What Happened To The Unexploded Bombs Of The Vietnam War? | Bomb Harvest | War Stories
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 1 เม.ย. 2023
- During the Vietnam War, the U.S. dropped more than 2.5M tons of ordnance on Laos during - equal to a planeload of bombs every eight minutes, 24 hours a day, for nine years - making Laos the most heavily bombed country per capita in history. Australian bomb disposal specialist Laith Stevens has to train a new young "big bomb" team to deal with bombs left from the US "Secret War", but meanwhile, the local children are out hunting for bomb scrap metal. Vividly depicting the consequences of war with the incredible bravery of those trying to clear up the mess.
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That guy should be Australian of the year. Much respect Mate.
Australia has to taste a little of Communism, so that guys like him stop thinking that considering Communism evil was a mistake.
nah friendlyjordies gets that award
@@kingjoe3rd really,how's that.which Jordie are you talking about and what was there great gift to Australia
@@matthewcullen1298he’s actually done more than most tbh, but I’m not sure what if anything he has done for Laos. I’ve seen him and his team report on ordinances in Papua and it’s terrifying to put yourself in the shoes of a local. As for Aussie of the year? I’m sorry but FriendlyJordies won’t get my vote.
I’m a Central Coast NSW bloke myself (where Laith is from) so it does me proud to have that connection to such a selfless legend.
Cheers 🍻🍻🍻🇦🇺
Laith Stevens and all those people who work with him - are the type of people I adore.
I was watching a Vietnam war video and a girl living in Vietnam commented on it. She claimed to have spent much her life in a rural village. Near the village was a hill with a clearing at the base of it, the villagers would say to stay away from the clearing because it was the sight of a military encampment during the war and they buried many bombs there when the war ended. Apparently the area was hit with a pretty bad rainstorm that went on for a few days and caused a landslide on the hill. When the landslide hit the clearing at the base of the hill it somehow detonated bombs and caused a very large explosion that blew out the windows of homes in the village. The hill was far enough away that the explosion didnt kill anyone, but in the coming weeks people started getting very sick and started dying, causing everyone to abandon the village. She believes there were chemical weapons in the explosion that caused the sickness and death. Villagers closest to the blast site got it worse, and she happened to be on the other side of the village. Apparently the explosion happened in the late 1990's, but she said it didn't seem to be documented very well, if at all.
"the sight of a military encampment", "closest to the blast site"
You got one right.
Many do not realize that during WW2, The Germans were in many countries. They used mustard Gas on villages and yes, they are still digging up bombs from that war. Chemical gas such as mustard gas and nerve agents were not used but phosphorous, napalm, defoliants were and those alone could make people sick or given enough exposure, die. War sucks... yes, I am a combat vet and that is why war should be the absolute last resort.... unfortunately, sometimes necessary.
@@edreynolds8721 Probablt?
Being a dad and seeing those children play with that part of a clusterbomb gave me a half a heart attack.
im not a farther and it did the same thing.... you have some extra emotional comprehension that others dont??
You'd think the US would send their own bomb disposal experts in there to clean this up
That Pathetic Backwoods Country is only out to Destroy including itself.
Billions in aid sent to Ukraine and yet the American government and military can just wash their hands of their responsibility to clean up the mess they left behind in Laos?
How is it that the deaths of those civilians, killed by ordnance dropped by men doing their duty isn't considered important? enough enough
And without a doubt there will be UXO to be ignored for years in Ukraine as well.
Blame the Communists, not the Americans. If Communism is such a workers paradise, why doesn't the ruling-class Commie scum in Laos clean up the bombs for their citizens ????
Checkout the Palomares incident Spain, 1961 they are still cleaning up.4 atomic bombs due to a mid air collision
@@tundranomad Yes but the vast majority of munitions used in Ukraine are of Russian or Soviet origin. The Russians love to use alot of cluster munitions, artillery and banned AP mines many are so old and unreliable they should have been disposed of decades ago.
In the Ukrainian case only a small minority of unexploded munitions will be of American or western origin simply because they are more reliable. Many modern western munitions have counter measures built in to self destruct within hours of their use. Many countries have banned the use of cluster munitions altogether because of their high failure rate and lack of a self destruct mode leaving them dormant for decades until someone unwittingly disturbs it with fatal consequences.
And now the US sends cluster munitions.
The U.S. scattered bombs like seeds. Ignoring the legitimacy of what they did, surely they should acknowledge the costs of the clean up??
