Fengshan Airfield

Fengshan Airfield was a Japanese Army aviation facility located in the Fengshan area of Kaohsiung, in what was then the colony of Taiwan under Japanese rule. Listings of wartime airfields place it in present-day Daliao District, adjoining Fengshan, opened in December 1944 and abandoned after the war. The Imperial Japanese Army developed the Fengshan district into a significant military complex during the 1930s and 1940s, establishing weapons storage depots, barracks, and airfield infrastructure to support operations across Southeast Asia and the Pacific.

The broader Fengshan military zone was part of Japan's extensive network of airfields across Taiwan. By the end of WWII, Japan had constructed or planned dozens of military airfields across the island, with the Kaohsiung region hosting several major installations including the Okayama (Gangshan) Naval Airfield, the Xiaogang (Kominato) airfields and the Lingyaliao seaplane base. The Fengshan facility served primarily as an army staging area, with the airfield component functioning alongside the larger logistical and training operations in the district.

During the final years of the war, Taiwan's military installations came under sustained American air attack. The Fengshan area, with its concentration of military facilities, was targeted as part of the broader campaign against Japanese positions in southern Taiwan. The district's military infrastructure included the army's Fengshan Warehouse (鳳山倉庫), a depot for military supplies and weapons that later became the Weiwuying (衛武營) camp.

After Japan's surrender in August 1945, the Fengshan military complex was taken over by the Republic of China armed forces. In 1947, General Sun Li-jen established the Fourth Officer Training Class at the former Japanese army base, and in 1950 the ROC Military Academy (Whampoa Academy) was formally relocated to the Fengshan site, where it remains today. The adjacent area became the Army Infantry Training Command (formerly the Infantry School). The nearby Huangpu New Village (黃埔新村), built in the Japanese period as military housing, became one of Taiwan's earliest military dependents' villages and was registered as a cultural landscape in 2013.

While no airfield structures are known to survive — the present Military Academy and Infantry School grounds were Japanese drill grounds and ordnance depots rather than the airfield itself — the Fengshan area retains significant traces of its Japanese colonial military heritage, including the nearby Former Japanese Navy Fengshan Wireless Communications Station, which has been designated a national monument and opened to the public.