History
Don Muang airfield was the second established in Thailand, after Sa Pathum, which is now Sa Pathum horse racing course. The first flights to Don Muang were made on March 8, 1914 and involved the transfer of aircraft of the Royal Thai Air Force. Three years earlier, Thailand had sent three army officers to France to train as pilots. On completion of their training in 1911, the pilots were authorized to purchase four Breguets and four Nieuports, which formed the basis of the Royal Thai Air Force.
In 1933, the airfield was the scene of heavy fighting between royalists and government forces during the Boworadet Rebellion.
Commercial service to Don Muang began in 1924. The first commercial flight was an arrival by KLM.
The airfield was used by the occupying Japanese during World War II, and was bombed and strafed by Allied aircraft on several occasions.
During the Vietnam War, Don Muang was a major command and logistics hub of the United States Air Force.
Read more about this topic: Don Mueang International Airport
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The history of all previous societies has been the history of class struggles.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)
“What is most interesting and valuable in it, however, is not the materials for the history of Pontiac, or Braddock, or the Northwest, which it furnishes; not the annals of the country, but the natural facts, or perennials, which are ever without date. When out of history the truth shall be extracted, it will have shed its dates like withered leaves.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“A people without history
Is not redeemed from time, for history is a pattern
Of timeless moments.”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)