Look at Ahn Chang-nam’s Plane in the Sky Above

‘Look at Ahn Chang-nam’s plane high up in the sky, look down at Eom Bok-dong’s bicycle on land’

This is a part of the lyrics of a song loved by Korean people during the gloomy period of Japan’s colonial rule of Korea. With the words of a folk song entitled changed, this song enjoyed great popularity for a long time.

At the time, Koreans did not dare to sing this song in front of Japanese people, but children would do so at the top of their voices when following Japanese policemen, and then run away. As the first Korean to fly a plane over the sky of Gyeonseong, which is present-day Seoul, pilot Ahn Chang-nam, along with cyclist Eom Bok-dong, heightened the pride of Korean people suffering from colonial rule. Let’s follow the trail to Ahn’s passionate life.

Dreaming of a Pioneer of the Sky

Born in Seoul in 1900, Ahn lost his mother when he was four years old. His father also died when he was 15, and no one could afford to pay for his tuition. So he was forced to leave Whimoon High School, which he had entered after graduating from Midong Elementary School. In 1919, he went to Japan.

While in high school, after watching American pilot Art Smith perform aerobatics, Ahn found himself hoping to fly freely in the sky. He attended the Osaka Automobile School in Japan and later entered the Akabane airplane manufacturing company. In 1920, he entered the Okuri Aviation School where he learned how to fly airplanes.

Ahn excelled in flight school, and it only took him three months to graduate from the six-month training course. Right after his graduation, the school hired him as a teacher. He was the only Korean to apply for the first pilot’s license test administered by Japan’s Aviation Bureau in May 1921. He came in first in the examination to obtain a first-grade pilot’s license without taking any further tests.

First Korean Pilot who Flies over Korean Sky

During an interview with a local daily at the time, Ahn expressed his hope to establish a flight school in Korea when he returned home. He wanted to teach the basics of aviation to young people. He also said he would soon fly a plane in his home country.

In November 1922, Ahn finished first in a flight competition in which pilots flew from Osaka to Tokyo. But it was not until December 1922 that Ahn’s flight in Korea was approved. In the wake of the March 1st Independence Movement in 1919, the Japanese Governor-General of Korea was wary of any events that might draw a large crowd in Korea. On December 10th, he conducted a historic test flight at the airfield in Yeouido, Seoul.

As many as 50-thousand people in Seoul, a city with a population of 300-thousand, gathered at the white sand beach in Yeouido to watch Ahn’s flight. When his plane ‘Geumgang(금강),’ with the map of Korea featured on its surface, soared up into the air, spectators gave a huge round of applause to the pilot, who flew over the Korean sky for the first time as a Korean.

Flying for Independence

Ahn’s flight gave hope and respite to depressed Korean people who lost their country. But Ahn had mixed feelings himself, as seen in his writing in the January edition of (개벽) magazine in 1923. There, he poured out his heart of desperation about the harsh reality his country faced.

“The sky of my Gyeongseong! It will always hug me warmly. I couldn’t just go away so I flew around over the Independence Gate in my plane. People in Seodaemun Prison must have seen something above their heads. I flew all the way to the area where brothers were locked up, but I wonder how many people could understand my intention.”

Determined to devote himself to the Korean independence movement, Ahn went to China in December 1924. He spared no effort for independence of his nation with the firm belief that his aviation skills would prove helpful in achieving that goal. He joined an anti-Japan group and provided it with 600 won, which was a huge sum of money at the time, for the purpose of establishing a Korean aviation academy. Unfortunately, Ahn died in a plane crash during a training flight in April 1930, and the dream of the 29-year-old pilot ended.

Moving Beyond the Title of ‘First’

Ahn had long been known as Korea’s first pilot. However, the title of ‘Korea’s first’ is no longer effective, since Korean aviators trained in the U.S. by independence activist Roh Baek-rin(노백린) of the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea became pilots about a year earlier than Ahn did.

Still, Ahn was surely the first Korean pilot who flew over the Korean sky. He was another hero who followed the dream of national independence in the blue sky and helped Korean people feel immense pride during the dark colonial period.