As if America would ever take responsibility for any thing it has done
Money made on bomb sales then probably dictated policy as most decisions in the US seem to by made today still! Can't help feeling embarrassed for the country.
Does'nt make money
theyre broke,from doing the same in ukraine .ought to be a law that prevents USA leaving their own country
@@peterrobbins2862 You can always compare to Russia if you need a yardstick.
Henry Kissinger has left the chat..
@@eyeveealfa5606 Kissinger has just celebrated his 100th birthday.
@@eyeveealfa5606 Haiphong? If you look at a map Haiphong is in the extreme northeast of the country (Ha Long Bay) whereas the Ho Chi Mình Trail was on the western border with Laos.
Good comment. Very good.
Maybe he went to polish his Nobel prize
It kind of broke my heart when that little girl said ," look at all that metal " . They should give the kids a finder's fee for finding the bombs . They would cut down on the ones being sold to scrap dealers .
Why would you allow children near bombs? Children are to be protected, not put in harms way.
@mandabean.2405 I see your point. But this is Laos.
A finder's fee model would definitely be ' harm reduction ' for the children rather than digging it out themselves
A finder's fee programme would be a good use of funding for some NGO
@@sharonrigs7999 yeah the children try to dig the bombs up for scrap . If they were given a finder's fee they could make money when they find a bomb and go tell authorities instead of trying to dig it out to sell for scrap metal . It would keep the kids safer .
Germany Pay good idea.
Its not just the bombs. Its the chemicals (experimental) that were used that still today are killing many people. My country wants to be friends with Vietnam. Clean up your mess America.
My dad was head commander of the Iowa Army Munition Plant. He just donated money to EOD without borders. They sent him pictures of the bombs to get his opinion. One was a cluster bomb that he manufactured, daye code, lot number everything. Somehow a cluster bomb he made in the mid 90s in Iowa made its way to russia where it was dropped on Ukraine and defused by an American volunteer. Crazy.
The US should pay for the clearing of these things.
I pay my respect for all the bomb disposal team. Their humanitarian task is priceless...THANKS . Greetings from Mexico City.
Shout out to the EOD guy in the documentary.. he really is a unit of a man.. professional , gentle and kind.
Ide rather buy him a drink thank Brad Pitt any day.
A man of integrity and courage
Brad pitt..
🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🌏🌏🌏
The American military should be obliged to send in ordinance disposal units and clear Laos from border to border after illegally dropping that much ordinance on it.
Won't ever happen, sadly. Criminally.
By that logic the French and Chinese should come and help too? What about the South Vietnamese as well?
@@CAL1MBO Good idea
Touching and informative documentary. Kind and brave man and all those he helps and inspires. This troubled world is a better place with you in it. Thankyou for the risks that you take for ordinary people!
Beautifully said mate. You could hear the emotions and passion in his voice. We need to aspire to his level of compassion for others. The world has lost its morality for many.
It's funny how it's Australian and British people training them to clear up the American mess that's left behind !
That's quite a touching documentary in many ways.
Excellent upload 👍
If anyone who works in bomb disposal sees this I just want to say thank you to all of you no matter where you are from or at 🙂 it's truly important work.
Agreed...
Once while working on the basement of my house, I was cutting out paneling over the concrete and hit metal with my Sawzaw. I had inadvertently discovered the hiding place for a sawed off double barrel shotgun and two fruit cake tins full of unstable 40+ year old shotgun shells. It was easy to dispose of he sawed shotgun, as five minute with a sledge hammer in my vice and it was "scrap metal", but it took me three attempts to find out our Police how to deal with the shotgun shells. The Officer who finally helped me was a former ordinance disposal technician...
It should be law that whoever dropped the ordinance, clears it up. ALL of them!
shows the insanity of war
It shows who suffers the most from war. Civilians just trying to earn a living and children in particular
As a former B-52 pilot, post Vietnam, it's sobering to watch this documentary.
share it with your (former) colleagues and ask them to share it too.
hopefully the "thank you for your service" madness will stop brainwashing the people in the US.
the countries attacked by the US never attacked the US.
this clip shows the disaster and pain the US causes around the world.
It is sobering to know that we had guy's like Nixon and Johnson insisting on dropping bombs by the thousands.
Those people never thought about the consequences. Idiots.
Given the situation of massive bombing of the type of country and the current society, this problem will never go away.
