Braxton Taylor
Russia and Iran like to tout themselves as America’s largest and most determined enemies, but everyone in the international community knows few geopolitical beefs run deeper than the United States and North Korea. Technically, the two countries are still at war, despite a 70-plus-year-old armistice that North Korea has publicly revoked at least six times since 1994. Even today, with a potential thaw in tensions under President Donald Trump’s second term, North Korea will likely continue to use the U.S. as a bogeyman in both domestic and foreign policy.
Yet, just like how Russian Spetsnaz have fought alongside U.S. Special Forces in Kosovo in 2001 and Iran joined the U.S. in the fight against ISIS in 2014, North Koreans have fought on the same side as Americans — albeit on a much, much smaller scale.
After a North Korean ship was captured by Somali pirates on the Horn of Africa in 2007, it was American sailors who answered their distress call. The combination was enough to retake the ship and get its sailors back in control. The action at sea even earned the United States a rare mention of praise from North Korean state media: “We feel grateful to the United States for its assistance given to our crewmen.”
Relations between North Korea and the United States since the end of the Korean War in 1953 have been tense at best. At worst, they devolved into ax murders in the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea. But nothing brings two countries together like a common enemy — and under the right circumstances, anything is possible.
The right circumstances came on Oct. 29, 2007, when the North Korean freighter Dai Hong Dan left the port of Mogadishu after delivering a cargo of sugar from India. Seven of the same Somali workers who were responsible for the ship and its cargo while in port passed themselves off as guards to gain access to the ship via skiffs. They detained the crew of 22 at gunpoint, directed the ship to the open sea and demanded a ransom of $15,000.
Piracy was big business in Somalia in 2007. In that year alone, pirates attacked 19 commercial ships and successfully ransomed 12 of them. With foreign vessels illegally overfishing in Somali waters and what little government the country had powerless to do anything about it, many Somalis turned to piracy to make a lucrative living. Capturing the Dai Hong Dan had the potential to be a big payday.
It turns out that attacking North Korean merchant vessels is a bad idea. Before they were forced into the steering and engine rooms, the North Korean crew managed to send out a distress signal, one eventually picked up by the Piracy Reporting Centre of the International Maritime Bureau. The call was answered by the U.S. Navy, specifically the Arleigh Burke-class destroyer USS James E. Williams, which was the closest vessel in the area.
While the United States isn’t specifically required to help North Korea, an important part of the U.S. Navy’s ongoing mission is keeping waterways safe and open to global commerce and asserting the freedom of navigation. Basically, it didn’t matter what country the merchant was from; the United States would respond. The destroyer altered its course to intercept and dispatched a SH-60B Seahawk helicopter to confirm the capture of the Dai Hong Dan.
When the James E. Williams arrived on the scene, it radioed the pirates at the helm of the merchant vessel and ordered them to surrender. The presence of the destroyer and its Seahawk helicopter distracted the pirates just enough to give the North Koreans a window to attack their captors.
“Most of [the] North Korean seafarers of international trade or cargo ships have at least 10 years of military service,” a North Korean defector told the Daily NK in 2007. “They also receive martial arts training to prepare themselves for a time of emergency. Therefore, it is not that difficult for the crewmen to defeat the pirates.”
The 22 crew members overpowered their guards in the engine and steering rooms before making their way to storm the bridge with the weapons they acquired from their former captors. After a long gunfight, two pirates lay dead, with three others wounded. Six of the North Korean crew were also wounded, but the crew had retaken control of their vessel.
The James E. Williams dispatched a Visit, Board, Search and Seizure Team to the Dai Hong Dan and, with the permission of the crew, boarded the ship and attended to the wounded. The North Koreans were even taken aboard the destroyer for more critical medical care before being returned. The pirates were detained and their skiffs destroyed.
When word of the successful operation reached Pyongyong, the North Korean government released a statement via its state media, KCNA: “This case serves as a symbol of the DPRK-U.S. cooperation in the struggle against terrorism. We will continue to render international cooperation in the fight against terrorism, in the future, too.”
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