The Turkish air force, 1939–45: the rise of a minor power

Abstract

On 16 June 1938, Sabiha Gokgen, an adopted daughter of Atatiirk, pulled back on the throttle of her American Vultee V-11 attack bomber, lifted off from Yesilk6y airfield near Istanbul, and headed for Athens. Thus began perhaps the most celebrated demonstration of Turkish air power since the end of the War of Independence in 1922. Gokgen set out on a goodwill flight that took her to Athens, Salonica, Sofia, Belgrade, and Bucharest.1 This flight was meant to symbolize Turkey's political interests in the Balkans as well as its determination to obtain the latest military technology and forge a strong air force to help make it a significant regional power. As the following study will show, it was largely successful. Despite his country's limited resources, Atatiirk did his best to promote the air force, as his daughter's flight shows, before his death on 10 November 1938.2 During the 1930s it grew at a modest pace, expanding from three battalions in 1928, to three regiments in 1932, to three brigades in 1939. The main bases were Eskisehir, Izmir, and Diyarbakir.3 Turkey had attempted to establish a national aircraft industry but with little success. Junkers had started a factory in Kayseri in 1925. It failed and its facilities were leased to the Curtiss-Wright Corporation in the early 1930s. This American company managed to assemble only a few planes.4 Therefore, throughout this decade, and even later (indeed, until coproduction of the F-16 in 1987), virtually all combat aircraft were purchased from abroad: France, Great Britain, Germany, Poland, America, Italy, Czechoslovakia, and the Netherlands.s Although this naturally resulted in difficult maintenance problems, Ankara did not want to be dependent on a single source of supply. On the eve of World War II, the Turkish Air Force (TAF) had approximately 240 planes: bombers, fighters, and trainers, some of which were obsolete.6