis that moves at a blistering pace. Today, it's the powerhouse
behind one of the world's fastest growing economies. But just 32 years ago,
this was war torn Saigon, a city entrenched in a bloody
Civil War, caught up in an epic struggle between
world superpowers. Vietnam was a poor country
then, a nation divided in two. So how did an army of
rice farmers and fishermen resist America's
overwhelming military might? To get the answers,
you have to dig deep. You have to go underground. DON WILDMAN (VOICEOVER): The
Vietnamese had a long legacy of fighting guerrilla wars, from
the invasion of the Qin dynasty in the second century BC
to the French occupation in the early 20th century. But after the French
occupation ended, Vietnam was left divided in
two at the 17th parallel, the communist North and
the democratic South. Throughout the early '60s,
tension between the North and South had reached
a fever pitch. Finally, in 1965, an
all-out war began. The South Vietnamese
and its US allies had to face an
enemy that was ready and waiting, the NVA or
North Vietnamese Army. But their biggest challenge
was fighting the guerrilla army in the south, the
VC or Viet Cong. In 1965, American troops
outnumbered the Viet Cong nearly 2 to 1. They focused most of
their military power on a 40-square mile area
called the Iron Triangle. It was a hotbed of
Viet Cong activity. And the Cu Chi tunnel system
was the nerve center of it all. When young American
troops were first dropped into the
jungles of Vietnam, they had to trudge through this. It was some of the densest
jungle in the world. They were constantly on
the lookout for booby traps and Viet Cong fighters
who seemed to appear out of nowhere. Now, they knew the
enemy was operating in tunnels beneath the ground. But what they didn't
know was there was a massive military complex
hidden right below their feet. DON WILDMAN (VOICEOVER):
The Cu Chi tunnel system stretched for an
amazing 75 miles coming to within
10 miles of Saigon. Much of the system was
destroyed by bombs or bulldozed. But under Thanh Phu village, a
large section of these tunnels remains intact. And local guide [inaudible]
knows it inside and out. Can you find
the entrance, Don? Find the entrance? This looks like an
entrance right here. - Can you open it?
- Uh-huh. Mm. That bomb explosion, that
the booby trap there. So there's a bobby trap--
GUIDE: Yeah. I got blown up in a bomb. GUIDE: Yes. So this is a decoy. So they wanted us to find this. They wanted us to open this up. They wanted us to die. DON WILDMAN (VOICEOVER): An
elite group of allied soldiers called Tunnel Rats volunteered
to infiltrate the Viet Cong's massive underground complex. It was the only way to
find and kill the enemy. But it was also the
deadliest job in the war. For them, these
tunnels were hell. Tunnel Rats eager to find
an entrance often caught in deadly traps like this one. The dummy entrance door was
wired to a hand grenade that exploded when the
door was lifted. Another simple trick
was to attach a tripwire to a box of scorpions, or simply
dig a pit inside the tunnel, and fill it with
sharpened bamboo sticks. The fall usually wasn't fatal. So the stakes were dipped in
feces, practically guaranteeing a horrible death by infection. You could find
it for yourself. Just small area. Oh, yeah. So it's a really small hole. That's only suit
for the Vietnamese because it's so slim.
