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Vietnam to Build Memorial to North Korean War Dead Outside Hanoi

The memorial will be built at an existing ⁠cemetery that commemorates 14 North Korean fighter pilots shot down while battling the U.S. Air Force in the late 1960s.

The Revolutionary Martyr’s Cemetery outside Pyongyang, North Korea.

Vietnam’s government plans to build a memorial to the North Korean soldiers who perished during the Vietnam War, state media announced this week, casting a rare light on the country’s role in the conflict.

According to a Reuters report that cited Quan Doi Nhan Dan, a newspaper published by the Ministry of Defense, the memorial project was discussed at a meeting chaired by Deputy Defense Minister Nguyen Truong Thang ​in Hanoi on Monday. Also in attendance was North Korean ​Ambassador Ri Sung Guk.

“The ⁠Party, State, people, and People’s Army of Vietnam always cherish and remember the effective assistance of North Korea and the sacrifices of North Korean martyrs in its struggle ​for national independence ​in the ⁠past,” Quan Doi Nhan Dan quoted Thang as saying, according to the news agency.

The memorial will be built at an existing ⁠cemetery for North Korean ​“martyrs” in the northern province of Bac Ninh outside Hanoi, the report said. The cemetery contains headstones commemorating 14 North Korean pilots, including two officers, who were sent to support the North Vietnamese air force during its war against the U.S.-backed South Vietnam in the 1960s. The headstones face northeast, in the direction of Korea. The cemetery is also set to be refurbished under the Defense Ministry’s plans.

The downed pilots were part of a group of around 100 that North Korea dispatched to North Vietnam to train their Vietnamese counterparts in the mid-1960s. One Vietnamese veteran told VnExpress in 2019 that the pilots were then invited to “fight alongside Vietnamese soldiers.”

They flew Soviet-made MiG-17 jets in combat missions ​against U.S. aircraft during the late 1960s, and the 14 North Korean pilots were killed between September 1965 and early 1968, according to a state media report.

The airmen were among the estimated 1,000 North Koreans who were secretly sent to North Vietnam between 1966 and 1971. They included mechanics, support personnel, psyops specialists, and engineers.

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