Korea Encounters Vietnam War refugees arrive in Korea in 1975
The front page of The Korea Times on May 24, 1975, shows Vietnamese refugees arriving in Busan. / Korea Times ArchiveBy Matt VanVolkenburg“When we were homeless,” Pham Thudung wrote in The Korea Times on July 2, 1975, “the Korean Red Cross gave us a home. I remember the first time I came to this room. There were many blankets, pillows, and a bag with papers, envelopes, soap, a comb… I cannot forget the kindness of the Red Cross women.”Pham was one of over 1,000 Vietnamese refugees who arrived in Korea in May 1975 after the fall of South Vietnam. South Korea, taking advantage of an American desire to broaden foreign participation in the Vietnam War, as well as U.S. guarantees of generous remuneration, sent over 300,000 South Korean soldiers and 16,000 civilian contractors to the war-torn country between 1965 and 1973. Though South Korean troops pulled out of Vietnam in March 1973, Korean naval craft returned two years later to evacuate South Koreans four days before Saigon fell to the North Vietnamese. On April 26, 1975, two Korean LSTs left Saigon with
Jul 25, 2018