- Oh. OK. So they were small men. GUIDE: Yeah. Small soldier, they could
fit in this, whereas Americans, such as myself, would
not fit so well. So this was, in itself,
a kind of protection. So it's one big
network down there. DON WILDMAN (VOICEOVER):
40 years ago, this would have been the
last place you'd want to go, down into a tiny,
twisting hand-carved tunnel that might stretch on for miles. Here we go. DON WILDMAN (VOICEOVER):
Or suddenly dead end in a booby trap or a bunker
full of enemy soldiers. [interposing voices] It's really dark,
and it's really tight. Man, this is much tighter than
I thought it was going to be. This way, huh? Yeah. Now, is this
typical of the size? GUIDE: In a war
it feels smaller. Oh, man, look at this. GUIDE: [inaudible]
than this one. DON WILDMAN: What is this? This is a scorpion, huh? GUIDE: Yeah. Phew! It's really tight. You know, it's one
thing if you were a Cong and you knew this place. But if you came down, try
to get them, man, you'd be walking into a lion's den. Phew! DON WILDMAN (VOICEOVER): Even
though their death rates were nearly 100% in the beginning,
soldiers from the US and Australia volunteered
to be Tunnel Rats. They crawled in, armed with
just a flashlight, a 38, and a knife, and would
infiltrate the tunnels to gather intelligence
or destroy the enemy. The fighting was simple, but
brutal, hand-to-hand close quarters combat in dark tunnels. Waiting around every corner
was an ambush, a tripwire, or explosive, not to
mention scorpions or snakes. There was no way
to truly prepare for that kind of fighting. But when the US was able
to capture VC tunnels, they turn them into training
courses for the Tunnel Rats. They set up elaborate
obstacle courses, including simulated booby traps,
false walls, and tripwires. Incredibly strong
and incredibly long. Look, you can see the bats. About every six feet or
so, there's another bat. DON WILDMAN
(VOICEOVER): The Tunnel Rats were crawling through a
maze that had been growing bit by bit for almost 20 years. The Cu Chi tunnels began as
a few interconnected bunkers dug during the war against
the French in 1948. Over the years, they expanded
out in a series of looping, crisscrossing passages
with multiple routes between each section in
case bombing or a cave in destroy a portion
of any one tunnel. Basic defenses were built in. The main passages zigzag
to deflect explosions. And every 100 meters, there were
shallow pits full of water that absorbed fumes from tear gas
grenades and smoke bombs. In some areas, the tunnels
were four levels deep, 30 feet beneath the surface. So B-52 craters
all over the place. I mean and that's only
like I don't know, 15 feet over our heads or so. These tunnels were so
well-constructed to actually absorb that impact. DON WILDMAN (VOICEOVER): It
was an enormous construction project. Workers tended the rice
fields during the day, and at night, dug the
tunnels beneath them. The average worker moved
35 cubic feet a day, about six wheelbarrow loads. But fresh earth would show
up in aerial photographs. So the dirt had to be
hidden in bomb craters. And rice paddies are
covered with leaves. It just takes a minute
to crawl 35 feet. But to dig that same distance
would take an entire day. It was tough, slow work. And the tunnels were kept
as small as possible, 3.9 feet wide, 3 to 6 feet high. The size was crucial to
prevent cave ins when 50 ton tanks rumbled overhead. Every tunnel and every chamber
kept their ceiling span small, smaller than the surface
area of the tank treads. This way, tanks were
always at least partially on solid ground. The weight was
evenly distributed. And the tunnels were saved. And that was crucial to the
war effort of the Viet Cong. There were three major VC
headquarters hidden in Cu Chi, scores of bomb making workshops,
and thousands of guerrilla soldiers. All of this-- oh, this goes into
