North Korean pilots were not deployed to Egypt during the 1973 Yom Kippur War

CLAIM:

North Korean pilots were not deployed to Egypt during the 1973 Yom Kippur War.

STATUS:

False.

KEY COUNTERPOINTS:

Multiple independent sources place North Korean pilots in Egypt before and during the war. Miyamoto and Ikeuchi state that North Korean pilots began arriving in Egypt in early June 1973 and that the squadron was formed in July. Bermudez separately writes that Egypt requested direct military assistance and that North Korea responded by sending a squadron of KPAF pilots.
The real uncertainty is the exact size of the deployment, not whether a deployment happened. Miyamoto and Ikeuchi note that Shazly’s material gives a discrepancy of 30 pilots in one version and 20 in the English version, but both versions still describe a North Korean squadron sent to Egypt.
Later corroboration exists beyond Shazly’s memoir. The same study cites Boutros Boutros-Ghali recalling that during the 1973 war, Kim Il Sung sent Egypt a squadron of MiG aircraft with North Korean pilots who patrolled Egyptian airspace throughout the war.

EVIDENCE:

• Shazly asked North Korea for one squadron of air force pilots, and Miyamoto and Ikeuchi report that the pilots began arriving in early June 1973 and that the squadron was completed in July.

• Miyamoto and Ikeuchi report that the force described by Shazly consisted of 30 pilots in one version of the memoir and 20 in the English version, plus controllers, interpreters, and support staff. That is a dispute over numbers, not over existence.

• Israeli reporting detected the presence of North Korean pilots in Egypt in August 1973, after which North Korea publicly denied the allegation. A covert deployment followed by public denial is far more consistent with concealment than with the claim that no deployment occurred.

• Bermudez states directly that Egypt requested military help in March 1973 and that North Korea responded by sending a squadron of KPAF pilots to Egypt before the October war.

• Boutros Boutros-Ghali later wrote that North Korean-piloted MiGs patrolled Egyptian airspace throughout the war. That independently reinforces the core point that North Korean pilots were in fact deployed to Egypt.

PRIMARY SOURCES:

• Satoru Miyamoto and Satoshi Ikeuchi, “North Korea and the October War: Relations with Egypt and Syria,” ROLES Review Vol. 5, journal pp. 40-45 and 56-58, parsed PDF pp. 5-10 and 21-23.
ROLES article link

“During the 1973 October War between Egypt and Israel, Kim Il Sung had sent to Egypt a squadron of MiG fighter aircraft with North Korean

↑↑↑ Best source!

• Satoru Miyamoto, “North Korea’s Military Cooperation Policy Toward Iran and other Middle East Countries,” article pp. 6-7, parsed PDF pp. 6-7.
Military cooperation article link
States that North Korea dispatched air force units to Egypt and Syria in 1973, that those troops fought Israeli troops in the Yom Kippur War, that the Egyptian deployment arrived in early June and was assigned in July, and that the unit consisted of 30 pilots plus controllers, interpreters, commanders, a doctor, and a cook. It also says North Korea continued military support to Middle Eastern states in conflict with Israel after the war.

STRONGEST COUNTER ARGUMENTS WORTH KNOWING:

• Some details remain contested, especially the exact squadron size and the degree of official Egyptian acknowledgment.

• Much of the reconstruction depends on memoir material and later synthesis rather than a fully declassified Egyptian operational archive. That weakens precision on numbers and missions, but it does not erase the deployment itself.

• The strongest skeptical position is not that no North Korean pilots were sent, but that some later claims about specific dogfights, kills, or operational impact may be overstated. That is a different claim.

NOTES:

Keep this note narrow.

This claim is about deployment to Egypt. The evidence for that is strong.

Do not overclaim from this note alone that every later story about air-to-air combat, kill counts, or operational effect is fully proven. Those belong in the next claim.

Best one-line rebuttal:

“Multiple sources, including Shazly-based research, Bermudez, and Boutros-Ghali, indicate that North Korean pilots were deployed to Egypt before and during the 1973 war; the dispute is over details, not over whether the deployment happened.”

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