100 years of Tan Son Nhat airport: How beautiful is the peaceful sky of our homeland!

Author Quoc Viet interacts at Ho Chi Minh City Book Street in April 2025.

“On every inch of Tan Son Nhat land is the blood and bones of Vietnamese people yesterday. On every mossy stone or bullet shell still hidden somewhere are many historical stories that need to be retold, accurately reminded for the future...” - author Quoc Viet wrote in the work. This is the first and so far only book about the history of Tan Son Nhat airport with many things, special historical data that are “unveiled” that you may not know about this airport.

Airport people come and go

Tan Son Nhat Airport, or Tan Son Nhat Airport as it was formerly called - has gone through more than 100 years of witnessing the country's ups and downs, many turbulent historical periods, and transitioning to a new page of history. From articles to serious historical research, author Quoc Viet "reviews the past to learn the present" diligently accessing original historical documents from libraries, national archives, and collecting documents from all possible sources. He searched for and met many important witnesses, historians, pilots... to try to recreate the history of the airport, a place where people come and go with many unforgettable events "related to the fate of tens of millions of compatriots for nearly the entire 20th century...".

Journalist QUOC VIET was born in 1975 in Saigon, has worked for Tuoi Tre Newspaper for nearly 30 years. Planned books to be published: Rice Pot in the Subsidy Period, Vietnamese Conquering the Ocean...

“When researching materials to write the book, I encountered many difficulties because the flow of time lasted more than a hundred years, too much information, documents, data was lost, broken, different, old and new perspectives were intertwined... Fortunately, in the process of learning about Tan Son Nhat, I had access to many valuable documents (even sealed in the archives), met many respected people who shared little-known stories, or not yet fully understood about Tan Son Nhat" - Mr. Quoc Viet said.

The French basically completed the airport in the early 1930s. Major expansions took place throughout history after World War II, upgrading it to an international airport in the late 1950s, inaugurating the A runway in 1962, welcoming the world's largest commercial aircraft at that time, the Boeing 747 in July 1971. Special flights with the red flag and yellow star landing at Tan Son Nhat since May 1, 1975 "in the context of the airport still in disarray" are also recounted heroically and emotionally. Next is the period of overcoming difficulties under the subsidy system, the effort to buy and lease aircraft in the context of embargo (the 80s) and developing a modern fleet later...

From its time as an ancient village in the old Gia Dinh province to Tan Son Nhat International Airport, which was once considered the “busiest airport in the world” with an average of one plane taking off or landing every minute, Tan Son Nhat contains many real stories, human destinies and a thrilling development process. “This airport will continue its never-fading historical mission with flights taking off and landing to serve passengers,” said author Quoc Viet.

Witness the country's transformation

The book has a chapter about the secret files of the life of anti-war student Nguyen Thai Binh with a special event in the summer of 1972 or "a turning point in history": at 9:30 a.m. on April 30, 1975, the two-color blue and red revolutionary flag was hung by two guards of the Military Delegation of the Provisional Revolutionary Government of the Republic of South Vietnam on the highest water tower at Davis Camp, Tan Son Nhat while "gunfire was still raging from both sides". Author Quoc Viet said "this was the earliest blue and red flag hung in Saigon, signaling the end of the war".

100 years of Tan Son Nhat airport published by Phuong Nam Books and The Gioi Publishing House.

The exchange and discussion session about the book 100 years of Tan Son Nhat Airport - the first and only book about the history of Tan Son Nhat Airport - attracted many cultural and historical researchers as well as many young readers. Up to now, this is still the first and only research work about Tan Son Nhat - "a place that contains a long story of the country, associated with the fate of the country, an indispensable part of the history of South Vietnam and the country in the 20th and 21st centuries" - author Quoc Viet shared.

The airport when it was still called Tan Son Nhat (changed Nhut to Nhat after 1975). Photo courtesy

In the book chapter with the open content What is the future for Tan Son Nhat?, the author records the multi-dimensional developments and changes in the new appearance of Tan Son Nhat, in line with the latest current developments, which is the modern Terminal T3 of Tan Son Nhat, which was inaugurated to welcome guests on April 19, increasing the total operating capacity of the entire Tan Son Nhat Airport to about 50 million passengers/year.

The above event contributed to motivating Long Thanh International Airport (Dong Nai) to strive for basic completion by 2025, demonstrating the expectation of becoming Vietnam's aviation hub in the region. These days, reading books, watching news about airports and flights in the peaceful sky of the Fatherland, all Vietnamese people are more deeply aware of and love a sacred thing: how beautiful is the sky of our homeland in peace!

"We must understand the past to reach a bright future, so that future generations can clearly understand and continue to choose the right path to the future" - author QUOC VIET expressed.

Loyalty

Source: https://baodongnai.com.vn/dong-nai-cuoi-tuan/202504/100-nam-phi-truong-tan-son-nhat-bau-troi-que-huong-hoa-binh-dep-biet-bao-f6f3873/