World War II Database

Contributor: C. Peter Chen

ww2dbaseTamsui (Pinyin: Danshui), located in northern Taiwan, hosted a Japanese Navy's first seaplane base on the island. This small facility was constructed in 1941, and it was occasionally used by civilian passenger aircraft as a refueling stop between Yokohama, Japan and Bangkok, Thailand prior to the opening of the Pacific War in Dec 1941. On 12 Oct 1444, American carrier aircraft from USS Intrepid attacked the Rising Sun Petroleum Company facilities nearby, and the Tamsui Seaplane Base was a secondary target; the resulting fires burned the oil tanks for more than three days, and the older generation in Taiwan recalled this attack as the "3-day burning of stinky oil tanks". Local lore in Tamsui (Danshui) incorrectly held that the attackers flew B-29 bombers in Oct 1944. After the war, it was taken over by weather observation units of the Republic of China Air Force. The site was later transferred to the ROC Army. At the time of this writing the site was unused military property and was closed to the public.

Tamsui Seaplane Base Interactive Map

Photographs

Tamsui Seaplane Base Timeline