a room down here. What is this? That's the fighting bunker. DON WILDMAN: I can see
daylight around here. Yeah. I see the jungle. And this is bat [bleeps]. So I'm shooting out of
here if I was fighting. They can see the enemy. And it can go on a
plane for shooting. OK. So they can report on
movement and so forth. DON WILDMAN
(VOICEOVER): Viet Cong soldiers were careful to conceal
the firing bunkers, oftentimes, constructing fake
anthills out of the dirt. But they were still at risk
of being spotted by the enemy. After all, if you
could see the enemy, that meant he could see you. I'd seen enough to know that
life in the Cu Chi tunnels during war could be hell. And I'd only seen a
fraction of this place. DON WILDMAN: In the war,
there was monsoons and rain. This would have been mud and
things would eliminate snakes, et cetera. Oh, my God. Look at that. It looks like it bites. I don't know if this is going to
let me go by without biting me. I don't know how they fought
a war down here, much less won it. And I know whether
there's an exit, but I got to get out of here. DON WILDMAN (VOICEOVER):
But no matter how well-built
these tunnels were, much of the fighting still
happened above ground. And of the 16,000
Viet Cong troops that operated in
the Cu Chi tunnels, only 6,000 survived the war. This was the true history
of the Vietnam War, the forgotten remnants and
buried tactics of a guerrilla army that turned the
tide against the largest military force on the planet The Vietnam conflict was
the first televised war in. History but the bloody images
beamed into American homes didn't tell the whole story. The jungles and rice
paddies we saw on TV actually concealed
another battlefront, a subterranean one. During the Vietnam War, most
people lived in small towns like this. But even ordinary
villages could become the target of intense
American bombing, and many simply vanished. But one extraordinary
village just north of the DMZ found a way to survive
by going underground. DON WILDMAN
(VOICEOVER): Just north of the DMZ or
demilitarized zone, the three mile buffer zone
between North and South Vietnam is another tunnel system
in the village of Vinh Moc. Unlike the Cu Chi
tunnels in the south, this was not meant as a military
base, but as a civilian bunker, a whole town carved out
by the peasants themselves beneath the earth. In Vinh Moc, where
the famous tunnels are. There's a local guy here who's
going to show me the tunnels. Hey.
- Hey. DON WILDMAN (VOICEOVER): My
local guide, [inaudible],, who grew up in the area tells
me that by the end of the war, American bombing had wiped
out the entire village. These are unexploded bombs. Boy, this really puts it
in perspective, doesn't it? Jeez, it's so-- how
big is this bomb? How many bombs
fell on this area? Do they know? About a million? DON WILDMAN (VOICEOVER): A
2,000-pounder dropped by a B-52 left behind this
enormous crater. And it's just one of many
that litter the village. But why did the seemingly
innocent fishing village come under such heavy attack? It all has to do with its
strategic position on the South China Sea. 17 miles off the
coast of Vinh Moc was a top secret North
Vietnamese Garrison on Con Co Island. The Island Garrison was
the key to defending the North Vietnamese coastline. They fired on warplanes
and Naval forces who entered their waters. The villagers of Vinh Moc were
the only ones from the mainland who could supply the weapons
and ammo out to the island. When the US found out that
Vinh Moc was smuggling arms to the Garrison. They pummeled the area with
millions of 2000 pound bombs. Many civilians
fled to the north. But 60 families
stayed to support the Garrison and its mission,
and move their village underground. Of the 13 entrances,
seven were hidden along this seaside cliff. Look. Oh, cool. Look at that. Ah. So this is one of the seven
that come off the beach. Yeah.
