Bridges

The weather was growing colder, and the army had not yet completed the bridges over the rivers farther along the road. I was ordered forward to build temporary service bridges until permanent ones could be constructed. The largest was designed to be eleven metres long and eight wide. Several squads were assigned to the work; I explained the plans and inspected the sites each day.

I selected thirty capable soldiers from the battalion and formed a squad under my command to build the largest bridge. We felled trees in the forest and cut them into timbers. My men were skilled, and we produced a handsome, sturdy bridge. Adnan marvelled that it was better than one made of concrete. He prepared a scale model and sent it to the inspectors.

Shortly before completion, a colonel from the inspectorate arrived. He examined the bridge and asked who was responsible; Adnan pointed to me. The colonel shook my hand and awarded me one month’s leave. He then summoned a photographer, posed beside the bridge, and called me to stand with him. His name was Cevdat Bey; he made sure I received the photograph, which I keep to this day.

At that time the Ministry of Defence had issued a circular barring leave for residents of the east, lest heavy snow prevent their return. Van and Başkale were named expressly. I nevertheless completed the form and gave Başkale as my residence, hoping the approving official would not know it. I took the paper directly to the colonel, who signed at once.

I travelled by train from Manisa to the end of the line at Diyarbakır, hired a horse, and rode six days to Van. From there I hired another and continued to Başkale. At home I obtained statements from village headmen that the roads would not open for six months. My leave therefore lasted half a year, after which I returned to my unit.

The colonel was there when I arrived. I showed him the headmen’s letters; furious, he demanded to know who had authorised leave in defiance of the circular. I handed him the form. He continued insisting until he found his own signature at the bottom—then he was speechless.

While I was away, the units under me had been dispersed and I too was transferred. I received a letter recommending me as an outstanding soldier who could be trusted with skilled work. When I reported to Unit 7 and said that I had served as engineer of my previous unit, they already knew my name.

A few days later I was ordered to move the unit to Sındırgı. We camped outside the town and I received the construction plans. A neighbourhood was being demolished to make way for bridge foundations. Comparing the drawing with the site, I saw that they did not match: the face of the foundations lay about half a metre from the planned position.

I wrote my conclusion to the chief director of road works. He arrived the next day with four engineers. They examined the road, foundations, and plans, then called me to explain. Work was halted that same day. Everything built so far had to be demolished, together with nine adjacent structures. I received a letter of thanks and had no work during the two months of demolition.

On a visit to town I met Osman Balaglonu, a Başkale acquaintance who served as municipal treasurer. He and his wife were kind people; we often ate and played backgammon together. If I failed to come one day, he sent someone to find me. My other acquaintances in Sındırgı treated me warmly too, so the time passed quickly.

When demolition ended, I was called back. The commander, Nuri Bey, welcomed me and showed me a new order: 450 tax debtors whose property had been seized and who had been sent to labour at Aşkale were to come to us for pick-and-shovel work. They were wealthy non-Muslims, he said, hinting that if we gave them favours we might extract money from them.

We prepared a tent area, enlarged the kitchen, and arranged beds and blankets. President İnönü was then attending a conference in Cairo.¹ According to the account that reached us, non-Muslims demonstrated against him there, accusing his government of confiscating minority property and imposing forced labour.

After his return, as the story was told to us, İnönü ordered Prime Minister Saracoğlu to forgive the debts under the Wealth Tax, and the debtors were sent home.² The 450 men expected at our camp never came. The commander was bitterly disappointed, the tents stood empty, and my discharge approached.

My discharge certificate had already gone to Akhisar for signature when releases were suddenly frozen. Near the end of the Second World War, Turkey declared war on Germany and Japan on 23 February 1945.³ At the time I believed it had done so to win favour with the United States and Britain. The freeze delayed my discharge by nine months.

During this period I fell ill. My friends chose to nurse me themselves rather than send me to hospital, and their devoted care restored me. I returned to work, taking three hundred men out each day and inspecting the result each evening.

Among the new arrivals was a man I knew indirectly through his brother’s wife. He spoke my Aramaic dialect, Lishan Didan, but did not know me; I was still ill when he arrived from Istanbul.⁴ His unit gave him all the hardest work. On inspection I saw his hands covered with bleeding cuts. I asked my friends to protect him, and two days later transferred him to my unit.

His duties were to collect dry wood in the forest, tend the stove in my tent, rise early, light the fire, and make tea. Each morning we drank together before I left for work. So grateful was he to escape his former drudgery that he called me “God’s messenger” and wrote to his family about me.

One day the officer saw him in my tent. He had told me to choose an alert man and teach him my work, and wondered why I had picked this one. I told him not to judge by appearances; he would soon see the man’s ability. He proved excellent at cleaning, laundering, and pressing my clothes until they looked new. We covered the tent with a second canvas, making it neater than the officers’ quarters. I was also given a horse; the man groomed, fed, and watered it, saddled it each morning, and brought it to me for my inspections.