Taipei’s Songshan Airport celebrated its 60th anniversary on April 16, 2010. Actually the airport is older than this and the anniversary is better described as the 60th anniversary of “Taipei International airport.” (photograph by Xuan Shisheng玄史生 from Wikipedia Commons.)

In addition to the Taipei Floral Expo later in the year, another important event in 2010 was the fair held to commemorate the 60th anniversary of opening the “window to Taipei’s skies.” A public request for submission of old photographs were also made in conjunction with a duty free shop operator. These events were both a source of pleasure and sadness. The pleasure comes from the fact that the government and enterprises are paying attention to the preservation of history,which should be encouraged, and sadness because if you look on the Songshan Airport website official website there is no information at all about its evolution. Examination of various historical materials shows that Songshan Airport’s history as a civilian airport goes back much longer than 60 years.

Flying was not something that could easily be done by ordinary people in Taiwan in the Taisho era (1912-26) during the Japanese colonial era but it was by no means unheard of. Local man Xie Wen-da, Japanese Nojima野島銀藏and America Art Smith all took to the skies over Taipei. Aircraft were very useful for controlling aboriginal areas so the army had aircraft, as did the police, the “big iron birds” used for reconnaissance and to attack the aborigines when required.

Even though there was a global depression in the 1920s and 30s there was still strong demand for long distance flights. The Japanese government began building a civilian-military dual use airport in 1932 and this was completed in 1936. Taipei also had a military airport in Wanhua, “South Airport.” The airport is long gone but the name of South Airport night market comes from the Japanese era airport. In “A bird’s eye view map of Greater Taipei” and other public information artworks that were popular at the time, we can see that not only is the location of airports marked on the map, we can also feel that flying had become part of people’s lives from the way the map maker gave a bird’s eye view of the city, completely changing people’s understanding of space and the way of expressing geological information. This was also the background for the “Soaring youth” work by beautiful manga artist Akru in TELDAP’s Creative Comic Collection.

The airport was known as the “number 1 Japan.” In the book “Taiwan Hang Kong Jue Zhan” (The Air Battle of Taiwan) by General Zhong Jian, scheduled civilian services flew all over mainland Taiwan and to its outlying islands. 1300 flights year were flown both ways on the  Taipei – Naha - Fukuoka route by the forerunner of Japan Airlines, (declared bankrupt in 2010,) averaging 3.56 a day. There was also a Taipei-Guangzhou route and Yokohama-Danshui-Bangkok southeast Asia route, both well-used by wealthy people. Taiwan had a route between Tainan and Magong, in the Penghu Islands, and a 760 kilometer around Taiwan Taipei – Taichung – Tainan – Kaohsiung – Pingdong – Taidong – Hualian – Yilanand – Taipei cargo service. InTakenaka Nobuko’s 竹中信子 book “Life in Taiwan during The Japanese Colonial Era(Ri zhi Taiwan sheng huo shi,)” the author mentions that the ticket price for a Taipei - Kaohsiung flight was 40 yen. At the 1935 Taiwan Expo the daily wage of a female attendant was 1.5 yen, or 45 yen a month, which shows that at the time flying wasn’t cheap, the flight costing the equivalent of an ordinary workers’ monthly wage.

In addition to supporting the expansion of the Japanese empire, Taiwan, naturally, was of strategic importance to Japan. As of 1945 the Japanese had built 65 airports in Taiwan. Songshan Airport, inevitably, could not avoid the God of War and was the place from where planes took off that would kill people and also on the receiving end of bombing itself. 18 Type 96 land-based attack planes took off from Songshan Airport to support the Japanese attack on Shanghai in 1937, attacking Guangde and Jianqiao on the morning of August 14 .The Japanese didn’t have it easy, however, and the Hawk III fighters of the ROC Air Force that were defending Jianqiao tore into the Japanese planes. In the end the Chinese claimed to have shot down six planes and the Japanese admitted losing four, with no loses of Chinese aircraft. After this air battle, August 14 was designated ROC Air Force Day (this is the background to the military education film “The Heroes of Jianqiao.”)

