A Secret Hero: The Bandirma Ship

One of  the important actors in the historical date of the establishment of the Republic of Turkey, May 19, 1919, was the Bandırma Ship. We wish to present to you some facts about the Bandırma Ship which carried Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and the spark of sovereignty to Anatolia.

• Built 1878 in Scotland, the ship was run for five years by the company Dussey and Robinson.
• A Greek ship-owner had the ship’s registration in London transferred to the Harbor of Pire in 1883.
• Andreadis, the ship-owner who bought the ship in 1890, later sold it to Greek ship-owner Rama Derasimo’s company in Istanbul.
• In 1894, ownership of the ship was transferred to İdare-i Mahsusa, the state Maritime Administration of the time.
When the Maritime Administration was renamed “Osmanlı Seyrüsefain İdaresi”—the Ottoman Maritime Administration—in 1910, the ship started being used as a postal ship.
• On May 15, 1919, the Bandırma Ship took off toward Samsun with Mustafa Kemal, eighteen of his brothers-in-arms, the captain İsmail Hakkı, and its crew. Today, a replica of the ship awaits curious visitors in Doğupark, Samsun.