Siam’s first military aircraft did not fly from Don Muang. The three army officers trained in France from 1912 came home to a field at Sra Pathum in Bangkok, now the racecourse of the Royal Bangkok Sports Club, with a handful of Nieuport monoplanes and Breguet biplanes; Wikipedia’s accounts give four Nieuports and between one and four Breguets.

The first aircraft were flown to Don Muang on 8 March 1914, and the base was officially opened on 27 March 1914. Ten years later, in 1924, the first commercial flight used it, which makes Don Muang one of the oldest working airports anywhere. When the air arm became an independent service, the Royal Siamese Air Force, in April 1937 (renamed Royal Thai Air Force in 1939), Don Muang was its headquarters, and it still is.

Japan invaded Thailand on 8 December 1941, landing along the southern coast while its aircraft struck Don Muang. The Thai air force fought back: Wikipedia’s account says the Thais lost six fighter planes to a numerically superior Japanese force over the base. The fighting stopped within a day, when the government in Bangkok ordered a ceasefire and chose to accommodate Japan.

For the rest of the war the Imperial Japanese Army Air Service used Don Muang, and Allied bombers raided Bangkok from 7 January 1942. After the Japanese surrender in September 1945, the Royal Air Force occupied the airfield during the short British occupation of Thailand, until March 1946, when it was returned to Thai control. Individual pilots’ names and the identity of the Japanese units of 8 December were not corroborated in the sources reached and are left out.

Before Korat, Takhli, Ubon and Udorn became household names in the US Air Force, there was Don Muang. In April 1961, during the Laos crisis, an advance party of the 6010th Tactical Group arrived, and on 20 April six F-100 Super Sabres of the 510th Tactical Fighter Squadron followed. Four RF-101C reconnaissance jets of the 45th Tactical Reconnaissance Squadron came in November 1961, and F-102 Delta Daggers of the 509th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron in March 1962 to give Bangkok an air defence.

The reconnaissance flights over Laos were not risk-free: on 14 August 1962 an RF-101C was hit by Pathet Lao fire and made a successful belly landing, according to Wikipedia. Military Assistance Command Thailand was set up on 15 May 1962, and the next day eleven C-130s of the 315th Air Division arrived. In July 1963 the 35th Tactical Group took over, and from 1964 the base also flew signals intelligence missions.

By 1966 Don Muang held KC-135 tankers, F-102s, C-130s and C-47s. U-Tapao, begun in October 1965, took the tankers from August 1966, and by 1970, Wikipedia says, most USAF operations had left Don Muang. From late 1971 transport flights went direct to the outlying bases.

Since the 1920s Don Muang has been two things at once: a military base and Bangkok’s airport. The civil side lost its role as the capital’s main gateway when Suvarnabhumi opened in September 2006, and reopened after renovation on 24 March 2007. The 2011 floods closed it when water covered the runways and knocked out the lighting; the airport did not reopen until 6 March 2012.

The air force side carries on beside it. Wing 6 flies the C-130H transports of 601 Squadron, the royal flight’s Airbus jets in 602 Squadron, ATR 72s and a Russian-built Superjet in 603 Squadron, and trainers in 604 Squadron. Two Airbus C295s ordered in May 2026 will go to Wing 46 at Phitsanulok, not here. The Royal Thai Air Force Museum, founded in 1952 at the south end of the base, was repaired from 2012 and renovated by 2020, and a Bangkok skytrain station opened beside it on 16 December 2020. Its collection includes the last Vought V-93S Corsair, one of two surviving Tachikawa Ki-36s, a Spitfire FR XIVe and a Bearcat.