William 'Billy' Mitchell (1879-1936), The Father of the U.S. Air Force

Brigadier General Billy Mitchell, United States Army Air Service

Mitchell as Assistant Chief of Air Service (in non-regulation uniform)

Col. Archie Miller, Benedict Crowell, Lt. Ross Kirkpatrick, Gen. Wm. Mitchell, Sgt. E.N. Bruce

A scene taken from Mitchell's court-martial, 1925. This scene was recreated for the 1955 movie The Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell. Note the "turned-down" collar uniform worn by Mitchell, for which the Air Service had campaigned for several years

Monument for the Mitchell family plot at en:Forest Home Cemetery in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It is shared by patriarch Alexander Mitchell, son Senator John Mitchell and grandson General Billy Mitchell

William "Billy" Mitchell (December 29, 1879 – February 19, 1936) was a United States Army general who is regarded as the father of the U.S. Air Force. He is one of the most famous and most controversial figures in the history of American airpower.

Mitchell served in France during World War I and, by the conflict's end, commanded all American air combat units in that country. After the war, he was appointed deputy director of the Air Service and began advocating increased investment in air power, believing that this would prove vital in future wars. He argued particularly for the ability of bombers to sink battleships and organized a series of bombing runs against stationary ships designed to test the idea.

He antagonized many people in the Army with his arguments and criticism and, in 1925, was returned to his permanent rank of Colonel. Later that year, he was court-martialed for insubordination after accusing Army and Navy leaders of an "almost treasonable administration of the national defense." He resigned from the service shortly afterward.

Mitchell received many honors following his death, including a commission by President Franklin Roosevelt as a Major General. He is also the only individual after whom a type of American military aircraft, the North American B-25 Mitchell, is named.

Born in Nice, France, to John L. Mitchell, a wealthy Wisconsin senator and his wife Harriet, Mitchell grew up on an estate in what is now the Milwaukee suburb of West Allis, Wisconsin. His grandfather Alexander Mitchell, a Scotsman, was the wealthiest person in Wisconsin for his generation and established what became the Milwaukee Road along with the Marine Bank of Wisconsin. Mitchell Park and the important shopping precinct Mitchell Street were named in honor of Alexander.

Billy Mitchell graduated from Columbian College of George Washington University, where he was a member of the DC Alpha chapter of the Phi Kappa Psi Fraternity. He then enlisted as a private at age 18 during the Spanish American War. Quickly gaining a commission due to his father's influence, he joined the U.S. Army Signal Corps. Following the cessation of hostilities, Mitchell remained in the army. He predicted as early as 1906, while an instructor at the Army's Signal School in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, that future conflicts would take place in the air, not on the ground.

A member of one of Milwaukee's most prominent families, Billy Mitchell was probably the first person with ties to Wisconsin to see the Wright Brothers plane fly. In 1908, when a young Signal Corps officer, Mitchell observed Orville Wright's flying demonstration at Fort Myer, Virginia. Mitchell took flight instruction at the Curtiss Aviation School at Newport News, Virginia. One of Mitchell's flight instructors was Walter Lees, an aviator from Mazomanie, Wisconsin.

After tours in the Philippines and Alaska Territory, Mitchell was assigned to the General Staff—at the time, its youngest member at age 32. He became interested in aviation and was assigned to the Aeronautical Division, U.S. Signal Corps, a predecessor of the Army Air Service. In 1916 at age 38, he took private flying lessons because the Army considered him too old and too high-ranking for flight training.

On April 6, 1917, the United States declared war on Germany, and Mitchell, by then a lieutenant colonel, was in Spain en route to France as an observer. He immediately went to Paris and set up an office for the Aviation Section, from which he collaborated extensively with British and French air leaders such as General Hugh Trenchard, studying their strategies as well as their aircraft. He made the first flight by an American officer over German lines on April 24, flying with a French pilot. Before long, Mitchell had gained enough experience to begin preparations for American air operations. Mitchell rapidly earned a reputation as a daring, flamboyant, and tireless leader. He eventually was elevated to the rank of Brigadier General and commanded all American air combat units in France. In September 1918, he planned and led nearly 1,500 British, French and Italian aircraft in the air phase of the Battle of Saint-Mihiel, one of the first coordinated air-ground offensives in history. He ended the war as Chief of Air Service, Group of Armies, and became Chief of Air Service, Third Army after the armistice.

Recognized as one of the top American combat airmen of the war alongside aces such as his good friend, Eddie Rickenbacker, he was probably the best-known American in Europe. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, the Distinguished Service Medal, the World War I Victory Medal with eight campaign clasps, and several foreign decorations. Despite his superb leadership and his fine combat record, he alienated many of his superiors during and after his 18 months in France.

Returning to the United States in January 1919, it had been widely expected throughout the Air Service that Mitchell would receive the post-war assignment of Director of Air Service. Instead he returned to find that Maj. Gen. Charles T. Menoher, an artilleryman who had commanded the Rainbow Division in France, had been appointed director on the recommendation of his classmate General Pershing, to maintain operational control of aviation by the ground forces.

Mitchell received appointment on February 28, 1919, as Director of Military Aeronautics, to head the flying component of the Air Service, but that office was in name only as it was a wartime agency that would expire six months after the signing of a peace treaty. Menoher instituted a reorganization of the Air Service based on the divisional system of the AEF, eliminating the DMA as an organization, and Mitchell was assigned as Third Assistant Executive, in charge of the Training and Operations Group, Office of Director of Air Service (ODAS), in April 1919. He maintained his temporary wartime rank of brigadier general.