Yeah. This is the one of the
other seven [inaudible] entrances up the beach, and
this is the entrance number one. OK. Pretty well camouflaged
in the [inaudible].. Yeah. It's totally,
totally camouflaged. Yeah. You couldn't even see
this if you were looking in. This is how they would have
been bringing in the supplies and the soldiers right into the
village, right into the tunnel. DON WILDMAN (VOICEOVER):
While dodging bombs and continuing to run supplies
to the NVA on Con Co Island, ordinary citizens managed to
construct a massive tunnel system by hand. It took 18 months of
constant hard labor. But when they were done, they
had created a one of a kind subterranean community. Fresh water, I guess. DON WILDMAN (VOICEOVER): The
tunnels are just a mile long. But there are three
levels to this system. The lowest, over 80 feet
beneath the surface. The depth was essential since
a direct hit from a B-52 could create a
crater 15 feet deep. When the bombs fell, everyone
descended to the third level, where even the strongest
US bombs couldn't reach. So this is how it was. This was how they dug it
straight out of the Earth. Yeah, you can feel
the moist clay. I mean, and also how soft it is. Look at the material. So you can almost dig it
with your own fingers. It's just mud, but
dense, really dense. So it's not coming down. DON WILDMAN (VOICEOVER):
In fact, the dense clay was the key to keeping these
tunnels from collapsing, with 80 feet of Earth
pressing down on them. It was soft enough to dig. But when exposed to the
air, hardened and made the perfect structural support. But that doesn't mean
it was an easy project. Using picks, shovels,
and hoes, they carved out 6,000 cubic
feet of rock and earth, enough to fill 653 standard
commercial dump trucks and hold it away
in bamboo baskets under cover of darkness. In addition to creating
two main corridors, the locals carved out
kitchens, sleeping quarters, a hospital, everything
they once had above ground. They were even 17
babies born down here. DON WILDMAN: Look down here. Look at this. The way they've got a gutter
system for drainage just to send the water back out. You know, they were dealing
with not only the bombs, but also monsoons
and everything else that a normal
village would have. DON WILDMAN (VOICEOVER): By
the time it was finished, there were 400 people living
in the Vinh Moc tunnels, crammed together in
impossibly tight spaces. And they stayed down
here for six long years. GUIDE: We are still
in the second level. So we've come down two
levels to this place. How far below the
ground are we here? Oh, this is the second level,
15 meters underground about-- 45 feet or so. 45 feet. But it goes down deeper. GUIDE: Yeah. 23 meters deep to
the third level. DON WILDMAN: Can you imagine
growing up down here? And there were kids. There were 17 kids who
were born in these tunnels. And so for the first
decade of their life, they're living in these
rooms, watching their movies, and singing their
songs in this room, and going down the hallway
to their cave where the family lived. It's a hell of a childhood. DON WILDMAN (VOICEOVER):
The villagers who lived in these rooms just
40 years ago weren't just hiding in the dark,
waiting out the war. Fishermen made
daring nighttime runs to the island military base,
dodging US patrol choppers. Like the American
Tunnel Rats, these men volunteered for a mission they
knew would likely kill them. And they were known
as the Suicide Squad. In fact, many of
them died at sea. But if they made it
back to Vinh Moc, they would be safe
in these tunnels. With supplies constantly
moving in and out, these dark slippery passages
were a beehive of activity. So they worked out a system
to prevent traffic jams. DON WILDMAN: I mean, what were
these small spaces used for? Either passing way. [inaudible] passing way. So it was a traffic
flow, you know? That. Yeah, because there'd be
so many people going back and forth.
- Yes, yes. You'd have to
have a place to-- [interposing voices] Pass on by. [chuckles] Looking practical. DON WILDMAN (VOICEOVER):
Because Vinh Moc was in the heart
of enemy territory, a land invasion by US
forces was way too risky. So instead, they dropped
millions of tons of bombs from above. [breathes heavily] So how could they tell
between the enemy and the local? So they communicated
with each other-- Yeah. Through their own-- I'm OK. This is me. Don't-- don't-- don't hurt me. I don't know how you
wouldn't get lost down here. If you didn't know
where you were going. DON WILDMAN (VOICEOVER): I
had come in one entrance, gone through multiple levels
of tunnels and bunkers, and come back out again. It was a confusing maze. And that was the point. Outsiders could never find
their way through here. DON WILDMAN:
[exhales] Fresh air. [breathes heavily] So we
entered 80 feet at the bottom of [inaudible].
