Vietnam Vietnam

Part 9: DMZ - Along The 17th Parallel

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12th November 2006

We started early, around 6:00 am. The bus was full, a few of them I met before elsewhere in Vietnam. We travelled northward on the Highway-1, which runs north‑south along the length of Vietnam, it often ran alongside the rail tracks. On the both side of the road there were, now familiar, landscape of coastal Vietnam, mostly paddy fields – often sprinkled with large graveyards or scattered graves. Vietnamese farmers are so attached with their paddy fields that it is a custom in rural Vietnam to bury their dead in their ancestral paddy fields.

About an hour later we reached Dong Ha, capital of the Quang Tri province located at the crossroad of Highway 1 and Highway 9. Highway 9 runs parallel to the DMZ on the Southern side up to the Lao border. Most of the famous Vietnam War battlefields are located around Highway 9. Our tour plan was to first visit the famous Vinh Moc tunnels further up the Highway 1, on the other side of the Ben Hai River. And after visiting Vinh Moc tunnels we will return to Dong Ha and travel along Highway 9 up to famous Khe Sanh American military base near Lao border. The Americans withdrew from Khe Sanh in 1968, soon after the Tet-offensive.

After an half an hour stoppage for breakfast, we headed north towards Vinh Moc. Soon we reached Ben Hai River and crossed it over a modern concrete bridge. We stopped on the northern side of the bridge to have a look around.

From 1954 till the end of the Vietnam War in 1975, Ben Hai River was the demarcation line between the then South Vietnam and North Vietnam. Initially a 5km zone on the either side of the river was declared demilitarised zone. However, nothing could be farthest from truth – as the North south conflict escalated and the Americans joined the fray supporting the South and the North Vietnamese Army concentrated on the other side for its push to reunite Vietnam, this zone became one of the most militarised zone on earth.

Though not in use anymore, the old iron bridge over the river runs parallel to the new bridge. The Americans bombed it out during the war - the remaining stumps of the bridge on the North and South sides were respectively painted red and yellow during the remainder of the war – now it is reconstructed only as a reminder. I found a group of old Vietnamese war veterans near the old bridge – though I could not strike a conversation with them – with sign language, I requested for a photo opportunity with them and they happily agreed. Since the end of the war two new flag stands were constructed on the either side of the bridge. Next we headed for Vinh Moc.

Vinh Moc village is located on the coast, about 20km from the Bridge on the Ben Hai River. During the war it became an important supply route for the North Vietnamese and its primary supply route from the nearby Con Co Island, which was a major supply depot for the North Vietnamese.

In 1966 the Americans began a massive aerial and artillery bombardment of North Vietnam, just North of the DMZ, People in Vinh Moc found themselves one of the most intensely bombarded people on the earth. They mostly lived in bamboo houses and their ordinary bomb shelters were no match for this intense and heavy bombardments. Most people began to flee the area. The Viet-Congs found the Vinh Moc base essential for their operations and began to organise villagers to dig tunnels in this area, which had similar jungle covered high bluffs along the coast with red clay soil. However, unlike Cu Chi’s fighting tunnels, these were made as permanent bomb shelters for the whole population – these were full sized tunnels at 15m, 20m and 25m depth serving all purposes of  an entire village population as well as the Viet Cong Guerillas and North Vietnamese Armies – each family was allotted a separate space, there were even maternity rooms where 17 babies were born.

It took about eighteen months to build the 2.8 km of tunnels. The tunnel network had twelve camouflaged entrances, seven of which opened to palm lined beach connecting to the sea supply route to con co island. All most all of the 2.8km tunnel work survived the heavy bombardment of the war and still kept preserved, as it was then. Some other areas also had tunnels, though they were not as extensive as Vinh Moc, and they did not survive as well as the Vinh Moc tunnels – poorly built tunnels of the Vinh Quang village at the mouth of the Ben Hai River collapsed under repeated American bombing, and killed everyone sheltering inside.

We started by visiting a small museum on the Vinh Moc tunnels. Then we entered the tunnel network through an entrance near the museum. We walked through some sections of the tunnel network for about half an hour –mostly we were able to walk upright through the tunnels – though at intervals there are electric bulbs, it is quite easy to get lost through the labyrinths, quite often the tunnels fork out in different directions – the guides were quite careful, one lead us while the other herded us from back and we had a head count after we emerged from the tunnels through an camouflaged opening along the beach.

We returned to Dong Ha and after a quick lunch headed west along Highway 9.  There were many American bases along Highway 9 during the war. They were established to stop infiltration by the North Vietnamese army and to disrupt the supply lines to the Viet-Cong guerillas fighting deep inside South Vietnam. The supply route to the Viet Cong guerillas in deep South was famously known as “Ho Chi Minh Trail”, which ran through roads and trails through Truong Son Mountains and Eastern Laos. Most of the American bases are barren now, though many unexploded ammunition remain strewn in these areas along side DMZ, which still claim innocent lives – since the end of the war about 5,000 people got killed by these unexploded ammunitions.

Due to limited time we directly headed for the most famous of the American bases near the Laos border – Khe Sanh, where the most famous siege of the Vietnam War took place. Initially, a small base was established in Khe Sanh by the US Special Forces to recruit and train local Montagnards. By late 1966 the base was turned into US Marine stronghold. In April 1967 a series of hill fights began between the US forces at the base and North Vietnamese army dug in the hills surrounding the base. In late 1967 the US detected large movement of thousands of heavily armed North Vietnamese Army regulars. The US commander in Vietnam, General Westmoreland became convinced that the North Vietnamese were trying stage another Dien Bien Phu like siege, which led to the French defeat in 1954.

General Westmoreland become so obsessed with avoiding a repeat of Dien Bien Phu at Khe Sanh that he gathered a fleet of 5000 aircrafts and bolstered Khe Sanh base by increasing the US soldier strength to 6000. Even the US President Lyndon B Johnson got so caught up with the spectre of a repeat of the fall of Dien Bien Phu that he asked for a written guarantee from the US Joint Chiefs of Staff that Khe Sanh would not fall under any circumstances.

The Americans fell head long for the trap sprang by the North Vietnamese – North Vietnamese were actually creating a enormous diversion of US troops, resources and attention of the US high command in order launch their famous Tet-Offensive during the Tet-festival of 1968. The 75 day siege of the Khe Sanh Base begun on 21 January of 1968 and week later the Tet-offensive was launched, during which all major cities and towns across South Vietnam including Saigon were attacked by the Viet Congs and North Vietnamese soldiers. Strategically and politically, the Tet-offensive was the turning point of the Vietnam War – it delivered a mortal blow on the moral of both the US political establishment as well as the US Military. 

During the next two months the base continuously faced North Vietnamese ground assaults and the Americans dropped 100,000 tons of high explosives on the vicinity of the base. The much awaited attack to overrun the base never came – on 7 April 1968 after fierce fight the US troops reopened Highway 9 to end the siege – 500 Americans, about 10,000 North Vietnamese soldiers and many more civilians died during the siege.

Even after all these, General Westmoreland still insisted that Khe Sanh was the real attack and the Tet-offensive was the diversion. After General Westmoreland was relieved in July 1968, the Americans quietly abandoned the Khe Sanh base - they blew it up before abandoning.

The empty base now stands on a barren plateau surrounded by forest covered hills. Now a small museum stands at the center of the base surrounded by few captured, destroyed or rusting helicopters, planes and armoured vehicles – a bunker has been persevered for the visiting tourists – That’s al remains, all other signs of that savage siege has been reclaimed by the nature over the last 30 years – at least visibly.

After Khe Sanh we headed back for Hue.   

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