Posted on 12/04/2011 5:58:35 PM PST by TigerLikesRooster
N. Korea's participation in Vietnam War specified in new dossier
By Lee Chi-dong
WASHINGTON, Dec. 4 (Yonhap) -- North Korea dispatched dozens of pilots to the Vietnam War decades ago, with its communist ally short of specialists to operate MiG-17 and MiG-21 fighter jets in battles against the United States, according to a recently released dossier.
"On 21 September 1966 an official North Korean request to be allowed to send a North Korean Air Force regiment to help defend North Vietnam against U.S air attacks was officially reviewed and approved by the Vietnamese Communist Party's Central Military Party Committee, chaired by General Vo Nguyen Giap," read the documents taken from an official People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN) historical publication.
North Korea's Chief of the General Staff, Choi Kwang, and his Northern Vietnamese counterpart, Van Tien Dung, held talks three days later to detail Pyongyang's role in the war.
The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, a think tank in Washington, studied the dossier and made it public on its Web site as part of North Korea International Documentation Project.
In 2000, 25 years after the end of the Vietnam War, North Korea and Vietnam admitted for the first time that North Korea had provided military support in combat against U.S. aircraft.
North Vietnam sought North Korean pilots' help in training and combat apparently to take advantage of their experience in shooting down U.S. fighter jets during the 1950-53 Korean War.
The newly unveiled dossier show details of North Korea's military support.
"In late October or during November 1966 North Korea would send Vietnam enough specialists to man a Vietnamese MiG-17 company (a company consisted of ten aircraft)," the two sides agreed in the Sept. 21 1966 talks, adding North Korea would send more specialists to man a second Vietnamese MiG-17 company in later 1966 or early 1967.
"During 1967, after North Korea finished preparing specialists and after Vietnam was able to prepare sufficient aircraft, North Korea would send to Vietnam sufficient specialists to man one Vietnamese MiG-21 company," they also agreed.
According to a Korean news article on the subject ( http://kr.news.yahoo.com/service/news/shellview.htm?linkid=57&articleid=2011120504561036701&newssetid=57 ), a retired N. Vietnamese general is said to have claimed that N. Koreans downed 26 American warplanes.
Fascinating. Thanks.
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So we were fighting the whole Communist empire. Who didn’t know that?
About the 26 Nork kills: Commies never lie, right?
Ping.
Just like the Russian pilots who flew in the Korean war.
NKIDP e-Dossier No. 2: North Korean Pilots in the Skies over Vietnam
North Korean Pilots in North Vietnam in 1968. Image source Tuổi Trẻ Cuối tuần, http://tuoitre.vn Introduction
[Click to Download the e-Dossier as a PDF]
In 2000, twenty-five years after the Vietnam War ended, both North Korea and Vietnam admitted for the first time that, as had long been rumored but never before officially confirmed, North Korean pilots had flown in combat against U.S. aircraft over North Vietnam during the Vietnam War. No further details of North Korea’s involvement were provided, however, and subsequently very little information has been provided. An official Vietnamese military history published in 2001 contained only the following general statement: “Under the terms of an agreement between Korea and Vietnam, in 1967 a number of pilots from the Korean People’s Liberation Army were sent to Vietnam to provide us training and the benefit of their experience and to participate in combat operations alongside the pilots of the People’s Army of Vietnam. On a number of flights Korean pilots scored victories by shooting down American aircraft.”[1] Vietnamese military histories usually refer only to an unidentified regimental-sized flying unit called “Group Z” [Doan Z]. Except in a few isolated instances, these histories provide no information about the exact size, composition, or activities of the mysterious “Group Z,” except that it was based at Kep Airfield northeast of Hanoi from early 1967 through 1968. An article published in a Vietnamese newspaper in August 2007 reported that in 2002 the bodies of the 14 North Korean Air Force personnel killed during the Vietnam War had been buried in a cemetery in Vietnam’s Bac Giang Province and had been disinterred and repatriated to North Korea. In a letter to the newspaper to correct several mistakes made in the original article, a retired North Vietnamese major general who had worked with the North Koreans revealed that a total of 87 North Korean Air Force personnel had served in North Vietnam between 1967 and early 1969, during which time the North Koreans had lost 14 men and had claimed to have shot down 26 American aircraft.[2]
I honestly believe that the South Vietnamese, who the Rats betrayed utterly, are more grateful to the Americans today than the South Koreans whom the Americans saved and shelter to this very day.
current S. Koreans in their 30's and 40's
Different era, but the same mentality.
They think they owned justice and conscience all by themselves. They both see their elders corrupt and backward, while their juniors clueless and materialistic. They are only pillars of their society. Anybody who disagree with them is a scum to be excommunicated.
Silver lining: S. Korean counterparts do not have some 40 years to screw up the country through and through. The world will go to hell basket soon, and they cannot push their own petty liberal agenda when there is no longer affluence. So there is some chance that the rot can be stopped before it becomes irreversible.
North Korea dispatched dozens of pilots to the Vietnam War decades ago, with its communist ally short of specialists to operate MiG-17 and MiG-21 fighter jets in battles against the United States...
Since the ROKs supplied the Tiger and White Horse Divisions in Chu Lai, I’m sure they damaged the efforts of the VC and NVA in quite a substantial way.
Why would it surprise anyone?
Look at the Chinese hordes and Soviet air wings that took part in the war against the UN-US-NK forces.
It’s what commies do.
I am sure they did. I heard once that the reason N. Korea had been keen on sending their troops or military advisers to many third world conflict zone (in small numbers, though,) is that they feared their troops would lack real combat experience which SK troops were getting in Vietnam. On the order of tens of thousands of troops.
My cousin was in Chu Lai and the GIs and Marines shared a bar with the ROKs. He saw a ROK from the Tiger get into it with a Marine over a Bgirl. The guy hit the Marine 3 times and the Marine stopped breathing. The ROK’s CO came storming in. They took the ROK out and the MPs told my cousin that the ROK officer put one round in the back of the guy’s head.Very tough hombres.
Thanks for this. It does not surprise me. They were all over Sihanouk’s “neutral” Cambodia, too. Bastards.
What happens when the North invades the south? Will Obama come and save them? I think not. Will Japan? I don’t think so. A few years in a soviet style state might change some of their smug minds.
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