What were punji sticks in Vietnam?
Punji sticks were sharpened bamboo branches that were used by the Viet Cong as its toxic terror sticks. Sometimes the sticks were smeared with feces in order to spread infection throughout the wound.
What were punji sticks used for?
Punji sticks were sometimes deployed in the preparation of an ambush. Soldiers lying in wait for the enemy to pass would deploy punji sticks in the areas where the surprised enemy might be expected to take cover, thus, soldiers diving for cover would impale themselves.
What chemical weapon was used to clear jungles in Vietnam?
Agent Orange
Agent Orange was a powerful herbicide used by U.S. military forces during the Vietnam War to eliminate forest cover and crops for North Vietnamese and Viet Cong troops.
How many tunnel rats were killed in Vietnam?
That both sets of men had to endure this life is appalling. There were never more than 100 Tunnel Rats in country at any one time and around 700 in total. There were 36 killed and 200 wounded.
What was the life expectancy of a tunnel rat in Vietnam?
about two seconds
The life expectancy of a tunnel rat is about two seconds.” Garza described the underground tunnels as treacherous. “You would go into a hole and come out 10 or 15 miles away. There were houses down there and hospitals,” Garza noted.
How many people died from booby traps in Vietnam?
Counting US forces alone, there were over 300,000 wounded in Vietnam. That means about 45,000 men were injured by booby traps. Of these wounds, 2% came from punji stakes, the most infamous of all the booby traps employed by the Vietnamese during the war.
Did they have snake pits in Vietnam?
Snake Pits Viet Cong guerrillas would often carried Bamboo Pit Vipers in their packs to (hopefully) kill anyone who searches through them. They would also tie the deadly snakes to bamboo and hide them throughout their tunnel complexes. When the Bamboo was released, so was the snake – right onto the enemy.
Why did the Viet Cong use punji sticks?
To increase their potency, the Viet Cong would smear punji sticks with either poison or their own feces thus raising the likelihood of an infection taking hold in the wound much greater.
What kind of weapon is a punji stick?
The punji stick or punji stake is a type of booby trapped stake. It is a simple spike, made out of wood or bamboo, which is sharpened and heated. Punji sticks are usually deployed in substantial numbers. Punji sticks are banned from use as weaponry under the 1980 Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons.
What was the purpose of the punji stick trap?
A wound from the simpler punji stick trap was almost never fatal but was instead designed to take soldiers out of the fight while increasing the battle fatigue of those left on the field.
How many soldiers were killed by a punji stick?
The wound caused by a punji stick were seldom fatal, and it was designed to do so. Once an enemy soldier was wounded, it took one or sometimes two soldiers to carry him out of the fight. So instead of killing only one soldier, a single punji stick could take two or three soldiers out of combat.