- Yeah. Of the beach. Mm-hmm. DON WILDMAN: The tunnel
wound its way all underneath the mountain place-- GUIDE: Yes. DON WILDMAN: And delivers us up
here right back in the village. DON WILDMAN (VOICEOVER): For
six years, in spite of bombing overcrowding and vermin,
the village of Vinh Moc found a way to hang on,
not one life was lost. When the war ended in
1975, the rebuilding began, directly on top
of the tunnels that kept this town alive. The Viet Cong were
fighting on their home turf. They knew the terrain. They constructed
a complex systems of tunnels underground for
field ops and bomb shelters. They took advantage of
the thick jungle canopy to conceal their supply
routes north to south. And in the mountains, they use
a naturally formed cave system as a top secret
underground military base. DON WILDMAN (VOICEOVER):
The Phong Nha area is located in the
Ke Bang Mountains. It's a two-hour drive from
Hue City over steep mountains of thick jungle. I took a riverboat
along the Son River to meet up with a former South
Vietnamese soldier named Sonny. DON WILDMAN: This is the
Son River in the Phong Nha area of North Vietnam. We're above the DMZ,
above the 17th parallel. This is where the war was being
fought on their home turf. I mean, they could
fight from jungles, they could fight from
tunnels, and they could fight from caves. And that's what this
area is famous for. DON WILDMAN (VOICEOVER): Sonny
was a Southern Army officer who had fought alongside
Americans and knew this country and its secrets
like the back of his hand. Concealed beneath
one of these peaks is an impenetrable
top secret fortress. And rain or no rain, the only
way to get there was by boat. So what do we do? We take a boat up there?
- Yeah. We got to take a boat there. Sorry, it rained so heavy-- DON WILDMAN: That's all right.
- We had to go anyway, right? The monsoon
never hurt anybody. OK. All right. DON WILDMAN (VOICEOVER): The
Son River bisects the country. But most of it is
actually underground. And these few exposed miles
were key to the war effort. Because here, it flows alongside
the most critical supply route in the country, the
Ho Chi Minh Trail. Without the Ho Chi Minh Trail,
a hidden network of footpaths, roads, and tunnels,
the NVA could never have moved men and supplies
into southern held territory without detection. But there was one flaw. NVA troop caravans
heading south had to leave the safety
of the hidden trail and cross the Son River, making
it a favorite target for the US and its allies, drawing down
as much as 18,000 pounds of munitions a day. So this is a real
hotbed of the war. Right, right. This region in the
country right here. DON WILDMAN (VOICEOVER):
The slow moving ferries used to shuttle men and
cargo across the river were easy targets for US aircraft. So the NVA got smart. The ferries crossed by night. And by day, they
docked out of sight in the safest harbor
in the country, deep in the Phong Nha caves. This underground lair was
more than a boat dock. Like a medieval castle,
it was a town, a fortress, and a dungeon. So this is the natural
opening of the cave. That's exactly. Not created to look this way. No created at all. It's a massive. And all of a sudden,
totally quiet. DON WILDMAN (VOICEOVER):
There are over 300 caves riddling these mountains. But Phong Nha is the biggest
and most impressive system. 14 chambers, some over 100 feet
high connected by a 12 mile underground river, the
longest in the world. During the war, this cave acted
like a natural military base. There was a harbor, a massive
meeting room, a hospital, and a prison. And the subterranean
section of the Son River served as a highway
between it all. The tunnels of Cu Chi and
Vinh Moc were hand-carved. But mother nature gets all
the credit for this place. What is this? DON WILDMAN
(VOICEOVER): The people in this area knew
these caves well. This is insane. It's huge. DON WILDMAN
(VOICEOVER): And knew how to use them to their best
advantage during wartime. DON WILDMAN: What
is this up here? DON WILDMAN: Mm-hmm. To mirror-- So this was a hugely
strategic area that we're in, SONNY: That's right. This cave system. DON WILDMAN (VOICEOVER): The
US knew these caves were here and knew they were sheltering
NVA boatsmen and supplies. But there was nothing
they could do about it. The Ke Bang Mountains were
an impenetrable bomb shelter. How big do you think this
mountain is over our head here? SONNY: Most people have
said it's 200 meters size. DON WILDMAN: 200 meters,
so it's 600 feet of rock. SONNY: That's
