An official document disclosed in the United States confirms that North Korea dispatched dozens of pilots to fight in the Vietnam War.

This is according to an official People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN) historical publication. The Washington-based Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars studied the dossier and made it public on its Web site on Sunday local time.

The document reads that on September 21st, 1966, the then Vietnamese Communist Party's Central Military Committee reviewed and approved a North Korean proposal to send an Air Force unit to help defend North Vietnam against U.S air attacks.

General Vo Nguyen Giap, who chaired the committee meeting on the day, accepted North Korea's proposal to send the unit to Vietnam. The two sides also agreed to clearly determine the command structure of the Vietnamese and North Korean forces.

The six-point agreement signed between the two sides show that North Korea would begin sending the pilots to a Vietnamese MiG-17 squadron from late October through November in 1966 and the North would plan two more dispatches thereafter.