Meiktila was the hinge of the Allied reconquest of central Burma. In February 1945 the 17th Indian Division, under Major General Cowan, struck south towards the town while the Japanese were fixed around Mandalay. On 26 February it seized an airstrip at Thabutkon, about 32 km north-west of Meiktila, and the air-portable 99th Indian Brigade was flown in, with fuel parachuted to the armour. The assault on Meiktila began on 28 February and the town fell within four days, on about 3 March.

Holding it was harder than taking it. From 12 March Japanese forces attacked the airfields east of the town, through which the defenders were supplied by air, and from 18 March Lieutenant General Masaki Honda’s Thirty-third Army headquarters took control of the counter-attack. The 9th Indian Brigade was flown into the airfields from 15 March; Wikipedia’s account says the landings were made under fire, but that only two aircraft were destroyed, with 22 casualties.

On 18 March Cowan suspended air landings, keeping a smaller strip for light aircraft to evacuate casualties, and supplies were dropped by parachute instead. On 28 March Lieutenant General Shinichi Tanaka, chief of staff to General Kimura, accepted responsibility for ordering Honda to break off the siege. Meiktila had held.

Once the fighting moved south, Meiktila became a crowded Royal Air Force station. English Wikipedia lists the headquarters of No. 221 (Tactical) Group RAF here from 12 April to June 1945 and a long roll of squadrons up to mid-1946: Spitfires, Hurricane IIC fighter-bombers, Mosquito VIs, Thunderbolt IIs, Lysanders and Austers, then Dakotas and Halifax A.7 transports as the war ended and the RAF stayed on in Burma.

The list should be read with care. Wikipedia gives some squadrons dates in 1944, before the airfield was in Allied hands, and cites RAF squadron reference works rather than base records, so it is used here only as a guide to the types that flew from Meiktila. The broad picture is not in doubt: for about a year the field was one of the busiest Allied airfields in central Burma.

When Burma became independent in 1948 its new air force inherited RAF airfields. By 1953, according to Wikipedia’s history of the service, drawing on Maung Aung Myoe, Mingaladon, Hmawbi and Meiktila were its three main bases, and in the mid-1950s Meiktila was the seat of a squadron group, later reorganised as an air base headquarters.

Its role has since shifted from fighting to support. Wikipedia places two commands here: the Aircraft Production and Repair Base headquarters, and the Air Force Ground Training Base Command. Flying training is run from Shante, a separate airfield a few kilometres north-east, which a former air force officer writing in The Irrawaddy in 2025 called the air force training headquarters. Wikipedia also says the base hosts a Mi-35P helicopter squadron under the Central Sector Operations Center.

Meiktila is also where Myanmar’s efforts to diversify its aircraft suppliers can be seen stalling. The Irrawaddy reported in February 2023 that at least 20 German Grob G 120TP trainers, costing about 2.7 million dollars each, are believed to have been bought in 2015 and are kept at Meiktila, according to observers and defectors. It reported them grounded by accidents and by the lack of spare parts since Germany re-imposed sanctions in 2019.

The same report said an assembly facility for the DART-450, a Diamond reconnaissance trainer built in a joint Austrian and Myanmar project, was built at Meiktila in 2018. Only one aircraft was completed; the project stalled because engines could not be obtained from Ukraine’s Ivchenko company. None of these figures has been confirmed by the military government.

Three months after the 1 February 2021 takeover, at about 5 am on 29 April 2021, five 107 mm rockets landed on Meiktila’s runway; nobody was injured. Magway air base was hit by four rockets the same morning. The Irrawaddy reported that Captain Aye Thazin Myint of the military’s information team confirmed both attacks and described the damage as minimal; nobody claimed them in that report.

Five years later the base served as a showcase. On 12 March 2026 Min Aung Hlaing presided over a ceremony at Meiktila at which two Russian-made Su-30s and two Chinese-made K-8Ws were commissioned, urging the air force, in The Irrawaddy’s report, to make “effective” use of its aircraft and weapons. A former air force sergeant told the paper the aircraft were not new but had been commissioned before and were shown to display strength. The ceremony came as the air campaign continued: the UN human rights office, as quoted by The Irrawaddy, recorded 982 civilians killed by air strikes in 2025, while the military says it strikes only legitimate targets. No published source ties particular strikes to aircraft based at Meiktila.