Thank you the very informative documentary, if only as much money and effort was put into solving the problem as there was causing it.
"They don't belong to us.
We want them to take them back ".😢
So sad, I feel sick that the Laotian people have to live with a 50 year old on going tragedy, as an American citizen I thank you and everyone involved in this important work. Please stay safe!
That is a genuinely kind comment Mate 😊it's a very sad situation.
extremely brave bunch of guys, should get rewarded for what they do.
i dont know how many of you guys have had to work on old rusty junk, imagine if it also went boom...would you want to work on it? simply brave
I know it’s not Vietnam but this story is bomb related. When I was in High school we had a holocaust survivor come in and talk about his experience in Warsaw in Poland. Well dude had no fingers. Someone asked if the Nazis cut them off and he responded with no and told us after the war a very macho thing for the young guys to do was to defuse bombs and munitions since they literally had piles all over the place and he blew them off trying to disarm a mortar I believe. He became a painter later in life and had some of the most amazing dark abstract paintings I had ever seen. I wish I could remember his name.
Was this in NZ
I mean meeting the holocaust survivor
were they finger paintings
His name was finger licken good.
@@chadneuendorf9431 🤣😂🤣😂
When I was in military school in 1978 in northern Laos three of my school mates try to disassemble a bomb all they have left was small pieces of meat stuck on the tree leaves.
No wonder blokes get PTSD. That's horrendous. Hope you're ok mate.
Thankyou for training these lovely people to look after the problem caused by these horrendous bombs. 🇦🇺👏👏👏👏
Huge respect to the Aussie and everyone working to help clear up this horrific mess in Laos. I hope the American Government are at least giving some funding support to them but I doubt it. Reminds me of another documentary I watched recently about the thousands of ships sunk during WWII. They will eventually rust away completely and release millions of tons of fuel oil into the oceans.
It depends because the US didn't sink the majority of ships in WW2, the Germans did. German U-boats sank around 3500 ships in the Atlantic and American submarines sank about 1300 ships in the Pacific. Then you have the ships that were sunk in the open battles, which are kind of a small number compared to U-boat/submarine victims.
Such brave people, well done to you all
The US military need to get into Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam and clear their mess up!
Sure, ok......when the communist citizens of those areas compensate America for our 60k dead, we'll go in and clean up the mess.....
No not likely
And the British, Dutch, French, Chinese, Russians, etc.
and north vietnam too
Great documentary
Thank you Laith .😊
Brave Men. What a crazy scary thing to have to live with.
A very well done doc. It's great with things i never know about.
What a good man that Mr. Laith is
Very well done .... Respect.
Keep doing the good work guys! Make Laos a bit safer.
Incredible stuff, good man and good men
You guys are HEROES thanks ❤️❤️❤️
VERY NICE DOCUMENTARY !!!!!!!!
I heard a horror story about someone sawing a dud for the TNT to make fireworks and recycling the metal. He ended up blowing a large area of the neighborhood.
Me with a stick: "C´mon, do something."
❤ God bless you we need more people like you more people that care in the world
American politicians have a lot to answer for.
So do the kommies.
@@garypiont6114 why
@@johnfrancis2215 the USA is not responsible for all the war items, many other countries were involved going back to 1800s, the chicom&Warsaw pact had a impact..
It was the commies that went into Laos to circumvent the dmz and attack south vietnam
the supply line was from north vietnam through neutral laos , so north vietnam has alot to answer then too
Why is USA not there clearing out every bomb until the last 😢
I was deployed to a tiny outpost in Jan. 1970 as a recon pilot in mid Laos (Army Bird-dog pilot). Never saw combat but I surely saw large areas of moonscape.
Was that a L4 grasshopper?
@@daleslover2771 no, a Cessna
wow - an awesome docu - fantastic work the EOD operatives carry out - they are to be respected.
these are really really great hero,s each and anyone of them may they live long and have much luck in life
I have watched alot Vietnam war documentaries but this one was done exceptionally well from civilians hero's
Amazing document, I never knew these kinds of situations existed in these areas today. Grateful for the individuals who are finding these bombs and removing them before anyone else gets hurt, or worse. I was thinking however, that the children, or adults who find these bombs, should be compensated, in the amount that the metal from these bombs would bring them. I feel it would be a great motivation that if they find one of these bombs, they immediately let their parents know, and the people removing the bombs know. Also not to touch the bombs, just report them, and get paid that way.
