Tuncoku, speaking to the Anatolia news agency, said nearly 500,000 people died during the Battle of Gallipoli and that more than 200,000 of them were Turkish soldiers. It is not widely known that women also fought during the battle, he said, causing him to research the issue in the Australian and New Zealand archives. He said he was surprised to see letters and diaries of foreign soldiers mentioning “Turkish female warriors” and “female Turkish sharp shooters.” He stated that he had first linked the references to the imagination of the soldiers who suffered from drastic wartime conditions such as hot weather, a fear of death, water shortages and plagues. “However, when I compared the times, locations and the events mentioned in those letters, the possibility of their accuracy was strengthened. I think there are still some aspects of the battles of Çanakkale that should be studied by historians,” he added.
Tuncoku discussed his research on female warriors in the battles of Çanakkale in his book titled “Çanakkale 1915: The Tip of the Iceberg.” In one of the letters, Australian soldier J.C. Davies wrote the following to his family: “A Turkish girl sharp shooter was fighting while waiting in an ambush on May 18, 1915. She sniped the whole day and killed many of our soldiers. I was still upset to see that she was shot dead before sunset by one of our soldiers.”
