The Buried War (The Secret Front book 5): Inside the Tunnels That Kept the Viet Cong Fighting

They bombed the earth. They cleared the jungle. They sent men into the darkness.

Still, the tunnels survived.

Beneath the scarred ground of Cu Chi lay one of the most extraordinary military systems of the Vietnam War.

Concealed entrances disappeared beneath leaves. Command posts, storage chambers and medical spaces existed below ground. Fighters moved through passages built to survive an enemy possessing helicopters, artillery, bombers and overwhelming technological power.

Then American and allied soldiers found the entrances.

Someone had to go inside.

In The Buried War, Royal Navy veteran and award-winning author Bill Stewart reconstructs the hidden conflict beneath Cu Chi — from the first underground shelters and the growth of the Viet Cong tunnel network to Operation Crimp, the tunnel rats, Cedar Falls, Tet and the final communist victory in 1975.

This is not a story of invincible tunnels or simple heroes.

The tunnels were bombed, flooded, gassed and destroyed.

The Viet Cong suffered devastating losses.

American and Australian soldiers entered passages knowing an armed defender might be waiting only metres ahead.

Some never returned.

Drawing upon military history, veteran testimony and the author’s own later experience of entering the Cu Chi tunnels, The Buried War examines what the underground network actually achieved.

Not victory by itself.

Time.

Time to hide.

Time to repair.

Time to survive.

Time to wait.

A gripping work of evidence-led military history about the men above, the fighters below and the earth that stood between them.

The war ended.

The tunnel remained.