Type Military airfield Year built 1942 | Battles/wars World War II | |
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Pengshan Air Base is a People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) air base, located approximately 1 km east of Gongyi Town, in Pengshan County, Sichuan province, Southwestern China.
Beginning in 1949, it was part of the PLAAF Second Aviation School. The Third Training Regiment had 16 B-Ss and 32 BT-Ss at Pengshan airfield as late of 1986.
History
Built during World War II, the base was used by the United States Army Air Corps XX Bomber Command 468th Bombardment Group as an airfield to stage B-29 Superfortress bombing missions from India to attack Japan. It was known by the Americans as Pengshan Airfield (A-7). It was one of four B-29 bases established by the Americans in China.
Staging through Pengshan from its base at Kharagpur Airfield, India, on June 15 the group participated in the first American Army Air Corps attack on the Japanese Home Islands since the Doolittle raid in 1942. Operating from bases in India, and at times staging through fields in China, the group struck such targets as transportation centers, naval installations, iron works, and aircraft plants in Burma, Thailand, China, Japan, Indonesia, and Formosa, receiving a Distinguished Unit Citation for bombing iron and steel works at Yawata, Japan, on August 20, 1944.
When the B-29 bombers were moved from India in February 1945 to the newly captured bases in the Mariana Islands, the B-29 use of Pengshan Airfield ended. The Americans used the airfield as a communications station and turned over the airfield to the Chinese government on 30 June 1945.