Combat and Teamwork in the Tunnels of South Vietnam War

William Head - U.S. Air Force 78 ABW Office of History

The Enemy Below

This paper examines the cooperative effort by U.S. and Australian air and ground forces during Operation Crimp. It was the largest search and destroy operation up to January 1966. It was one of many ordered by MACV Commander, Gen. William Westmoreland. It, unexpectedly, exposed the Communists’ Tunnels at Cu Chi near Saigon. It also witnessed the creation of a group of specialized sappers known as “Tunnel Rats.” This general overview of the operation will not only serve to provide the audience with basic knowledge of what maneuver units experienced in combat in South Vietnam, but dove-tail with the succeeding paper by Dr. Gilliam.

James Gillam - Spelman College

The War in the Ground 1969-1970

In the American historiography of the Vietnam War, much of the published scholarship has been focused on the so called the big picture of the war; our wartime diplomacy, and the strategy of the war of attrition. Inside those big pictures are smaller ones of maneuver units in the daily tactical grind of the air and ground war. The paper I propose to present is called “Vietnam: The War in the Ground 1969-1970”. It is a seldom viewed part of the small, tactical level picture of the war. It is a biopic of the ground war conducted by American soldiers known as “Tunnel Rats”. I was a Tunnel Rat and my paper portrays a day in that life.

Dorothea Hoffman - Appalachian State University

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