Secret Weapons Bunker from the Resistance War against the US

A bunker beneath a shoe-sole pressing workshop in the former District 10 that hid a weapons cache undetected for ten years

Beneath a house on Ba Thang Hai Street lies the bunker of the "Logistics" unit, code-named J9/T700, of the Saigon Special Forces (Biet dong thanh). In mid-1964, the unit found this house and decided to buy it because of its ideal location: directly opposite the US Military Assistance agency and about 800 – 1,000 m as the crow flies from the Capital Special Zone. Nguyen Thi Cuc, a liaison and reconnaissance agent of J9/T700, bought the house in her name, partly with family assets and partly with money borrowed from relatives. Her husband, Do Van Can (Ba Mu), moved the family in, opened a rubber shoe-sole pressing workshop as a cover, and secretly dug a bunker under the floor. After 25 nights of digging, the bunker was finished in May 1965: 1.8 m wide, 2.2 m long and 1.7 m deep, built of brick and rendered with cement. The hatch is just 0.4 × 0.6 m, made of two bricks fitted tightly over the opening; above it, a living-room sofa set was placed directly over the hatch to conceal it, with the shoe-sole pressing area behind. From July 1965, three shipments were brought in and hidden, including explosives, guns, ammunition, grenades and military gear. In mid-1967, Mr. Can also stockpiled large quantities of medicine and bandages in the bunker in preparation for the Tet Offensive of Mau Than 1968. For ten years, from July 1965 to 30 April 1975, the weapons cache sat close to many military agencies without being discovered. In 1988, the bunker was designated a National Historical Relic. Today the house still keeps the shoe-sole pressing tools and moulds, the sofa set, as well as artefacts and many photographs and documents on the walls. In 2014, the family was relocated and the site was handed over to be opened to visitors; it is now managed by the People's Committee of Vuon Lai Ward. The bunker is part of the inter-district tour "Saigon Special Forces – The Legendary Bunkers", launched in late 2024. No opening hours have been published, so contact ahead or join a tour.

English text: machine translation from the Localis platform — proper names kept in Vietnamese.