During the Japanese occupation of Korea, the Imperial Japanese Army constructed an airstrip on Yeouido in 1916. The island was uninhabited because it was once seen as an unreliable sandy island that flooded easily. Because it was a vacant spot convenient to the capital of Joseon, Yeouido was used as a national pasture for sheep and goats according to a 16th-century geographical record. At the time of the construction, it was predominantly farmland but also used as an Imperial Army training base. The construction of Korea’s first airport was however in April 1924 and the Japanese authorities significantly upgraded the facility in 1929, along with a number of other airfields in Kroea, to service as stops for air service to Manchuria. Japan Air Transport provided scheduled flight to Tokyo (starting in 1929), Fukuoka, Mukden, Dalian, Hsinking, along with other destinations from the airport during the 1930s. The much larger Kimpo Airfield opened to Japanese military traffic in 1943.
Another airfield, then known as Altehru Airfield, was originally developed between 19926 and 1930. The local population were used as forced labour to flatten and clear the landscape and later to build underground tunnels. Initally, it was primarily used as a refueling station, as well as a base for reconnaissance and maritime patrol aircraft. During the Second Sino-Japanese War, it was also used as a forward base of the Omura Naval Air Group for the bombing of cities in China such as Shanghai and Nanjing.
Independence of DPRK
DPRK may have more than 75 useable airfields. Many of them are non-hard surface airfields or highway strips.
This is a list of airports in North Korea. North Korea is a country in Northeast Asia, which may have as many as 78 usable airfields,[1] although the state’s secrecy makes it difficult to ascertain their number and condition with certainty.