The site is older than Cambodian independence. French Wikipedia says an airfield was set up here in the 1920s as a base for the French air force, and English Wikipedia dates aviation on the site to 1924; the name is said to come from a fig tree (po in Khmer) planted by a Chinese man called Tong. The airport that served Sihanouk’s Cambodia opened on 19 January 1959, built as a dual civil and military field.

The air force grew up beside the terminal. After the decree of 22 April 1954 creating the Aviation Royale Khmère, French instructors opened a flying school here in October that year. Through the neutral years Pochentong collected an improbable fleet: American T-28s and C-47s, French Skyraiders and Magisters, Soviet MiG-17s and Chinese J-5s. After the coup of March 1970 it became Base Aérienne 101, the main hub of the Khmer Air Force, with its headquarters, the Tactical Air Group’s combat and transport squadrons and the Air Academy, and South Vietnamese and American aircraft on the same ramps.

On the night of 21–22 January 1971 a commando force of about a hundred North Vietnamese sappers, split into six detachments with AK-47s and RPG-7s, got into the base. Wikipedia’s account, based on Conboy, says 69 aircraft were destroyed or severely damaged: many T-28Ds, nearly all the MiG, Shenyang, T-37B and Magister jets, all the L-19 Bird Dogs and An-2s, the UH-1 gunships, three South Vietnamese O-1s and a VIP transport recently given to President Lon Nol. Thirty-nine airmen were killed and 170 injured, and the base was closed for almost a week.

What survived was mostly what had been somewhere else: six T-28Ds and ten GY-80 trainers at Battambang, eight Alouettes, two H-34s, one T-37B and one Magister. Wikipedia’s article on the civil war adds a cool afterthought: the raid removed old and obsolete Soviet aircraft that the Americans then replaced with newer types, but it also stalled a planned government offensive.

Pochentong also produced the air force’s worst moments. On 17 March 1973 Captain So Patra took a T-28D from the base, bombed the presidential palace and flew to Hainan; Wikipedia gives 43 killed and 35 injured. On 19 November 1973 another pilot bombed and deserted to Khmer Rouge territory, and on 14 April 1975 a third dropped four 250 lb bombs near the general staff headquarters.

By February 1975 the Mekong was cut and the capital lived off the runway. BirdAir, under contract to the United States government, flew C-130s and DC-8s from U-Tapao about 20 times a day. Khmer Rouge artillery shelled the field from 5 March; on 13 March rockets set off an ammunition dump, and on 22 March rockets hit two supply aircraft and the US embassy briefly suspended the airlift. More than 750 Cambodians left by fixed-wing aircraft before fire ended those flights on 10 April. Pochentong was overrun on 15 April; two days later, 97 air force aircraft escaped from bases across the country to Thailand.

After 1979 the field served the Vietnamese-backed government, but French Wikipedia records that it saw little traffic from 1975 to the early 1990s. The sources reached do not say where the 1980s MiG-21s were based; Wikipedia lists the retired fighters as stored at Phnom Penh. In July 1997 the airport itself became a battlefield: heavy clashes on 5–6 July were fought at the Taing Krassang base and at Phnom Penh International Airport, where most FUNCINPEC troops were stationed. The UN Special Representative called the events a coup; the Cambodian People’s Party rejected that word. Two months later, on 3 September 1997, a Vietnam Airlines Tu-134 crashed short of the runway across the military side of the airport.

The present Royal Cambodian Air Force is headquartered here, still signposted Pochentong Air Base, with its VIP squadron, part of the helicopter squadron and its maintenance. On 9 September 2025 civil flights moved to Techo International. The two published plans for the site differ: Wikipedia’s Techo article says the old airport will be a military airbase and serve domestic flights and private jets, while Prime Minister Hun Manet said on 20 October 2025 that it would become a public park with its runway kept for emergencies. No source reached says where the air force headquarters will go.