Sabiha Gökçen

Sabiha Gökçen (March 21st 1913, Bursa, March 22nd 2001, Ankara) is the first Turkish woman , pilot of plane but also the first woman in the world to have flown a fighter. She is the adopted child of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, founder of the Republic of Turkey.

Biography

Girl of Mustafa İzzet Bey and Hayriye Hanım, it lost her parents at the time of the First World War. Atatürk met Sabiha at the time of a visit in the town of Bursa in 1925. It was twelve years old, and wanted to study in a boarding school. Atatürk adopted it when he heard of his difficult living conditions. She initially attended the college Çankaya in Ankara, then the College of Üsküdar for girls ( Üsküdar Kız Lisesi ) with Istanbul.

The December 19th 1934, after the coming into effect in Turkey of the law on family names, Atatürk gave him the name of Gökçen . Gök means " the ciel" and Gökçen means " literally; to belong to the ciel". But it was not yet aviatrice, it will become to it six months later.

Youth

Atatürk which put much hope in the future of aviation, created a school of aviation, Türk Kuşu (the Turkish bird). Sabiha has its sides during the inauguration of the school the May 5th 1935. After a parade of sailplanes and parachutists foreign, Atatürk proposed to him to become parachutist, which it accepted and thus he registers it in this school as a first training woman. But what interested it especially, was to be able to fly a plane. She initiated herself first of all with the gliding, and obtained her license of pilot quickly. She was then sent in Soviet Union with eight other people to perfect her formation. With the beginning of the year 1936, Atatürk required of him to go to the Academy of the Turkish air force to become the first pilot of combat in the world. It there followed a formation of combat and steals on Bréguet 7 and Curtiss Hawk II. She learned how to control bombers within the 1st air regiment in the base of Eskişehir.

In 1938, it accomplished a flight of more than five days to the top of the Balkans on board a bomber Vultee-V. Later, it was named entraîneure as a chief of the Türk Kuşu where it was useful until in 1955. It became then member of the executive council of Turkish aviation. Sabiha Gökçen flew around the world during nearly 28 years, until in 1964, adding up more than 10.000 hours of flight on about fifteen of the types apparatuses.

In 1981, during the celebrations of the hundredth birthday of the birth of Mustafa Kemal, Turkish aeronautical Association published “My life on the steps of Atatürk”.

An airport with Istanbul bears its name.

It was a source of inspiration for many pilot women, and the International Aeronautical Fédération created in 2002 in its memory a medal which bears its name, medal “reserved to the women who achieved remarkable exploits in the air sports”.

Discusses

In February 2004, the weekly magazine turco-Armenian Agos published in Turkish and Armenian with Istanbul, published information according to which Sabiha Gökçen would be actually orphan Armenian having lost his/her parents during the Armenian genocide of 1915 and collected in 1922 by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk at the time of a visit of this last in an orphanage of the area of Urfa (South-eastern Anatolian). This revelation immediately caused the polemic in the Turkish press. The staff of the Turkish army diffused an official statement condemning this type of revelations which undermine the unit of the Turkish nation. According to very respected linguist and Turkish historian of Armenian origin Leave Tuğlacı, Sabiha Gökçen would be indeed of Armenian origin but would have been collected, not in Urfa, but with Bursa (Western) from where its family had left in deportation in 1915. In addition, the editor association of Agos , Hrant Dink explained that it had published this information on the basis of testimony of a niece of Sabiha Gökçen come from Arménie and while being pressed on documents and photographs published on this business in Lebanon and in Arménie. Hrant Dink also recalled that if this revelation proved, that would prove the compassion of Mustafa Kemal towards the Armenian victims.

External references

Official press release of the FAI announcing the creation of the medal Sabiha Gökçen

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