Comments

1. On February 15, 2021 at 3:46 pm, Paul B said:

   That was some nasty duty.

2. On February 16, 2021 at 9:21 pm, Fred said:

   Neat vid. Apparently, as is well known now, the US was trying to conduct some semblance of 3gen warfare. The Vietcong wouldn’t play, but looking at the tunnels this is a whole new level of guerrilla type war. The Japs in WWII used tunnels as well on some of the islands they controlled if I recall. The US should have had some knowledge or plan for such a circumstance in Vietnam. This vid made me wonder if the dot gov has any clue what truly awaits it when things go full tilt in conus.

3. On February 17, 2021 at 3:07 am, Georgiaboy61 said:

   @ Fred

   Re: “The Japs in WWII used tunnels as well on some of the islands they controlled if I recall. The US should have had some knowledge or plan for such a circumstance in Vietnam.”

   The early island-hopping campaigns of the Great Pacific War – what the Japanese termed WWII in that theater of conflict – taught the Imperial General Staff the expensive lesson that contesting amphibious invasions at water’s edge made no sense, tactically-speaking, thanks to the U.S. control of the skies over the battlefield and their control of the seas around it.

   By the time of Tarawa, Saipan and Peleliu, they had learned not to fight the Americans in the open, but to dig in – preferrably in deep, reinforced concrete tunnels, blockhouses, and firing positions.

   They refined their tactics and by the time of Iwo Jima and Okinawa, many American GIs and Marines were taking fire from enemies emplaced so well that they could not see them. Massive pre-invasion naval gunfire and aerial bombardments had been promised to wipe-out the Japanese such that ground forces landed ashore would face only mopping-up operations, but then these promises proved to be too-optimistic, new tactics had to be evolved to deal with the problem.

   In the end, Japanese fortifications were reduced using infantry armed with flame-throwers, satchel charges, small arms and pure guts. Whenever possible, if Japanese caves and tunnels, if they could not be taken, were to be by-passed and sealed off with heavy construction equipment and concrete and/or ample amounts of HE.

   These lessons, learned at such steep cost in WWII, were largely forgotten by the time of Vietnam – and had to be learned all over again by a new generation of brave young men. And the V.C. and NVA were, if anything,even better tunnelers than the Japanese ever were.

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