Taitung Airfield

Taitung Airfield (台東飛行場, Taitō Hikōjō) was a military airfield constructed by the Japanese military during World War II in Taitung (then Taitō), on the southeastern coast of Taiwan. The airfield was part of Japan's extensive network of military aviation facilities built across Taiwan to defend the island and project air power during the Pacific War.

By the end of the war in 1945, the Japanese military had constructed or planned several dozen airfields across Taiwan. Taitung Airfield is described as one of the few airfields in Taiwan where both Imperial Japanese Army and Imperial Japanese Navy aviation units were stationed. This dual-service arrangement reflected the strategic importance of the Taitung location for defending Taiwan's exposed eastern coastline against potential Allied amphibious operations.

The airfield reportedly featured four runways oriented in the same direction, a configuration that allowed for efficient parallel operations. According to wartime Japanese military maps — including the 1945 "二十萬分一臺灣兵要地誌圖" (1:200,000 Taiwan Military Topographic Map) — Taitung was classified with both Army garrison markers (陸軍進駐標) and Navy garrison markers (海軍進駐標), confirming its dual-service status.

During the final year of the Pacific War, Taiwan's airfields became increasingly important as staging areas and defensive positions. American strategic bombing campaigns targeted many of these facilities. The U.S. Fifth Air Force and carrier-based aircraft conducted raids on Taiwanese airfields throughout 1944-1945 as part of the broader campaign to neutralize Japanese air power in the region before the planned invasion of the Philippines and Okinawa.

After Japan's surrender in August 1945, the airfield was taken over by the Republic of China government. The site underwent various transformations during the postwar decades. In 1977, a civilian waiting room was established, and in 1981 the Taitung Aviation Station was formally established as a civilian airport (on October 1, 1981, according to Chinese Wikipedia). The facility was relocated to its current site on October 31, 1981. In 2001 it was upgraded to a Class B airport, and a new terminal building was completed on January 5, 2004. Today the site operates as Taitung Airport (臺東航空站, also known as Fongnian Airport / 豐年機場, IATA: TTT, ICAO: RCFN), serving domestic routes and connections to Green Island and Orchid Island.