SHEBOYGAN, Wis. (WHBL) -- The Aviation Heritage Center of Wisconsin got a very special gift on Memorial Day. It's a pilot's log book from a Khmu pilot who flew as part of the Secret War in Laos during the Vietnam War.
Executive director Jon Helminiak says the logbook from Bounchahn Sayavong represents an important piece of history. "They were not native English speaking people, and many of them had never driven anything larger than a motorcycle, and they all went on without exception to be exceptional combat pilots in an sophisticated and high powered military aircraft." Those pilots were brought to Thailand to train to fly aircraft in order to help support the Americans as they fought against the Communist Vietnamese.
Helminiak says finding one of these books is very rare. "They were fighting for their homeland, and when the war ended most of them just got out with the clothes on their back, and keeping records of logs and time flown was not nearly as important to the Khmu and the Hmong. So to actually have a check list and a flight log from one of the pilots who was not American is very unique." He adds that the museum's collection on the Secret War is there to ensure that Americans never forget the consequences of war. "When you see a Hmong person in Wisconsin and Sheboygan, please remember that they did not come here willingly. It's a tragic story how their people, more than 40 years ago, were forcibly removed from their homeland by the Communist Vietnamese and the Pathet Lao, which were the Communist Lao."
That book will be going on display in the museum at the Sheboygan Memorial Airport as part of their exhibition on the Secret War once historians have a chance to catalog the information inside.