알뜨르 비행장 ; 일본 해군의 제주도 항공기지 건설 과정

Abstract

Alddreu Airfield, located in Daejeong-eup, Seogwipo City, Jeju Island was constructed by the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) when Korea was under the colonial rule of Imperial Japan (IJ). Hence, the IJN Airbase was the official name for the Alddreu Airfield. The paper reviews and analyzes the background, construction, and expansion of the airbase, based on the accumulated extracts from the documentation of Japan's Ministry of Defense (formerly Japanese Defense Agency) and statements collected in the field investigations. When it was first built in 1933 as an emergency landing field, the area of the airfield was no more than 60,000 pyeong (1 pyeong is equivalent to 3.3 square meters). Alddreu Airfield was not a formal naval air station. It was a way-station airfield to use temporarily under the circumstances that Japan was expecting a war against China. However, as the Second Sino-Japanese War broke in 1937 moved into a full-fledged phase, the IJN drew a plan to expand the Alddreu Airfield and use it more aggressively for the war. Even before the expansion construction had started, the Alddreu Airfield on Jeju Island became the central base for transoceanic bomb attacks on China's major cities, such as, Nanjing. The Alddreu Airfield was used intensively for bombers until 1938. As the front lines of the war expanded, most of the bombers were moved to one of the airbases in China, freeing the Alddreu Airfield from intensive use. However, it was soon taken over by the Training Department of the Imperial Japanese Omura Navy Air Service. The construction to expand the airfield also continued. With the outbreak of the Pacific War, the importance of Alddreu Airfield was again recognized and the expansion project resumed. The two hundred thousand (200,000) pyeong airbase was expanded, first to six hundred thousand (600,000) pyeong, and later to an eight hundred thousand (800,000) pyeong airfield. The IJN wanted to build the Alddreu Airfield to the size of the IJN Omura Naval Air Service Base in Nagasaki, Japan. It is an indication that the IJN acknowledged the strategic importance of Jeju Island for its critical location. The construction continued until the final stage of the war. The residents of Jeju were forced to provide construction labor for many years. The Imperial Japanese Navy spent a massive amount of money and labor to build such a large airfield, but they never had a chance to use it. The war was over and the role of Alddreu Airfield, as intended by the IJN, expired, too. With the outbreak of the Korean War in 1950, the first Korean army training camp was set in the area of Alddreu Airfield. The area is owned by the Ministry of Defense, Republic of Korea. In 1988, the Republic of Korea Air Force (ROKAF), made an attempt to build a military airport in the area. Due to strong resistance among the residents, the attempt did not have a chance to take off the ground. The ROKAF has never given up its intention to build a military airbase at the former IJN's airfield.