Hanoi Hilton

English Etymology From en Hanoi Hilton. An alliterative construction, pairing the location en Hanoi (metonymically referring to en North Vietnam) with a word referring to lodgings. An ironic reference to the Hilton chain of luxury hotels. Proper noun 1 en US military slang historical euphemism en Hỏa Lò Prison in Vietnam, where prisoners of war were held and tortured. en Luba Vangelova From the Hanoi Hilton To the Hilton Hanoi The New York Times 1999-05-30 https://www.nytimes.com/1999/05/30/travel/travel-advisory-from-the-hanoi-hilton-to-the-hilton-hanoi.html 0362-4331 The Hilton Hanoi Opera hotel has opened, a few blocks from Hoa Lo, the infamous “Hanoi Hilton” where American prisoners were held during the Vietnam War. (The few remaining cells of that prison have been preserved as a museum.) https://web.archive.org/web/20170916200521/http://www.nytimes.com/1999/05/30/travel/travel-advisory-from-the-hanoi-hilton-to-the-hilton-hanoi.html 16 September 2017 Jeré Longman Robert L. Stirm, Returning P.O.W. in Pulitzer-Winning Photo, Dies at 92 2025-11-19 https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/19/obituaries/robert-stirm-dead.html Those thoughts sustained him after he was shot down and forced to eject from his F-105 Thunderchief during a bombing mission over North Vietnam on Oct. 27, 1967, and they continued to sustain him in prison camps, including the notorious “Hanoi Hilton,” where he was starved, tortured and subjected to mock executions. https://ghostarchive.org/archive/8EFVd 20 November 2025 en Nicknames for places Places in Hanoi en eponyms