DUMLUPINAR SUBMARINE

The year 1953, the night connecting April 3 to April 4, the Dumlupınar submarine was entering the Dardanelles on the way back from the NATO exercise in the Aegean. The route of the submarine, which sailed above the water on a foggy and windy night, was the Submarine Command’s home base in Gölcük.
Tired yet proud 86 sailors were excited to leave their beloved sea and ships and reunite with their wives and families until they were given a new assignment. However, at the time of 02.15 hours, while returning to Nara Cape in the Dardanelles, perhaps the most painful accident in the history of Turkish submarine was experienced. Dumlupınar collided with the Swedish flag Naboland Shilebi in the middle of the Bosphorus.
The dark waters, attacking from Dumlupınar’s shattered bow, swallowed the huge submarine upside down in a matter of minutes, along with 81 sailors. Making painful sounds like a harpooned whale, Dumlupınar was making his last dive while 5 sailors who fell into the sea from the bridge they were on guard during the collision were trying to survive …

After the Dumlupınar submarine collided with Naboland, 8 sailors survived on the water, but this number soon dropped to 5. Two watchmen were smashed and died in the propeller of Naboland before the eyes of Private Hüseyin Flow.
Before he got over this shock, the body of his friend Petty Officer Şaban Mutlu came to his lap with the flow. Meanwhile, the ship’s commander, Captain Sabri Çelebioğlu, Lieutenant Hasan Yumuk and Lieutenant Kemal Ünver were also struggling with the waves. Hüseyin Inkaya swam towards the lights, which he thought was a fishing boat with great effort; but he was wrong …
Despite much effort with the techniques and facilities of that day, it was not possible to remove the ship and its 81 people. That day, for the 91 meter depth in the hands of Turkey did not have opportunities to remove these submarines.
After the submarine sank, a communications buoy was launched from below to find the place where it sank. There was also a telephone line inside this buoy for communication. A fishing engine had seen the buoy. A phone and a text came out of the buoy: “Dumlupınar has sunk here, open the cover and contact! ”.
When the first lights of the day illuminated the surroundings, a terrible life market was happening in the cold darkness 90 meters deep of the Bosphorus. The 22 sailors in the torpedo section of Dumlupınar, which sank as a result of the wound and caused a fire in the maneuver room, managed to survive and were waiting to be rescued.

About four hours had passed since the disaster. The submarine sunk buoy, which was placed on the surface to provide telephone contact with the survivors, was found by the fishermen. The conversation was made with those on board through this telephone, the radio was giving this speech, the crowd gathered for this. On the first phone call, “Don’t worry son … we will save you …”
Everyone was crying, minutes passed, rescue efforts were ineffective, there were speeches, prayer and takbir sounds from below, the Rescue Ship arrived at the scene about ten hours after the accident and the work was started, the current was very strong, the divers made 11 dives and tried to tie the rescue rope to the submarine. But the technique was insufficient, the last diver was able to descend 80 meters and took it up unconscious. She was revived in the decompression chamber after 15 hours. However, there was still 11 meters to reach the ship; failed.

All efforts were fruitless …
The disaster news was heard all over the country in a short time through radio and newspapers. The 7th and last communiqué issued by the Ministry of National Defense exhausted all hopes: “The rescue of the personnel remaining on the Dumlupınar submarine ship, which sank in front of Nara in Çanakkale, has been completely lost hope”.
Stubbornly flowing waters won …
Arriving at the scene about ten hours after the accident, the ship’s crew made great efforts to save the following friends. However, in the first step of the study, the submarine’s sunk buoy was broken and the contact with Dumlupınar was lost. Reaching the submarine without the bell guide wire became even more impossible. Diver Petty Officer Yılmaz Süsen, who lived in that moment; “If Dumlupınar’s buoy had not been broken, divers would have come down by holding on the telephone cable and could attach the bell wire on the rescue hatch of the submarine. However, the wire of the buoy broke in the first step of the rescue work ”.

There is no chance to save the sailors …
If Dumlupınar’s buoy had not broken off, the divers would have come down by holding on to the telephone cable and could attach the bell wire on the rescue vessel to the submarine’s rescue hatch, but it did not happen.
Final conversations with those on board before the telephone cable broke.
The last voices from below:

• Hello, Dumlu.
• Yes, Dumlu.
• prepared – (MEHMET ALİ TOPÇU)