The airfield began as Tjililitan in 1924, a Dutch East Indies landing ground used by KNILM, the colonial airline. Its first test came in the first weeks of 1942. On 25 February 1942, according to Wikipedia, a Japanese naval air raid hit the field while eight Hawker Hurricanes tried to defend it; one British soldier was killed. Within weeks Java had fallen, and Japanese Zero fighters flew from Tjililitan until 1945.

After the Japanese surrender the field returned to Dutch control during the war of independence. The Netherlands formally handed it to the Indonesian government on 20 June 1950, the year after it recognised Indonesian sovereignty, and the young air force, AURI, moved in. On 17 August 1952 it was renamed after Abdul Halim Perdanakusuma, one of the air force’s founding officers, who had died with Iswahjudi in an air crash while returning from Thailand in 1947. In the 1950s and 1960s the base held several squadrons; Wikipedia records the 2nd Squadron’s C-47 Dakotas among the aircraft that supported Operation Trikora, the 1961–62 campaign for West New Guinea.

Halim’s name is tied for ever to the events of 1 October 1965. According to the account summarised by Wikipedia, the 30 September Movement’s troops left the base at about 03:15 to kidnap army generals. Six army generals and a seventh officer were killed, and the bodies were thrown into a well at Lubang Buaya, near the base, where the air force had been training a civilian militia. During that night the communist party leader D. N. Aidit and the air force commander, Air Vice Marshal Omar Dani, both went to Halim; President Sukarno also came, saying he wanted to be near an aircraft in case he had to leave Jakarta.

Sukarno left for Bogor on the evening of 1 October. Early on 2 October, after what Wikipedia calls a minor battle, army units retook the base; Aidit had already flown to Yogyakarta and Dani to Madiun. The seven bodies were recovered from the well on 4 October. The New Order’s official account, which named the movement ‘G30S/PKI’, used the base’s role to tie the air force and the communist party to the killings; the Cornell Paper of Benedict Anderson and Ruth McVey, and later John Roosa, read the evidence differently. What is not disputed is the result: the air force lost its commander and its political standing, and its Soviet-equipped strength withered within five years.

Halim never became a fighter base. Its role is transport, command and ceremony. Wikipedia lists four flying squadrons: the 31st with Hercules and A400Ms, the 17th with the VIP Falcon and Boeing jets that carry the president, the 2nd with CN295s and the 45th with Super Puma helicopters. The base is also the headquarters of the National Air Operations Command and of Air Operations Command I, and hosts more than 20 supporting units, among them the air force’s central hospital.

It has had a double life as an airport, too. International airline flights used Halim from 1974 until Soekarno–Hatta opened in 1985; domestic airline service returned in 2013, and Batik Air now uses it as a hub. A renovation worth 500 billion rupiah rebuilt the runway, taxiways, aprons and terminals between March and September 2022. In September 2026 ash from Anak Krakatau closed flying in the Jakarta and Bandung areas for two days, halting relief flights to East Nusa Tenggara until the base reopened on 8 September.

The biggest day in Halim’s recent history was 18 May 2026, when President Prabowo Subianto attended the formal handover of six Dassault Rafales, four Falcon 8Xs, the first A400M, a GM403 radar and Hammer and Meteor weapons. ANTARA reported that the Rafales were assigned to the 12th Air Squadron, which is based at Roesmin Nurjadin in Pekanbaru, not at Halim; the ceremony was held in Jakarta because that is where the state presents its new equipment. Prabowo used the occasion to stress that the purchase was defensive. Three months later, on 17 August 2026, Rafales and A400Ms flew over Merdeka Palace for Independence Day.