Gen. Metin Gürak, chairman of the Communications Department of the General Staff, said at a weekly news conference that Turkish pilots who received training in Britain had never been assigned to active aerial warfare and bombardment flights. “The pilots were in Britain to get training.
As Turkey had announced its impartiality, Turkish pilots were never assigned to active aerial warfare or bombardment flights,” he told reporters.
Gürak was responding to questions about a report published in the Sabah daily this week, which, quoting the diary of a former Turkish Air Forces commander, said the Turkish lieutenants sent to Britain for training in 1941 also took part in the bombing of Berlin. Turkey, which remained neutral throughout most of World War II, sided with the Allied powers and declared war on Germany only days before the war ended. But it was never actively engaged in warfare during this brief period. The Sabah report said the diary of former Lt. Emin Alpkaya, discovered by his daughter Tülin Alpkaya, revealed that Lt. Alpkaya was sent to Berlin following his training in Britain.
Although the diary does not contain any sentences which openly state that he took part in the bombardment, some of his sentences suggest that he did. “They have told me that I am ready to go to Berlin,” Alpkaya, who retired from the military in 1976 as the commander of the Turkish Air Forces and passed away in 1985, reportedly wrote in his diary, “I returned from the bombardment at six in the morning. I was tired.” About 20-30 Turkish pilots were sent to Britain for training, Sabah said.
