The Vietnam Tunnel Rats are the men who served in the Engineer Field Troops in Vietnam (3 Field Troop and 1, 2 and 3 Troop of 1 Field Squadron, Royal Australian Engineers). 

We believe our total number is somewhere around 700. For the bulk of the war there were three Troops, each of around 40 men, a total of 120 Tunnel Rats in Vietnam per year, for  around five years, making 600, plus the first year when 3 Field Troop alone was there, with about 70 men.

Over the years there have been many “wannabes” and pretenders to the title “Tunnel Rat”, but it is only the men who served in those Field Troops who can carry that title. These are the men who went bush with the Amoured Corp and Infantry, staying out bush for four to six weeks, operating as Infanteers plus carrying out our specialist duties of mine and booby trap detection and clearing, tunnel and bunker searching and demolition, plus bomb disposal.

Apart from those few “lucky enough” to come across extensive enemy tunnel complexes, every member of the Field Troops would have gone underground to search, clear and destroy enemy bunker systems (often with bunkers inter-connected by small tunnels). It was not unusual to blow up over 100 enemy bunkers in a single operation.

The former members of the Engineer Field Troops are proud of their role in Vietnam and protective of the title “Tunnel Rat”, not only for themselves but also for their comrades who were killed or wounded in action.

Our newsletter “Holdfast” has generated an exceptional amount of positive response and has reminded many of us of exactly what we did in Vietnam and how extraordinary that was. This in turn has restored the pride we deserve to have in the job we carried out all those years ago. There are links on this website to all copies of our newsletter “Holdfast”.