Chengdu Fenghuangshan Airport () is military air base in

Chengdu Chengdu (, ; Simplified Chinese characters, simplified Chinese: 成都; pinyin: ''Chéngdū''; Sichuanese dialects, Sichuanese pronunciation: , Standard Chinese pronunciation: ), Chinese postal romanization, alternatively Romanization of Chi ...

Sichuan Sichuan (; zh, c=, labels=no, ; zh, p=Sìchuān; alternatively romanized as Szechuan or Szechwan; formerly also referred to as "West China" or "Western China" by Protestant missions) is a province in Southwest China occupying most of the ...

province,

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

it was a

United States Army Air Forces The United States Army Air Forces (USAAF or AAF) was the major land-based aerial warfare service component of the United States Army and ''de facto'' aerial warfare service branch of the United States during and immediately after World War II ...

airfield. It is located approximately 10 miles south of Chengdu.

History

Fenghuangshan Airport, also known as Chungsing Chang, Fenghwangshan and Makiashipen was built under the directives of Sichuan warlord Liu Xiang in 1931 for his fledgling air force operations, and was integrated into the centralized operations of the

Chinese Nationalist Air Force Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of va ...

as the War of Resistance-World War II was starting with the invasion and occupation by the

Empire of Japan The also known as the Japanese Empire or Imperial Japan, was a historical nation-state and great power that existed from the Meiji Restoration in 1868 until the enactment of the post-World War II 1947 constitution and subsequent fo ...

; Fenghuangshan served as an operations base for Chinese fighter squadrons during the terror bombings of Chengdu and Chongqing, and was regularly under bombing attack by Japanese. Fenghuangshan was also the base where Captain

Xu Huansheng Xu Huansheng (; 1906 – March 4, 1984) was a combat aviator of the Republic of China Air Force. He was from the first graduating class of the Huangpu (Whampoa) Military Academy's aviation school. Xu Huansheng helped further develop the curriculu ...

and his B-10 bomber crews initially trained for the planned transoceanic strategic bombing mission against the Empire of Japan in 1938. Years later, after the United States became involved in World War II, it was a major command and control base for

Tenth Air Force The Tenth Air Force (10 AF) is a unit of the U.S. Air Force, specifically a numbered air force of the Air Force Reserve Command (AFRC). 10 AF is headquartered at Naval Air Station Fort Worth Joint Reserve Base/Carswell Field (formerly Carswell AF ...

, being the home of the

312th Fighter Wing The 312th Fighter Wing was a United States Army Air Forces organization. It was a command and control organization of Fourteenth Air Force that fought in the China Burma India Theater of World War II. History Lineage Constituted as 312th Fi ...

from July 1944 until August 1945. The wing commanded three fighter groups (33rd, 81st and 311th) in central China as well as provided support to Twentieth Air Force

B-29 Superfortress The Boeing B-29 Superfortress is an American four-engined propeller-driven heavy bomber, designed by Boeing and flown primarily by the United States during World War II and the Korean War. Named in allusion to its predecessor, the B-17 Fl ...

groups which staged strategic bombardment missions over

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

though bases in the Chengdu area from their home bases in

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

(see: Operation Matterhorn). Also, the 426th Night Fighter Squadron operated

P-61 Black Widow The Northrop P-61 Black Widow is a twin-engine United States Army Air Forces fighter aircraft of World War II. It was the first operational U.S. warplane designed as a night fighter, and the first aircraft designed specifically as a night fight ...

night interceptor aircraft from the airfield, providing a night defense against Japanese fighter and bomber raids at night in the area, along with the B-29 bases before their move to the

Marianas The Mariana Islands (; also the Marianas; in Chamorro: ''Manislan Mariånas'') are a crescent-shaped archipelago comprising the summits of fifteen longitudinally oriented, mostly dormant volcanic mountains in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, betw ...

. Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek and his son Chiang Ching-kuo left their Sichuan residence on 10 December 1949 and boarded his airplane named ''May-ling'' and flew out from Fenghuangshan for Taiwan via Guangdong, never to return to the mainland. During the

2013 Lushan earthquake The Lushan earthquake or Ya'an earthquake (, ''Yak-ngai Sayom'') occurred at 08:02 Beijing Time (00:02 UTC) on April 20, 2013. The epicenter was located in Lushan County, Ya'an, Sichuan, about from Chengdu along the Longmenshan Fault in the ...

in Sichuan, the airport was used as a major air hub for the relief effort and medical evacuation.

References

External links

{{authority control 1931 establishments in China Airfields of the United States Army Air Forces Air Transport Command in the China-Burma-India Theater Airfields of the United States Army Air Forces in China Airports established in 1931 Airports in Sichuan Buildings and structures in Chengdu Chinese Air Force bases Transport in Chengdu

History

References

Further reading

External links