Kwon Ki-ok

Kwon Ki-ok (; 11 January 1901 – 19 April 1988) was a Korean aviator. She is the first Korean female pilot and one of the first female pilots to fly in China. Her name in Chinese is Quan Jiyu . Kwon went into exile in China during the Japanese occupation of Korea and became a lieutenant colonel in the Republic of China's air force. She returned home after the liberation of Korea and became a founding member of the Republic of Korea Air Force.

Biography Kwon was born in Sangsugu Village, Pyongyang, South Pyongan Province, Korean Empire to Gwon Don-gak and Jang Mun-myeong. She was the second of five children (four daughters and one son). She was of the .

Kwon attended Pyongyang's Sunghyeon Elementary School from 1913 to 1918.

Career The following year, she participated in the March First Movement, for which she spent three weeks in jail; after her release, she assisted with fundraising activities for the Korean Patriotic Women's Association, as a result of which she was arrested and imprisoned for six months. Upon her release, she went into exile in China. In China, she enrolled in the Hongdao Women's School in Hangzhou, operated by American missionary Ellen Peterson, in order to learn Chinese and English. She completed a four-year course of study in just two years.

In 1923, at the recommendation of the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea in Shanghai, she entered the Republic of China Air Force School in Yunnan, graduating in 1925. She was the only woman in the first graduating class. After graduation, she was stationed in Beijing, and then relocated to Nanjing in 1927. By 1940, she had achieved the rank of lieutenant colonel.

In 1945, with the end of World War II and the restoration of Korean independence, Kwon returned to Korea, where she was instrumental in the founding of the Republic of Korea Air Force.