right, That's right. DON WILDMAN: And then this
is about 100 feet high here. So then--
SONNY: Yeah, in total. DON WILDMAN: And total
protection of about 700 feet of [inaudible]. Very good place to hide. [chuckles] A super
bunker, if you will. Right. A super bunker, if
you want to say that. DON WILDMAN (VOICEOVER): Added
security came from the fact that this river is the only way
in or out of the cave system. There was no chance of a
sneak attack from the rear, since large sections of the
river beyond these caves are impassable. When you consider
that they knew the land, that the Americans
couldn't possibly know, they knew where the
jungles could hide them and where the tunnels were. But they also knew
where these caves were. That nobody could
possibly figure out. I mean, they're not on the map. It's just a mountain on the map. So you're flying over with a
bomber and you can't see this, but it's massive. And you could hide in here and
no one would ever find you. Or if they tried, they're not
getting past the entrance. DON WILDMAN (VOICEOVER):
40 years ago, this would have been
full of soldiers, resting after a long march
down the Ho Chi Minh Trail, preparing to go into battle. In the south, high
ranking allied officers built bases with air conditioned
offices and swimming pools. But the North Vietnamese
generals met here. Like with all their
natural resources, they squeezed every ounce
of usefulness out of it. DON WILDMAN: So we're
under a whole mountain here and they're bombing
outside that entranceway. It's the daytime,
so all the ferries, all the boats are inside. Boats are inside. Safe. The prisoners are up here. The wounded are
being taken care of. Commanding officers are
down here, making decisions. This is a whole military
base, a whole operation underground, right? That's right. Yeah. DON WILDMAN (VOICEOVER):
Thousands of NVA soldiers could have
passed through here. And because hundreds of pilots
were shot down in this area during the war, it's possible
that POWs passed through here as well. Americans at home
watch the war on TV. But the battlefields they saw
barely scratched the surface. During the Vietnam War, just
about every inch of the country was a military target, from
big cities to small villages, even remote mountain caves. But of all the bombed
and burned out places, there was nothing
quite as deadly as the borderline, the DMZ. This bridge spans the Ben
Hai River at the 17th parallel. It marks the center
point of what was the DMZ or demilitarized zone. This whole region was
designed as a peaceful buffer between north and south. But for nearly a decade,
it was hell on Earth. It was nearly bombed
into oblivion. It was riddled with millions of
landmines, countless bunkers, and miles of trenches. It was essentially
a no man's land. And to this day, evidence of
its dark past is still buried. Underground DON WILDMAN (VOICEOVER):
Despite its name, the DMZ became one of the most
militarized areas in the world. And it was pounded with
some of the heaviest bombing of the entire 14 year war. There are hundreds of
bunkers, trenches , and trails that still
surround the region. But since many of them have
been filled in, covered up, or swallowed by
the jungle, they're nearly impossible to find. I met up again with
Sonny in Hue City. [inaudible] DON WILDMAN: And you got
some bikes for us, huh? Yeah.
You have to put this on, please. OK. Thank you. Hue is a strategic city
just south of the DMZ. Some of the war's
fiercest battles were fought to control it. Again, let's go. DON WILDMAN (VOICEOVER): Route
one bisects the DMZ and is the only road that leads all
the way from Hanoi to Saigon. And Hue City was dead in
the middle between the two. When the North
Vietnamese attacked, they came right down
this , highway, right? That's right.
Right. Right. DON WILDMAN (VOICEOVER):
Hundreds of underground bunkers protected all routes
leading into the city. If the north wanted to
infiltrate the south, they needed to
take this highway. And to do that, they had to
fight one bunker at a time. Cruising along the highway it's
hard to see the old bunkers. But from Sonny's years
of military experience during the war, he's
able to spot one. Sonny, this is the
bunker right here, yeah? Right. These bunkers are all
defending route one. All the way route one,
the railway, the river, oh the waterway.
- Sure. There's a whole
'nother river but-- SONNY: [inaudible] You can really see the-- I mean, this would have
been a canopy concealment, wouldn't it?
