The airport was built in 1944 by the
Imperial Japanese Army Air Force as
Mushiroda Airfield. After the war, the
United States Air Force used the airfield as
Itazuke Air Base from 1945 to 1972. The Japanese Air Force's 6th Fighter Wing replaced the trainers and Mushiroda became an air defense base. The 6th Wing had 30 single engine fighters and several reconnaissance aircraft to patrol the Okinawa-Kyūshū aerial invasion corridor. In April 1945, the
Tachiarai Army Airfield near Kurume was destroyed by American B-29s. Tachiarai's bomber aircraft were moved to Mushiroda and the base became very active until late in the war when B-29s attacked the airfield and destroyed most of the Imperial Japanese forces stationed here.
Postwar era The first American units moved into the facility in November 1945, when the
38th Bombardment Group stationed
North American B-25 Mitchells on the airfield. Moving to Itazuke from
Yontan Airfield,
Okinawa, the mission of the 38th Bomb Group was to fly daily surveillance missions to monitor shipping traffic between Kyūshū and Korea in order to interdict smuggling of illegal Korean immigrants and goods. Along with the 38th, the
8th Fighter Group was assigned to the airfield on 1 April 1946 which performed occupation duties until April 1947. Due to the massive destruction of the facility during the War, the only available buildings to house personnel was the Kyūshū Airplane Company's complex in Zasshonokuma. Designated Base Two, the former aircraft company was converted to barracks, dining halls, a post exchange, and BOQ. Additional facilities and billets were housed in a tent city at the airfield. The 38th Bomb Group remained at Itazuke until October 1946 also during which time several reconstruction units worked on the former IJAAF base rebuilding and constructing new facilities. Headquarters,
315th Bombardment Wing moved into the base during May 1946, spending most of the postwar occupation years at the new American Air Force base. When the 38th Bomb Group moved to
Itami Airfield, it was replaced by the
P-61 Black Widow-equipped
347th Fighter Group that moved from
Nagoya Airfield. The 347th's mission was to provide air defense of Japanese airspace with the long range former night fighter. the 347th Fighter Wing, All Weather, was established at Itazuke in August 1948 when the unit was reformed under the new United States Air Force "Base-Wing" reorganization. The 347th moved to
Bofu Air Base in October. It was replaced by the
475th Fighter Wing which brought with it the new
F-82 Twin Mustangs, replacing the wartime Black Widows for air defense missions. Once up to full strength, it was moved to
Ashiya Airfield in March 1949. By early 1949, reconstruction of Itazuke was complete along the construction of long jet runways. The
8th Fighter Wing moved in during March with the
F-80C Shooting Star jet, which provided air interceptor defense of Japan.
Korean War Itazuke played a key role in the
Korean War and the defense of the Pusan perimeter in 1950. On 25 June 1950, North Korea invaded South Korea, starting a war that would last three years. Being the closest USAF base to the Korean Peninsula, the 8th Fighter Wing at Itazuke initially provided air cover for the evacuation of Americans from Korea on 26 June, the day after the invasion. In these early operations, Itazuke Air Base supported F-80C Shooting Star jet fighters of the 8th Fighter Wing, along with propeller driven aircraft such as the F-82C Twin Mustangs of the
68th Fighter Squadron, All Weather, and P-51D Mustangs which were shipped from the United States for ground support missions in South Korea. The first aerial victory of the Korean War went to 1Lt William G. Hudson, of the 68th Fighter Squadron, All Weather in an F-82. During the Korean War, Itazuke was a major combat airfield for the USAF. The 8th Fighter Wing moved to a forward base in South Korea in late Fall of 1950. With the move, the support element that remained at Itazuke was redesignated the 6160th Air Base Wing. The USAF moved several of its combat units to the base for operations over Korea, these being the
49th Fighter Group, the
58th Fighter-Bomber Wing; the
51st Fighter-Interceptor Wing; the
452d Bombardment Wing; the
27th Fighter-Escort Wing and the
Texas Air National Guard 136th Fighter Group. A wide variety of aircraft operated from the airfield from twin-engined
B-26 Invader tactical bombers, F-80 Shooting Stars,
F-84 Thunderjets, F-82 Twin Mustangs and
F-94 Starfire jet interceptors.
