European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - October 19, 1977, Darmstadt, Hesse Enemy commander capt Nguyen Thanh Linh at one of thetra doors leading to net of tunnels. A by Horst Faa associated press a it. Col. George a. Eyster Lay dying from Vietcong sniper Bullet wounds on a Jungle Trail he said to me before i go i d like to talk to the Guy who controls those incredible men in eleven years later i met that Man and he showed me the inside of the fantastic Tunnel octopus that took 30 years to dig and stretched 150 Miles with tentacles some times winding right under the chairs of . Commanders As they sat in their , a tall West Pointer from Cocoa Beach fla., died in a Field Hospital while his battalion the 2nd of the28th regt 1st inf div was trying to fight its Way through of the vast underground Complex at cd Chi 20 Miles Northwest of now peaceful tunnels were on the itinerary of a German tourist group i travelled with on a rare two week trip to of the briefing officers at District Headquarters was capt. Nguyen Thanh Linh. Dressed in an Olive drab North vietnamese uniform and to Chi Minn rubber tire sandals he said in answer to a question that he had commanded the cd Chi liberation battalion during 1966.that was the unit the american colonel s Black lion battalion had opposed. The slightly built 45-year-Oldlinh looked quizzical As i pursued my questioning. Yes he said intelligence reports had informed him at the Tim that the opposing american battalion commander had been killed. As he recalled those Days for our tourist group the horror of a War i had witnessed from Only one Side became vividly real. Linh spoke in French with grudging respect an almost without hatred about his former enemies the americans. The death of Eyster and Many other Ameri cans in those Early War years shocked the american Public but As the Captain talked it was evident the Battles had not been the 600 men in the cd Chi battalion that fought by Ster s Black Lions in january 1966, Only four survived the War two officers and two non commissioned officers said battalion itself was wiped out several times he said. Each time we reconstructed it. In the whole sector we lost 12,000 men in the course of the War the former battlefields looked Lush and sleepy As our group drove from Saigon Northwest along the River Bear " As More and More american soldiers arrived to occupy the surface above the More we extended our system below " ing the City s name. Some deep b52 bomb craters were still visible retained As fish Ponds or wallowing holes for labor gangs were widening a Road and occasion ally a reminder of the War would appear. A rusting a Mored personnel Carrier with 1st inf div markings and Little Rose painted on its Side loomed out of a Bambo Thicket. The wreck of a . Helicopter was overgrown with elephant grass. The Battleground we were being taken to Lay be Neath our feet at one two and three Levels under ground. It was a twisting octopus of tunnels an caverns stretching from cd Chi towards Saigon and the surrounding provincial capitals. The tunnels were marked in Black lines on a 12-by-12-foot map hanging from a briefing room Wall and my first reaction was a hat it looked like a map of the new York or London subway system with dots not for stations but for fighting positions and secret entrances and Slippery humid corridors about two feet wide and two feet High blocked with wooden trapdoor at under ground intersections spanned the history of the whole Vietnam War starting from the Days when communist agents hid from the French police. But it was during the american phase of the War Linh said that the system was truly tested. As More and More american soldiers arrived to occupy the surface above the More we extended our system below said a senior officer at the briefing col. Duong Long Sang. At the end we had a three tier Tunnel system and everything was underground the toilets the hospitals All our soldiers Many civilians and even water the colonel continued we literally dug for 30 years usually in the dark squatting Down. We carved out about a meter every eight hours and women distributed the Earth on the surface hiding it under fallen tunnels crept under some . Positions. Several times we knew that american Field commanders would sit like this on their Metal chairs directly above us said Linh with a vietnamese took our group for a visit and As noisy swarms of mosquitoes buzzed around our Heads we pushed ourselves through the narrow corridors obviously built by and for slender vietnamese. We always moved in the dark saving our candles and torches for emergencies said Linh. Our amputees Lay in the dark sometimes for eventually the americans figured out the coun they used Hunting dogs and we battled them underground with Rifle Butts mines and knives said somebody had the idea to use american toilet soap and the vietnamese started smelling the same As the gis. That stopped the dogs Linh said. Wounded it col Eyster i d like to talk to the Guy who controls those incredible men american Tunnel rat exploring Viet Cong tunnels Complex in the area North of Saigon. Next came the Tunnel rats Small Tough americans like us Linh said. They crawled into the tunnels with explosives and Gas to blast us out. We installed More escape routes More tiers but sometimes we were cornered and we tried to kill them with bayonets so As not to give our positions americans died in the tunnels. They wasted much time pulling their dead Back. That gave us time to regroup. The More we killed the fewer problems we the americans tried flooding the tunnels and we lost Many men until we constructed upper tier escape Levels Sang said. Finally Linh said came the scorched Earth policy that from 1968 on saw regular b52 bombing of the Tunnel complexes. Only direct hits killed Linh claimed but he described the awesome experience of a near miss fire would be everywhere the body would be thrown Back and Forth in the Tunnel shirt and pants would be ripped apart by the suction of the air Sang stated the americans used to say that As Long As there were soldiers of the liberation front in the cd Chi tunnels Saigon would be in danger. They were planned the 1968 tet attack against the . Embassy in Saigon from Here. And it was also from Here that details for the final successful liberation of Saigon on april 30,1975, were drawn greatest pleasure in those Days was to stick one s head out to the surface and just breathe air said Linh As we climbed into our vehicles for the ride Back to Saigon. Watched him take a gulp of the heavy humid and Undis Turbed air that hangs Over peaceful cd Chi today. A reporter Peter Arnett who worked extensively with Faas covering the Vietnam War looked up Eyster Swidow. Her officer husband was the first of his West Point class to die in Vietnam and she was left alone to bring up their four children but Harriet Linnell says she bears no bitterness toward the communist soldiers who killed him. George wanted to be a military Man he was trained for it and we have always been proud of what he did she said in a Telephone interview from her Home in Beaufort . Mrs. Linnell has remarried but memories of the death in Battle of colonel Eyster returned with the associated press interview of the commander of the Vietnam Ese unit that killed him she remains unhappy about the Complete collapse of the Saigon government in 1975. I Don t pretend to know the political subtleties but we could not help asking ourselves what was All that loss of life for. Yet i hate to say George s life was wasted the military tradition of the Eyster family is being maintained by his two sons both in uniform. The eldest George Eyster 4th, is a helicopter Pilot in the army his younger brother is in the air Force and both his Sisters have married army officers their Grandfather George Eyster 2nd, was chief of information in the european theater in world War commander of the . Army s 1st inf div at the time of the colonel s death in Vietnam it. Gen. Jonathan Seaman said recently that Eyster would have been a general like his father had he lived Cross Section of two and three tier tunnels used by Viet Cong near cd Chi. Page 14 the stars and stripes wednesday october 19, 1977 uncovered command Bunker of enemy net of tunnels. The stars and stripes Page 15