- Right. You wouldn't even
know this was here. Oh, look at the firing holes. Kind of looks like
you can go inside. This is just the
first level and then there's two others above.
- Right, right. [inaudible]
- Oh, yeah. You can get all up there,
second, and a third level. This is really-- this is the
part of the war you don't really get to see. [grunts] You can see the
whole operation up here. Look how every, you
know, 20 degrees or so, you can see another
part of the battlefield. And the thing is, you know,
there's a village right here. This is what this
was protecting, this bridge in the village. There was a lot of
combat right here. Look at this. The bunker is still
here 40 years later. It survived a lot of
mortar, a lot of bombing. And you can see why. Look at this rebar. The whole thing is
just laced with rebar. Yeah, and it creates a web
of steel, steel and concrete. I mean, no wonder
it's still here. DON WILDMAN (VOICEOVER): This
bunker is made of three levels. The first level is the largest,
with firing holes facing the river, the
bridge, and the road. The second and third levels were
lookout posts, where soldiers would scout enemy positions. These bunkers withstood
lots of deadly bombings. Like those used in
World War II, they were made with rebar
reinforced concrete, making them 20 times stronger
than an ordinary concrete structure. 40 years ago,
these bunkers would have been filled with US and
South Vietnamese soldiers, ducking NVA artillery. So you-- DON WILDMAN (VOICEOVER): When
Sonny was an infantry soldier, he would have had a front
row seat to the chaos that surrounded them. DON WILDMAN (VOICEOVER): Most
of the time, the soldiers stationed here remained
outside the bunker, until they came under
heavy bombardment. Yeah. OK. So there was a soldier
posted at each one of these-- Right.
Right. --openings. DON WILDMAN: OK. DON WILDMAN (VOICEOVER):
The stations were set up. So southern army
soldiers could look out for covert groups of Viet
Cong, guerilla soldiers that infiltrated the south. But visibility was
poor from here. So only in heavy fire
where the soldiers supposed to duck inside. DON WILDMAN: So it was-- DON WILDMAN: Yeah. DON WILDMAN: OK. What was it like for
the soldiers when they were fighting inside here? Right. So that you could the
building might withstand it. But the shock wave coming
right was still hurt and maybe kill the people inside. DON WILDMAN (VOICEOVER):
These bunkers were made to protect the
soldiers from the shrapnel of a North Vietnamese
RPG or rocket propelled grenade, which would fly
in at 650 miles per hour. But the biggest problem
was the shortwave. Sound waves that penetrated
through the firing holes if an RPG landed within
three feet of the bunker. It would explode with the
force of 158 decibels. Human eardrums can
rupture at 150 decibels. So the pressure of the bomb
often caused soldiers' ears to literally rupture and bleed. Many American soldiers went
home with post-traumatic stress disorder, hearing loss, or
even major brain damage. But there was no way around it. In order to see and
fire at the enemy, soldiers had to
risk their hearing, and sometimes, their lives. Look at this. These ones. They all got their. Insignia these would have
been stations for each soldier as they were positioned like
this, shooting down all around. When the Viet Cong came over. the 17th parallel on
their way down South. They were winning
these skirmishes, these battles to take over
forts like this little bunkers. And that's how they took the
country, one bunker at a time. DON WILDMAN (VOICEOVER):
This is Ho Chi Minh City. But in April 1975, it was
still Saigon and still the capital of South
Vietnam, but just barely. The South and its US
allies had been worn down by a decade of fighting and
invisible relentless army. And the end was in sight. For 10 years, the nerve center
for the South Vietnamese and American forces was in a
top secret ultramodern bunker deep beneath the
presidential palace. Five stories high, this compound
covers a whole city block. It took three years to build. And during the Vietnam War,
this was the safest place in Saigon for the
president himself to hide. It was the White House and the
Pentagon, all rolled into one. Hello, [inaudible]. - Nice to meet you today.
