Topic summary
Cochin airport
Extracted from the Wikipedia article Cochin International Airport.
History
Cochin airport began as an airstrip on Willingdon Island, built in 1936 by the Kingdom of Cochin, intended for transporting officials involved in the development of the Cochin Port. The Kingdom of Cochin allowed the British, who ruled India at the time, to convert the airstrip into a military airport for use by the Indian Navy during World War II. The Royal Navy chose it as a strategic site for their headquarters in Southern India and as an air station cum landing craft and seaplane base. The military facility hosted naval fighter planes and was intended to thwart possible Japanese air raids. A small naval unit set up operations just two days before the outbreak of World War II.