To halt the advance of the Japanese, soon after the Sino-Japanese war broke out the Soviet Union began giving military aid to the nationalist government of China and also sent advisers and a group of “volunteer” pilots. On February 22, 1938 22 long-range SB-2 bombers, piloted by Soviet pilots, took off from Nanchang in Jiangxi Province, China, to attack Songshan Airport. Because of poor weather only eight planes managed to reach the airport but the Japanese never expected the Chinese to attack so far behind their lines and were caught totally by surprise. 12 planes were destroyed on the ground and some local people were killed and injured. Apart from the attacks on the aborigines by the Japanese this was the first time that Taiwan had seen an attack from the air.

It may be hard to believe but Songshan Airport was also closely involved in an incident that remains shrouded in mystery. In WW2, to realize its plan for “Greater Asia” and weaken British rule in India, the Japanese actively supported independence movements in Southeast Asia that were fighting to kick out the European colonial rulers. Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose was the leader of the Indian National Army, a force that was supported by Japan and fought against the British. On August 8 1945, after Japan had accepted the Potsdam Declaration and surrendered, leaving the Allies victorious in the Pacific, the plane carrying Bose, who had stood on the side of the Axis powers through the war and had no choice but to flee from Southeast Asia to Japan, his aides and the movement’s funds, stopped off at Songshan Airport. In the afternoon, when his plane was taking off, it suffered a mechanical failure and crashed. Bose was immediately taken to the military hospital at the side of the airport but died from his burns. His last words were “Please give the precious items beside me to Rehman (his aide)…I’ve nothing else to say…except sorry to my other comrades. I hope one day my homeland will be really independent.”

The “precious items” he talked of in his last words were actually two one-meter long leather cases full of jewels collected from Indians all over Southeast Asia to finance the fight for independence against the British. In the crash the jewels were scattered all over the runway. The airport was still under the control of the Japanese and it is said that the top one meter of earth under the runway surface was dug up and transported to Taipei First Girls’ High School where the students sifted through it carefully to find the jewelry. Then the jewelry it was transported to Japan. It was officially claimed that Japan returned Bose’s jewels to the government of India in 1951, however, where the jewels really ended up is a subject often featured in Japanese detective/mystery novels to this day.

Images of Songshan Airport also appear many times in TELDAP’s Digital Archives. As the door to Taiwan for international visitors for many years there are numerous news films from the time of the establishment of Taipei International Airport to the opening of Taoyuan Chiang Kai-shek International Airport in which Songshan Airport features. One film, as an example, was shot just a year after Bose’s independence dream died on the runway at Songshan and shows a group of US reporters on a tour of Taiwan in 1946, with Songshan Airport their first stop. We see the reporters emerge from the aircraft one after the other and line up to have their group photograph taken by local photographers.

US reporters visit Taiwan 

Discussing the period 1945-1955 in which the ROC government in Taiwan implemented a policy of “de-Japanization”, National Taipei University of Education professor Yang Meng-zhe has called it “the lost ten years.” In this period much of Taiwan’s culture, history and memory was cut off and this affected the way that Taiwan’s history in following generations. Many people who lived through the period of Japanese rule are nostalgic for it while the post 1945 generations know little or nothing about Taiwan in the 1930s. People of different political persuasions have a totally different interpretation of history. There are various interpretations of Taiwan’s history. Mr. Jiang Xun once said “Beauty is the addition of history”. It is indeed a pity if we cut off facts and pretend they don’t exist.

At a time when Songshan Airport, Taipei and Taiwan are trying hard to attract tourists and spending substantial amounts of money holding events, perhaps we should ask: “What are our history, culture and special features?” As well as the panda on the grass outside the airport to welcome visitors from China, can the airport tell visitors from India and other countries “This is where Chandra Bose died”.

Taipei International Airport indeed has a history of 60 years but Songshan Airport’s civil aviation history goes back much further. Its wartime experiences mean it has much more to tell than is revealed by the cold words on the official website. If Songshan Airport can pay more attention to its own existence and history, perhaps, in this era in which nation building is based on culture and creativity, it can find a new niche for itself. It should be hoped that both Songshan Airport and Taiwan can find their real selves, and their beautiful and complex past as they internationalize. 

Postscript: The author would like to thank Liao Xuan-ming of the Advanced GIS Science Research Workshop, Research Center for Humanities & Social Sciences, Academia Sinica for his encouragement and for sharing the “Taipei Airport Opening Ceremony” in the “Taiwan Communications Association Magazine” in the collection of the Taiwan Branch of the National Central Library.