The Management Board of Hoa Lo Prison historical relic site in Hanoi on August 15 received valuable remembrances from the family of Water Eugene Wilber, a US pilot who was detained in the prison from 1968 to 1973. 

The remembrances include letters Wilber sent from Vietnam to his wife and son, a cassette recording an interview of him, newspapers with stories of Wilber, together with wrapping papers of presents that his son, Thomas Eugene Wilber, sent to him. 

The veteran’s son, Thomas Eugene Wilber said he and his mother decided to present the remembrances which they have collected and kept for decades to the relic site to convey his father’s message of thankfulness to the Government of Vietnam for humanitarian policies given to US prisoners kept in Hoa Lo prison during the war. 

Representatives from Management Board of the relic site thanked the Wilber for the present, expressing hope that individuals and organisations in and outside Vietnam will provide more information, documents and items for exhibition at the site. 

On the occasion, writer Colonel Dang Vuong Hung also gifted Thomas Wilber with a book entitled “US Pilots in Vietnam ” which includes a story on the US war veteran. 

Walter Eugene Wilber’s plane was shot down in the central province of Nghe An on June 16, 1968 and he was arrested and detained in Hoa Lo prison in Hanoi for five years. On February 12, 1973, he was handed over to the US Government in line with the Paris Agreement. 

Hoa Lo prison was built in Hanoi by the French colonialists in 1986 to keep Vietnamese political prisoners and revolutionists. It was used to detain US pilots by the Vietnamese Government in the 1964-1973 period. The relic site receives more than 100,000 visitors each year, 70 percent of whom are foreigners.

VNA