Japanese military ship at Naval Museum

ISTANBUL – Anadolu Agency

AA photo

A ceremony on Dec. 10 at the Istanbul Naval Museum honored the dramatic rescue of shipwrecked Ottoman sailors by the residents of the Japanese town of Kushimoto in 1890.

The Japan-Turkey Society presented a model of the Japanese military ship “Hiei” to the museum in Istanbul’s Beşiktaş neighborhood, in memory of the dramatic fate of the Ottoman frigate “Ertuğrul.”

The imperial ship was carrying 602 sailors before it sank off Japan’s Pacific coast in a typhoon. A total of 69 surviving sailors were rescued by Japanese villagers in Kashinozaki.

After the accident, the surviving crewmen were taken home to Turkey by the Hiei, eventually docking in Istanbul.

The ceremony saw Turkish Naval Forces accept a replica of the special craft at the Naval Museum Command.

Japan-Turkey Society President Hiroshi Sawada said the Turkish-Japanese friendship has been deepening every day since the time of the Ertuğrul tragedy. The Hiei will be exhibited at the museum in remembrance of the solidarity shown to the Turkish sailors, Sawada added.

This year many events are being organized in Turkey and Japan for the anniversary of both the Ertuğrul incident as well as the 1985 rescue of 215 Japanese citizens from Tehran during the Iran-Iraq War on the orders of Turkey’s president at the time, Turgut Özal.

The incidents were also dramatized in a major new feature film in Turkey called “Ertuğrul 1890.”

The Istanbul Naval Museum is also hosting an exhibition, displaying more than 500 of 8,300 items unearthed during excavation works on the Ertuğrul Frigate, including fragment of the frigate, ship components, dinner sets and the ship’s officers’ belongings. The exhibition will continue until the end of this year. 

Recently, a Turkish Airlines (THY) plane named after Kushimoto landed at an airport near Tokyo.