The Tunnels of Cu Chi
by Tom Mangold and John Penycate
Cassell, $144
This is a classic on tunnel warfare that dates from 1985 and the 10th anniversary of the fall of Saigon. Tom Mangold and John Penycate, both formerly of the BBC's Panorama programme, first saw the tunnels up close in 1978 and were inspired by the story of those who fought, lived, died and were born under the very feet of the American military. As North Vietnam gathered its forces, the Viet Cong were like fire ants, inhabiting about 320km of tunnels. Thirty years on, and The Tunnels of Cu Chi remains a textbook on this unique form of warfare that for years bested the best military technology the US could bring to bear. Ignore the back-cover blurb, which oddly plays up GI skill and courage in the face of a cruel enemy. The story that Mangold and Penycate tell is one of the 'courage and endurance' of both the Vietnamese and the so-called American rats who went underground
to fight them in the pitch blackness. In the end, B-52s bombers, defoliation and heavy casualties neutralised the tunnels, but by then it was too late.