Firstly speaking, it is very crucial to look at the geography setting of Cu Chi. Cu Chi is a small town which is located just about 70 km to the northwest of Ho Chi Minh City or Saigon back in the date. Before the war was broken out, this small town village is so friendly with beautiful and peaceful scenery of a countryside and is a great place for Saigonese people to go to have picnic. It also has a vast areas of Rubber Trees Plantation, which generate great income for the local, were left from the France. With location not so far from Tan Son Nhat Airport, Cu Chi Provinces soon became a strategic locations for both side VC and America. Understanding such important of Cu Chi is, Viet Cong were successfully blended in to live among the local and studied the area. The Southern Vietnam Government at that time know that too, and so, they planned many ways to get rid of the VC. That is the start of how the War in Cu Chi started.
Secondly, the other important factor to look at is indeed the origin of tunnels in Cu Chi. Where did they come from? Were they created by the VC when they first moved in? Guess what, those first tunnels in Cu Chi were not built by the VC but by the locals and Viet Minh back in the date when the war with Colonial France's Force was carried out sometime in the late 1940s. However, those tunnels were not built with the purpose to fight but only with a peaceful purpose of hiding foods and shelter and were mainly lone tunnels and not connected with each other. During these years of fighting against the French (1945-1954), the soldiers hid under the secret bunker in enemy territory, protected by the people. Back in the date, you can find those tunnels almost everywhere in Cu Chi Provinces. So many that are still not be fully discovered until now.
Thirdly, structure of the Cu Chi Tunnels when the VC came and built is worthy to find out. With its victory scale, Cu Chi tunnel went into the history of heroic struggle of the Vietnamese as a legend of the 20th century and became famous in the world. This is a unique and incomparable wonder with 250 km tunnel spreading like cobwebs underground, with the completion of works associated with the tunnels such as trenches, docks, fighting places, tunnels for eating, sleeping, meetings, activities, military, food storage, water wells, Hoang Cam stoves... In Cu Chi, the earliest tunnel appeared in 1948 in two communes of Tan Phu Trung and Phuoc Vinh An. At first, there were only short and simple structured sections, used to conceal documents, weapons, hiding soldier’s operating in enemy territory. Later, it spread from communes to communes. From 1961 to 1965 the guerrilla war of the people in Cu Chi had grown rapidly, causing huge losses to the enemy, contributing to defeat the strategic "special war" of the American. Six communes in the north of Cu Chi had completed the "backbone" tunnel. Then, the agencies and units developed branch tunnels connecting with the "backbone", an interconnected tunnel system. These branches of different lengths, connecting together or independently end, depending on the terrain. There are many branches to Saigon River, so in emergency case, they could cross the river to the base of Ben Cat (Binh Duong).