- Thanks. You too. So this is the
Vietnamese White House. DON WILDMAN (VOICEOVER):
During the Vietnamese war, calls were made inside these
walls that sent thousands to their deaths. This is the actual-- this is the Oval Office-- Yes --of the Vietnamese president. DON WILDMAN (VOICEOVER):
But this was war and this room was
far too exposed. At the first sign of danger,
the president and his men headed down a secret staircase
into an eerie parallel underworld. And the real nexus of
power during wartime. We were the first Western TV
crew since the Vietnam War to gain access to
the secret rooms beneath the presidential palace. Just beneath the surface,
South Vietnamese leaders were safe from bullets,
shrapnel, and hand grenades. And they could concentrate on
the business of running a war. I see. There's all these little rooms. So this is filled
with personnel who are on the phones,
manning the whole battle. DON WILDMAN (VOICEOVER):
Throughout the '60s and '70s, this room would
have been buzzing. And on the other end of
these primitive phones were American soldiers helping
the South rid their country of communism. But even more amazing
is that in these rooms, just beneath the streets
of a busy metropolis, a war was planned and run
without spy satellites, computers, or cell phones. So this is actually just for
passing messages in and out. Yeah.
It's very basic. Very basic, yeah. Basic messaging technology. Yes. And look, see this was when
a telephone was a telephone. Yes. General Electric, so all this
equipment is American made. Uh-huh. Because it's communicating
with the Pentagon back home. This is all American equipment,
look at this over here. This is like all
what was left behind. When the war was
being fought, I mean, they were out in the jungles. But the nerve center
was right here. Oh, this sprawls out in
every direction, doesn't it? You can imagine. I mean, this is like
a mini Pentagon. It's a bunker down here. And they're fighting
the whole war from here. And the further we get to the
'70s, the more desperate things have become. And this is really
where the last stand was made, in these hallways
down below the palace. DON WILDMAN (VOICEOVER):
Peasants of Vinh Moc and Cu Chi had sought shelter underground,
and so did the President of South Vietnam,
even slept down here when the threat level was high. Yeah, OK. It's not very cozy, huh? Very Spartan. What is this stairway here? The bodyguards? The presidential
security is down there? Yes. DON WILDMAN (VOICEOVER): The
president's secret bomb shelter was 30 feet below the surface on
the second floor of the bunker. If there was a direct attack
on the palace and no time to evacuate, this is
where the president would make his last stand. When there was no
immediate danger, the war would be
run from the war rooms above on the first
floor of the bunker. And this entire
subterranean structure was protected with steel plates
against direct hits from bombs. But in the end, none of this
was enough to stop the North Vietnamese. [inaudible] led me
from the basement to the roof of the palace,
the best seat in the house to witness the end of an era. Building here? Top of building here. [inaudible] You can really
get the perspective here. Yes. This is the famous gate. Mm-hmm. I've seen the pictures. So there's like a long
line of tanks down there. Yes. DON WILDMAN: That road. DON WILDMAN (VOICEOVER):
It was the spring of 1975, the US had signed a cease fire
treaty with North Vietnam. And the American ground
troops were gone. South Vietnamese President
Thieu vowed to keep fighting. But as NVA forces converged on
Saigon, he fled the country. On April 29, thousands
of panicked civilians scrambled to escape the
city, desperately trying to fight their way onto a
handful of US evacuation helicopters. On April 30, North Vietnamese
tanks entered the city and headed right here for
the presidential palace. The conflict had dragged
on for 14 long years. And then it was over, so
quickly that all this equipment was left behind, mute
reminders to a war. Independence Hall was
renamed Reunification Palace under the new government of the
Socialist Republic of Vietnam. And all of this, the basement
fortress, the tunnels, the trenches, the caves bear
witness to the painful birth of a country, one that
would not exist today without ancient
engineering techniques, and a people's willingness to
live, and fight underground
