Military History of Turkey - World War II

World War II

In 1938, the Turkish Army at peacetime strength consisted of 174,000 soldiers and 20,000 officers forming 11 army corps, 23 divisions, one armoured brigade, 3 cavalry brigades and 7 frontier commands. It was ill-equipped with primarily World War I era weapons. The rifles used were a mixture including Mausers, Mannlichers, Lee-Enfields, Martinis, Lebels and others. As late as February 1940, the British Foreign Office noted: "The Turkish Army is very short of rifles and has asked us to supply 150,000"

As for the air force, Turkey had 131 first line aircrafts in 1937, of them only half were relatively modern. Turkey hoped to increase its aircraft quantity to 300 by 1938. Although Turkey had 300 trained pilots, they would be only rated moderate with little ability to fly in bad weather in a Western European Air Force. In 1942, Ernest Phillips in his work Hitler's last Hope: A factual survey of the Middle East warzone and Turkey's vital strategic position admitted: "If the Germans were to stage an all out offensive in this area, they could bring more planes into the air than the Turks could even gather, and if we were to send too many from Libya to help Turkey, the weakness there would be such that we should be in difficulties on the other side of the Suez." At the beginning of World War II the Turkish Air Force consisted of some 370 aircraft of all types, 450 pilots and 8,000 men. During the war Turkey sent pilots to Great Britain for training purposes. 14 are known to have died in Great Britain. One of them was shot down by a German plane during a training flight in British air space. The rest of died in some accidents. The daughter of former Air Forces Commander Emin Alpkaya who was sent to Britain for training during the war, stated she found something amazing while examining the diaries of her father. In the diary of Alpkaya it was written, "they have told me that I am ready to go to Berlin. I have returned from the bombardment at 6 in the morning. I was tired". There were some allegations that Turkish pilots, who had been in Britain to get training during World War II, joined bombing of Berlin. However officials of the Turkish General Staff told that the pilots were never assigned in active aerial warfare and bombing flights.

The Turkish Navy was the weakest of the services. It consisted of the outdated battle cruiser Yavuz (ex-Goeben), 4 destroyers, 5-6 submarines, 2 light cruisers, 3 mine-sweepers, 2 gunboats, 3 motor torpedo boats, 4 minelayers and a surveying vessel. The personnel strength was approximately 800 officers and 4,000 men. The Navy lacked all modern appliances for defending coasts and harbours, and the ships were defenceless against air attacks.

During the Anglo-Turkish Treaty negotiations in September 1939 a military credit agreement amounting to £25 million was agreed upon. A Turkish Ministry of Defence letter to the Turkish General Staff dating 22.03.1940 stated that the Turkish Army was to be increased to 1,3 million effectives forming 14 army corps consisting of 41 infantry and 3 cavalry divisions, 7 fortified positions and one armoured brigade. Yet, the letter stated, "the material resources of the nation were unable to provide for the provisioning and transport of this large number of effectives".

World War II broke out in the first year of the İsmet İnönü presidency, and both the Allies and the Axis started to put pressure on Inönü to bring Turkey into the war on their respective sides. The Germans sent Franz von Papen to Ankara, while Winston Churchill secretly met with Inönü inside a train wagon near Adana on January 30, 1943. Inönü later met with Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill at the Second Cairo Conference on December 4–6, 1943. Turkey remained neutral until the final stages of World War II and tried to maintain an equal distance between both the Axis and the Allies until February 1945, when Turkey entered the war on the side of the Allies against Germany and Japan.

Until 1941, both Roosevelt and Churchill thought that continued Turkish neutrality would serve the interests of the Allies by blocking the Axis from reaching the strategic oil reserves of the Middle East. But the early victories of the Axis up to the end of 1942 caused Roosevelt and Churchill to re-evaluate a possible Turkish participation in the war on the side of the Allies. Turkey had maintained a decently-sized Army and Air Force throughout the war, and Churchill wanted the Turks to open a new front in the Balkans. Roosevelt, on the other hand, still believed that a Turkish attack would be too risky, and an eventual Turkish failure would have disastrous effects for the Allies. Inönü knew very well the hardships which his country had suffered during 11 years of incessant war between 1911 and 1922 and was determined to keep Turkey out of another war as long as he could. Inönü also wanted assurances on financial and military aid for Turkey, as well as a guarantee that the United States and the United Kingdom would stand beside Turkey in case of a Soviet invasion of the Turkish Straits after the war.