The Beginnings of Fernando Air Base in Lipa, Batangas

Fernando Air Base in Lipa City, Batangas, has its origins in the military preparations undertaken by the United States Army in the Philippines in the years immediately preceding and following the outbreak of the Pacific War in December 1941. The installation that would eventually become one of the Philippine Air Force’s important facilities began as an airfield in an agricultural area outside the center of what was at the time still the Municipality of Lipa.

Its wartime history, however, is part of a wider story involving the hurried construction of airfields in Batangas and elsewhere, their abandonment during the American and Filipino retreat to Bataan as ordered by General Douglas MacArthur, and their subsequent use by the Japanese military.

Historical accounts differ somewhat on the circumstances surrounding the original construction of the Lipa airfield. Pacific Wrecks describes it as having been built by the United States Army before the Pacific War, while Walter D. Edmonds, in his 1951 account of the Army Air Forces in the Southwest Pacific, discusses the hurried construction of airfields in Lipa and Tanauan after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, which was December 8 in the Philippines.

Edmonds describes the improvised methods employed in the work, including the use of carabao carts and other primitive means to move construction materials. The accounts may reflect different stages of preparation and completion, but they establish the airfield’s connection with American military preparations during the opening weeks of the war¹.

Lipa was not the only locality in Batangas associated with this emergency construction effort. Edmonds mentions airfields at Lipa and Tanauan, while subsequent documentary research has identified a wartime airstrip in neighboring Malvar.

Guerrilla records refer to the Malvar Landing Field, and other wartime accounts document Japanese use of the installation and American attacks against it in 1944 and 1945. The evidence, therefore, places Lipa within a broader network of airfields in southern Batangas, although the precise identity and location of every airstrip mentioned in wartime records cannot always be established with equal certainty².

A colorized version of Lipa Airfield in 1946. Image from the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.

The American-built airfields were abandoned when the order was given for United States and Filipino forces to withdraw toward the Bataan Peninsula. Edmonds observed that the newly completed airfields at Lipa and Tanauan consequently fell into Japanese hands. The Japanese subsequently repaired and expanded the Lipa installation, turning it into a military airfield during their occupation of the Philippines³.

On December 22, 1941, personnel of the United States Army’s 27^th Bombardment Group were transferred to Lipa Airfield. The group’s aircraft were not with its ground personnel, and the unit soon relocated to Cabcaben Airfield in Bataan. The episode illustrates the rapidly changing military situation in the Philippines during the first weeks of the invasion, when American units were being repositioned as Japanese forces advanced⁴.

The Japanese continued developing and using the Lipa airfield during the occupation. Accounts of the installation refer to a field known as Lipa West, with two runways, one described as concrete and the other as sod. A second facility, called Lipa East in accounts based on Japanese military material, has also been identified.

A sketch attributed to a Japanese airfield commander has been cited in support of the existence of this second installation, but the precise relationship between it and other wartime airfields in the vicinity requires careful examination.

One complication is the appearance of Calingatan Airfield in United States military records. Reconnaissance photographs reportedly show aircraft and structures near the northeastern end of a runway in the Calingatan area of Mataasnakahoy, with a taxiway connecting the area to the main Lipa runway. American operational records also refer to attacks on Calingatan and Lipa as distinct targets.

These references raise questions about whether Lipa East and Calingatan were separate installations, components of a larger airfield complex, or names used by different sources for facilities whose boundaries have yet to be established conclusively. Until the documentary and photographic evidence can be reconciled, it would be premature to identify Lipa East and Calingatan as one and the same airfield⁵.

By late 1944, the Allied return to the Philippines had placed Japanese airfields in Batangas within reach of American carrier-based aircraft and land-based bombers. Lipa and Malvar were among the airfields targeted during the campaign to weaken Japanese air operations in Luzon. In early 1945, American ground forces advanced into Batangas as the liberation of the province proceeded.

The Lipa airfield was eventually recovered by United States forces and developed for military use. The 127th Engineer Battalion of the United States Army’s 11th Airborne Division worked on the installation, including extending the runway to accommodate C-47 transport aircraft⁶.

Following the war, the airbase was turned over to the Philippine government. On April 12, 1948, President Manuel Roxas renamed Lipa Air Base in honor of Lieutenant Colonel Basilio Fernando, a pioneer of Philippine military aviation.

The facility subsequently became known as Basilio Fernando Air Base, although the shorter name Fernando Air Base came into common use. In 1952, it became a training base for the Philippine Air Force, supporting the instruction of aviators and other personnel⁷.

The history of Fernando Air Base thus extends beyond the story of a single military installation. Its wartime origins belong to the hurried preparations made by the Americans in Batangas in late 1941, the subsequent occupation and development of local airfields by the Japanese, and the Allied campaign to regain control of the Philippines.

Although much is known about the Lipa airfield’s development and postwar transformation, the precise relationship among Lipa West, Lipa East, and Calingatan remains an unresolved question in the historical reconstruction of wartime aviation facilities in the area.