Booby traps are made in many different categories such as non-explosives, explosives, anti -vehicle, and anti-helicopter.  On the maps the troops read there were numbers to tell you how much risk there was to take. 

Minimal risk - 1

low risk - 2

Medium risk - 3

High risk - 4

Maximum risk - 5

 

        

 

This is a Picture of a grenade mine.
They also have the chances of death if you were to be in the walk into a booby trap such as:

1 Long Grass

2 Disturbed Earth

3 Punji Pit

4 Long Grass

5 Disturbed Earth

6 Punji Pit

7 Fallen Log

8 Disturbed Earth

9 Long Grass

0 Sniper
          The most feared booby trap was the "Bouncing Betty".  Some people said it wasn't meant to kill you just to cut you in half.  If you were to walk into one you could very easily be paralyzed.  You could also lose your legs or the family jewels.
          Another one of the most feared booby traps was the Punji Pit.  A punji pit had spikes placed in the bottom of the pit.  the pit was usually covered in grass and leaves to hide it so it was hard to be seen by the enemy.  The tips of the spikes were usually covered in poison, dirt, or sometimes even manure.  Those things were put on them so if you didn't die then you would sooner or later.
          One of the most unusual and most unexpected was the fountain pen.  It fired a 22 caliber cartridge.  To show where the booby traps were at the people who found them would place some kind of kit or box so that you would not walk into it.  

This is the fountain pen gun.
This Is a Punji Pit This is a Toepopper
          All of the booby traps that I am going to list below were made by the Viet Cong.

Toepoppers                          Punji Pits

Bows                                   Bamboo Whip

Small Ap Mines                 Claymore Mines     

Snipers                                 Trip Wire

Fountain Pens                      large Ap Mines 

Grenades                             Bouncing Betty's

Soviet/Chicoms                    Spiked Ball

US WW 2s                            Swinging Man Trap

US Flags

The aerial battlefield was controlled by the United States.  Whenever and wherever US ground troops needed air support it was brought in massive heaps of in an almost unlimited scale.  Sometimes when the U.S. was bombing the enemy the enemy would do what was called hugging the belt.  Hugging the belt was getting close to your enemy so that the bombers can't bomb you because they would kill their own men. 

    In Operation Linebacker 2 which started on December 18,  1972 there were 3,000 sorties,  11 days,  and 40,000 tons of bombs to penetrate the most concentrated air   defense of the Vietnam War.  Nixon gave control over to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Thomas Moorer on December 14, 1972.  Nixon gave him orders "to win this war."  Because of that order Operation Linebacker 2 was.  The mission was an eleven day process.
    Before the mission ended 26 US airplanes were shot down by the North Vietnam's sa-2 Guideline SAM missiles.  Fifteen of the airplanes shot down were B-52 stratofortresses.  Thirty-one of the B-52 crewmen were captured and held as Prisoners of war or a (POW).  At the end of the 93 men were listed as Missing in Action or (MIA).  Today all but nine of those men have been returned home.                                

         

Matt Wehrli

8 American History

Rossville Jr. High

Post-World War Two America Project

May 2002

 

Bibliography