Cold War After the 1953 Armistice in Korea, the wartime combat units were slowly withdrawn back to the United States or reassigned to other airfields in Japan and South Korea. The base settled down to another era of peace to become the key base in the defense of Western Japan. The 8th Fighter Wing returned to Itazuke from its forward airfield at
Suwon AB (K-13), South Korea in October 1954, being the host unit at the base for the next ten years. During the 1950s, the 8 FW flew the F-86 Sabre for air defense of Japan and South Korea, being upgraded to the new
F-100 Super Sabre in 1956. In 1961 the wing received
Air Defense Command F-102 Delta Daggers, specifically designed for the air defense mission. The 8 TFW was reassigned back to the United States in July 1964 to
George AFB, California where it was equipped with the new
F-4C Phantom II and eventually became a major USAF combat wing in
Thailand during the
Vietnam War. With the departure of the 8 TFW, the 348th Combat Support Group became the host unit at Itazuke, with the
Pacific Air Forces 41st Air Division becoming the operational USAF unit at the base. During the 1960s and numerous rotational units from the United States deployed to the base. The
F-105 Thunderchief-equipped
35th Tactical Fighter Squadron was the major flying organization until 1968, when it was moved to
Thailand for combat operations over
North Vietnam during the
Vietnam War. During the Vietnam War, a detachment of the
552d Airborne Early Warning and Control Wing which operated
C-121 Constellation AWACS aircraft operated from Itazuke, but the stable situation in South Korea led to the gradual phase down of the base and personnel were withdrawn for other duties. On 2 June 1968, at 10:48pm, a USAF RF-4C Phantom jet, traveling from Okinawa to Itazuke, experienced engine trouble, and after the two crew members safely ejected, the jet crashed into the Large Computer Center building of the Hakozaki Campus of
Kyushu University, located in the East Ward of Fukuoka City. The building was still under construction, so there were no casualties on the ground. Occurring as it did at the start of the
1968–1969 Japanese university protests, the crash helped ignite large-scale demonstrations at the university, and students refused to allow authorities to remove the wreckage of the plane, which was hanging from the building. The early demonstrations included participation by the university president and faculty, calling for American military to be removed from the Itazuke Base, claiming that its presence in an urban area was a danger. At a 20 June Japan-U.S. Joint Committee meeting, the Japanese representatives proposed that the Itazuke Airfield be relocated, and the American representatives stated that it would consider moving to an alternative site. In time
New Left student groups at Kyushu University took the demonstrations in more radical directions, building barricades on campus, fighting with each other, and disrupting or cancelling classes, the graduation ceremony, and entrance examinations. The wreckage of the Phantom jet was lowered from the building on 5 January 1969, and finally removed from the campus and returned to American authorities on 14 October 1969, when riot police entered the campus and tore down the barricades. In 1970 it was announced that Itazuke would be returned to Japanese control,
Civilian usage Fukuoka's first civilian air service was
Japan Airlines' Fukuoka-Osaka-Tokyo service, which commenced in 1951. JAL introduced jet service on the Fukuoka-Tokyo route in 1961. The airport's first international service was to nearby
Busan, South Korea, beginning in 1965. It dropped the route the following September due to a decline in the Japanese economy.
Japan Airlines operated flights from Fukuoka to Hawaii until withdrawing in 2005. Delta launched service to Honolulu in 2011, which was successful beyond expectations, particularly due to the opening of the
Kyushu Shinkansen which made it a convenient resort route offering for passengers from throughout Kyushu. This led to an increase of Delta's frequencies in 2012, as well as
Hawaiian Airlines offering a daily Fukuoka-Honolulu service. In April 2013,
KLM inaugurated a flight to Amsterdam aboard a Boeing 777. This was the first direct service between Fukuoka and Europe. KLM discontinued it in January 2016. Four months later,
Finnair introduced seasonal flights to Helsinki. The airline utilized Airbus A330s on the route. The last flight took off in 2019; Finnair suspended the link due to the
COVID-19 pandemic and the closure of Russian airspace to the airline after
invading Ukraine. ==Future developments==