Digging a Japanese Spider Hole (and sleeping in it!!!)

Japaneses Spider Hole Playlist: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwj3sDjjGtJqbGwt3fD5Agh…
Digging a Japanese Individual Fighting Position: https://youtu.be/moq1Nfo3Xrg

I have free time, and I decided to spend 47 minutes and 42 seconds of it watching guys dig a hole, and dreaming about digging my own hole.

The Vietnam tunnels were dug in hard clay too, and they made their tunnels with dome or triangular roofs so as to support the roof weight and save it if a tank or other vehicle drove over it

I spoke to a Vietnam vet who said that a lot of these spider holes existed in rubber plantations. The holes were dug to store water from heavy monsoon rains to keep the trees watered over the year. They would use these existing holes to attack.

Watchhed all 47 minutes and I have to agree that it is a glorious hole. I'm about to do an internet search to see if anybody else has made a hole of such glory. Great work.

Spider holes often weren’t just one hole, one of the greatest examples of this was on Iwo Jima where the Garrison defending the island dug miles of interconnected tunnels accords the whole length of the island. Even employing hidden doors so when a bunker was cleared by invading forces new troops could flood in and shoot them from behind. Often, a single hole housed an entire unit and cosisted of a kitchen, a sleeping quarters and at least two tunnels of escape. The Vietcong used this method of spider holes a lot in order to conceal their position and hide from the napalm and American forces.

You want to dig the entrance hole slightly deeper than the sleeping hole, with a slope into a sump hole going down and away as deep as you can get it. That way water that makes its way into the spider hole will flow down into the sump and away from your sleeping position. It would have also been used to catch grenades so that you are safe from the blast if a GI were to ever find your position.

The 2 biggest issues I see are the lack of a water sump (grenade sump too if you want to be legit), but far more importantly you need ventilation - if someone were to duplicate this and spend the night inside, a thin layer of snow would seal the hatch and you'd be staring down potential suffocation very quickly

It’s kinda nice how one-on-one the conversation feels when it switches to just him in the hole. Almost as if your in it with him.

I knew a guy whose grandfather was in Vietnam and was a tunnel rat, He said the roots were incredible, could not believe that they could dig through that many roots... Makes sense being a rainforest/jungle

No thank you! I’ve dug my share of foxholes and fighting positions over my career but digging down and across underground other than for a grenade sump freaks me out. It only take having a position collapse on you ONCE and you’ll never do it again, or at least I didn’t… I had my position so well camouflaged that I had a tracked vehicle roll up and park over me for a minute, then as it locked a lateral taking off it almost got stuck tipping deep and sinking in burying me to my teeth! Glad I used a lot of logs!
Fun watching you do it though, even though I was in knots lol!

Don't know where your hole is or if someone has already mentioned this but the gravel you ran into is rounded, which indicates it was part of a water course of some type. If you are in or close to a gold-bearing region you should test pan the lowest part of your excavated gravel. You might be surprised at what you could find.

When I was young my brother and I dug a tunnel in our back yard in Massachusetts. We watched the great escape and wanted a tunnel with tracks, we had a lot of old pallets to take apart to use to shore up the tunnel. We hit clay at 4' and dug down to 12' then we dug a horizontal tunnel with wooden tracks to move the dirt out. We build a wooden fort over it, and had a pop out spot 20' way. I bet that tunnel is still there today, probably not safe, but we lived on 3 acres of land and our old family house is still standing even though we don't own the land anymore.

Was in the US Army, can confirm. Loved digging holes/trenches when bored, some time a few shovels and a couple bundles of 550 cord and you can make yourself an improvised pillbox.

If you guys want to get through the gravel layer the fastest, I recommend upgrading to the diamond shovel.

The masculine urge to dig a hole

I have dug a bunch of holes. I don’t think many people understand the amount of work this was. This was not an easy few days.

You may want to have some spreader to hold the sides from coming into the tunnel, and keeping the beam up. Also, you want to have dirt backfilling on top of the beam, so the earth has something to lean on, so it wont collapse on it. Just nail two planks to the horizontal beams on both sides.

Those are "hexamine tablets", you can make RDX explosives if you nitrate those, and you can make a primary explosive (HMTD) if you make a peroxide with it. Its best not to use fire underground unless you have got a ventilation pipe going down there, and preferably two.

Greetings,


Jeff

The side cribbing isn't safe that way. If the dirt, clay slumps, it could push the side away and trap you or then allow the top to come down. On ur next one, notch the uprights so dirt can't push side to side or top down.

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