Such an interesting documentary. As I was watching it made me think of my home town in the North of Ireland. I'm not going to bring politics into this, however, someone had to diffuse bombs and my respect has grown for them. In another note, what became of the students in this documentary, are they still doing their profession?
Just WOW.😢 No words. What an Angel 😇 he is.
Good on ya!
God bless you for saving lives
Thank you for your help and sacrifices to save lives. May the good karma follow you through out your journey.
Excellent video about deep province Lao folks, how children understand scrap metal money but not the UXO danger.
Nice guy 👍🏻
Four million tons =eight Billion pounds, divided by 500lbs, bombs =eight million bombs at 500lbs each. Thirty percent of the bombs dropped did not detonate, but remain live. That equals to 2,400,000 (two million four hundred thousand ) just waiting for the right opportunity to go off. That is definitely a problem!
Amazing people.
America we come in peace RUN.😡
They never once claimed to come in peace
No, they say "we from the government, we`re here to help" RUN VERY FAST!!
We Brits say the same
' Hey! Let's all crowd around the guy investigating the UXO! '
I am thankful for these people who help out. I live thai lao border and every week on news they find another bomb.
Very sad that America treated Laos, Vietnam & its people with such disregard.......great bloke in the video, thank you for your service.
It wasn't just the US, as Australia was also a combatant. And of course the North Vietnamese Forces and Vietcong used a lot of land mines, which are even more dangerous than unexplored ordinances...
@@davidhollenshead4892 well at least some Australians are taking on the huge task of clearing all this unexplored ordnance. And did the RAAF have anything to do with bombing Loas? If they did, then I'd expect to see UK based ordnance being used as the Aussie military at that time might well have been using UK ordnance and not American. After all the Queen was head of state. I know they had combat troops in Vietnam but did they partake in operations in Laotian territory?
so did north vietnam
@@tracya4087 The US was a foreign invader committing war crimes in Vietnam, what the North Vietnamese did was done to kick out their foreign attackers. Even then, the North Vietnamese didn't resort to such sick and vile weapons as Napalm and Agent Orange, only the US did.
Very sad that the Soviets treated Laos, Vietnam & it’s people with such disregard…
When he has finished in Vietnam in the next life, he can continue in the Ukraine in the life after that.
Really feel for the village people
Terrible band.
The bloody Yanks should take responsibility for the ongoing EOD work in Laos, and send many of their own EOD personnel to do a great deal of this work. Shame on them for not having done it already. To the EOD guys, both Aussie and Brit, you are doing wonderful work training the new generation of EOD personnel in Laos. Good on you!
When will the bloody British finish cleaning up the mess they left behind in France over 100 years ago?
The Brits were seen through WWII by US lend-lease and then US military action, over 100,000 lives lost just from D-Day onward, when they could have just focused it all on Japan...the country who actually attacked them, while insisting Britan and the commonwealth and free French fight the Germans and Italians themselves in the meantime. The Pacific would have ended much sooner without stretching resources and men globally. Bur FDR put the defeat of Germany as the priority, despite much of the US military command insisting on Japan as the priority. Cleaning up some bombs is the least they can do.
yanks would never clean it up, Yugoslavia Iraq Afghanistan all same.
only there is also deployed uranium used, so it's not only the explosion of uxo's but also the radiation that makes victims
So going with that theory….should Germany come over to the uk and defuse the bombs that they dropped over London and industrial cities ? Or should the brits go over to Germany to defuse the bombs they dropped….plenty still undetected and just waiting to be found 🤔
Yeah, the Brits do not have a shameful past.🤔
Not a rocket science question and not a rocket science answer. If they haven't been removed, they're still here.
Laos malt whisky is fabulous. 300 baht in Thailand clothes market.Vientiene is the cleanest town i have ever visited!!
Insanity praying b4 you bomb the jungle inhabitants
Wow iis the only comment i can muster. Thank gawd for people like these.
Vietnamese are only people in the world who playing , digging ,cutting the bomb without fear..salute to vietnamese.
