Chaozhou Airfield

Chaozhou Airfield was a Japanese Imperial Army Air Force installation located in Chaozhou Township (潮州鎮), Pingtung County, in southern Taiwan (then part of Takao Prefecture under Japanese colonial rule). The airfield was constructed in the 1930s as part of Japan's military buildup in preparation for the Greater East Asia War, with the specific goal of training sufficient numbers of Army pilots for forthcoming operations across Southeast Asia and the Pacific.

The facility was one of the largest military airfields in southern Taiwan, so expansive that it was divided into two distinct sections: Chaozhou Airfield (潮州飛行場) and Chaozhou East Airfield (潮州東飛行場), connected by a road running between them. The airfield hosted squadrons equipped with two of the Imperial Japanese Army's most important fighter types — the Nakajima Ki-43 Hayabusa (隼, "Peregrine Falcon"), the most-produced Army fighter of the war, and the Nakajima Ki-84 Hayate (疾風, "Gale"), considered the best Japanese Army fighter of the conflict.

During the final years of the Pacific War, Taiwan's airfields became targets for Allied air raids. In October 1944, the massive Formosa Air Battle saw U.S. Navy carrier aircraft strike military installations across the island. From early 1945, USAAF B-24 Liberators and B-25 Mitchells from bases in the Philippines conducted regular raids against Taiwan's airfields and military infrastructure, including those in the Pingtung area.

Following Japan's surrender in August 1945, the Japanese garrison at Chaozhou transferred the airfield and its facilities to local civilians before ROC military personnel arrived to take formal possession. The Republic of China military subsequently recovered only a small portion of the former airfield complex for use as a parachute training facility. Today, the site is known as the Chaozhou Parachute Field (潮州空降場), serving as the ROC military's only dedicated military parachute training ground, approximately 1 kilometer long and 300 meters wide, covering about 30 hectares.