The bombs and other ordnance is scary for sure the terrifying bit is all the potential VC traps still left out there. I’m gonna be honest I’d rather be exploded quickly than punjied slowly
The gift that keeps giving😂
No way that's not a body flying through the air 16:31😢
So sad 😪
The Australian guy is a TRUE HERO! Better looking than Brad pitt also, because you can see his a BOSS
France is still doing a annual iron harvest from ww1 too. 105 years after it ended its bombs still are lethal just like these so if it’s taking France 105+ years to clear bombs poor Laos could be at this for triple that when you consider more bombs dropped on it than ww1/ww2 combined
The title should be renamed to include Laos in the title 🇱🇦 mayb, Laos unexploded bomb lefted during the Vietnam war
Gday mate i am married to a thai i sat in a resteraunt across the mekong looking at laos and not realizing the horror that occured there during the vietnam era , when you look at the remnants of bombing 40 years ago it is tradgic . I to was a soldier in the infantry 2/4 bn and did basic demo training as a pioneer but nothing on the scale you and the others are doing ,it makes me sad to see those young children probably second generation after the conflict scrapping for the metal from these bombs to earn money , when you compare the two countries that the mekong divids there is a world of difference and the killing still goes on and will continue but your efforts may help save lives .
is there an time estimate about how long actually the bomb active untill it exploded or there is expiring
No
The USA should be brought to the international court!
I really enjoyed watching this documentary film... But wanted to know one thing what World War 2 Un exploded bombs in Europe, how they are destroyed when it is found ❤❤❤❤❤in the similar manner
I did a Google search on "Smithsonian magazine article bomb disposal germany" The result was an article "There Are Still Thousands of Tons of Unexploded Bombs in Germany, Left Over From World War II"
More than 70 years after being dropped in Europe, the ordnance is still inflicting harm and mayhem
YT sometimes deletes comments that contain URLs. I will post the URL in another comment. The above can lead you to the article.
This is the dude from "Caddyshack"....🤣 yes or YES!
America should clean up its mess
I wonder what's the effectiveness of hitting one broadside with a 50 cal API. Store dynamite long enough they become rather shocky. can't imagine the shock sensitivity to dull in UXO, if anything they've become way more sensitive
The US should really be doing this, it was their mess, they should have at least came over to help.
The US brings death and destruction to the world.
America needs to clear up the death mess they left here. America the gift that keeps on giving. Trouble
making and death are America's gift to the world.
You realise that there's bombs there from about five different conflicts yes?
They are also ignorant to the fact that it was the US, South Vietnam, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, Thailand, and the Philippines that were fighting during that conflict. Obviously France & Japan previously.
@@scrappydoo7887 Oh come on, the vast majority of the ordinance left in the field is of US origin. Only the US carried out extensive aerial bombing campaigns. The bombing of Laos was another war crime, along with Agent orange, and the subsequent US embargos of medical aid and refusal to discuss reparations are another sore point.
@@BridgesDontFly All those nations were there at the behest of , and often coerced by, the US, and had relatively small contingents deployed in the field.
@@rowbearly6128 I'm not saying that the vast majority of UXO/B aren't American but there are many more things that were not like the millions of mines there and various booby traps.
That said, the US bombs had a lower failure rate than the Chinese and Russian stuff used by the Khmer rouge and VC/NVA ect.
war never sleeps
Sad thing is the majority of bombs dropped did not hit the intended target, basically similar to spraying rounds, and rounds of bullets in hope that one will hit something.
angle bar/CR/RDX/copper to cover the explosive offset it about 5 inches and the shape charge withh cut anything and disarm mine and bombs upto 2000KG
Illegally bombing a neutral country is a war crime. Laith is working with few resources, this should be classified as a war crime and under international law he should be provided all the men and equipment he needs, by the country that dropped them.
Hush. Get a life
Illegally supporting an enemy nation and find out
The fact that30% failed to explode is shocking it was only 10 % in ww1 and Ww2 so much for American industrial reliability and quality
And it hasn’t improved either
It's because when you drop bombs on a dense jungle there is less chance anything will set them off. Plus Laos had no AAA so wwII bombers were dropping from way higher up
This guy doesn't seem to feel the old man's pain/point..
the USA should be contributing a lot more money to costs of putting this right. id be taking them to court for criminal action against the population of laos
How what I learnสาว
May god repay them for all
So Laos is in the same shape as the toilet at Taco Bell
Unless there's unexploded ordnance in the toilets at Taco Bell, no.
Seeing the Americans dropped the bombs shouldn't they be responsible for clearing them up!
kinda cute the kids want to sell the bombs to help their families :P
That was really well done.
I agree with the young lad who said “ who dropped the bombs should come and get them.”
And while their at it , take all the anti personnel mines as well. Of which there are millions.