When the Army was reorganized by Congress on June 4, 1920, the Air Service was recognized as a combatant arm of the line, third in size behind the Infantry and Artillery. On July 1, 1920, Mitchell was promoted to the permanent rank of colonel, Signal Corps, but also received a recess appointment (as did Menoher) to become Assistant Chief of Air Service with the rank of brigadier general. On July 30, 1920, he was transferred and promoted to the permanent rank of colonel, Air Service, with date of rank from July 1, placing him first in seniority among all Air Service branch officers. On March 4, 1921, Mitchell was appointed Assistant Chief of Air Service by new President Warren G. Harding with consent of the Senate.

Mitchell did not share in the common belief that World War I would be the war to end war. "If a nation ambitious for universal conquest gets off to a flying start in a war of the future," he said, "it may be able to control the whole world more easily than a nation has controlled a continent in the past."

He returned from Europe with a fervent belief that within a near future, possibly within ten years, air power would become the predominant force of war, and that it should be united entirely in an independent air force equal to the Army and Navy. He found encouragement in a number of bills before Congress proposing a Department of Aeronautics that included an air force separate from either the Army and Navy, primarily legislation introduced in August 1919 by Senator Harry New (Rep-Indiana), influenced by the recommendations of a fact-finding commission sent to Europe under the direction of Assistant Secretary of War Benedict Crowell in early 1919 that contradicted the findings of Army boards and advocated an independent air force.

Mitchell believed that the use of floating bases was necessary to defend the nation against naval threats, but Chief of Naval Operations Adm. William S. Benson had dissolved Naval Aeronautics as an organization early in 1919. However, senior naval aviators feared that land-based aviators in a "unified" independent air force would no more understand the requirements of sea-based aviation than ground forces commanders understood the capabilities and potential of air power, and vigorously resisted any alliance with Mitchell.

The Navy's civilian leadership was equally opposed, if for other reasons. On April 3, Mitchell met with Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin D. Roosevelt and a board of admirals to discuss aviation, and Mitchell urged the development of naval aviation because of the growing obsolescence of the surface fleet. His assurances that the Air Service could develop whatever bomb was needed to sink a battleship, and that a national defense organization of land, sea, and air components was essential and inevitable, were met with cool hostility. Mitchell found his ideas publicly denounced as "pernicious" by Roosevelt. Convinced that within as soon as ten years strategic bombardment would become a threat to the United States and make the Air Service the nation's first line of defense instead of the Navy, he began to set out to prove that aircraft were capable of sinking ships to reinforce his position.

His relations with superiors continued to sour as he began to attack both the War and Navy Departments for being insufficiently farsighted regarding airpower. He advocated the development of a number of aircraft innovations, including bombsights, sled-runner landing gear for winter operations, engine superchargers and aerial torpedoes. He ordered the use of aircraft in fighting forest fires and border patrols, and encouraged the staging of a transcontinental air race, a flight around the perimeter of the United States. He also encouraged Army pilots to challenge speed, endurance and altitude records. In short, he encouraged anything that would further develop the use of the aircraft, and that would keep aviation in the news.

In February 1921, at the urging of Mitchell, who was anxious to test his theories of destruction of ships by aerial bombing, Secretary of War Newton Baker and Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels agreed to a series of joint Army-Navy exercises, known as Project B, to be held that summer in which surplus or captured ships could be used as targets.

Mitchell was concerned that the building of dreadnoughts was taking precious defense dollars away from military aviation. He was convinced that a force of anti-shipping airplanes could defend a coastline with more economy than a combination of coastal guns and naval vessels. A thousand bombers could be built at the same cost as one battleship, and could sink that battleship. Mitchell infuriated the Navy by claiming he could sink ships "under war conditions", and boasted he could prove it if he were permitted to bomb captured German battleships.

The Navy reluctantly agreed to the demonstration after news leaked of its own tests. To counter Mitchell, the Navy had sunk the old battleship Indiana near Tangier Island, Virginia, on November 1, 1920, using its own airplanes. Daniels had hoped to squelch Mitchell by releasing a report on the results written by Captain William D. Leahy stating that, "The entire experiment pointed to the improbability of a modern battleship being either destroyed or completely put out of action by aerial bombs." When the New York Tribune revealed that the Navy's "tests" were done with dummy sand bombs and that the ship was actually sunk using high explosives placed on the ship, Congress introduced two resolutions urging new tests and backed the Navy into a corner.

In the arrangements for the new tests, there was to be a news blackout until all data had been analyzed at which point only the official news report would be released; Mitchell felt that the Navy was going to bury the results. The Chief of the Air Corps attempted to have Mitchell dismissed a week before the tests began, reacting to Navy complaints about Mitchell's criticisms, but the new Secretary of War John W. Weeks backed down when it became apparent that Mitchell had widespread public and media support.

On May 1, 1921, Mitchell assembled the 1st Provisional Air Brigade, an air and ground crew of 125 aircraft and 1,000 men at Langley, Virginia, using six squadrons from the Air Service:

Air Service Field Officers School, Langley Field, Virginia, (SE-5 fighters)
50th Squadron (later 431st Bomb Squadron)
88th Squadron (later 436th Bomb Squadron)
1st Day Bombardment Group (later 2nd Bomb Group), Kelly Field, Texas (SE-5 fighters, Martin NBS-1, Handley-Page O/400, and Caproni CA-5 bombers)
49th Squadron
96th Squadron
7th Observation Group (Second Corps Area), Mitchel Field, New York (DH-4 and Douglas O-2 observation planes)
1st Squadron
5th Squadron

Mitchell took command on May 27 after testing bombs, fuses, and other equipment at Aberdeen Proving Ground and began training in anti-ship bombing techniques. Alexander Seversky, a veteran Russian pilot who had bombed German ships in the Great War, joined the effort, suggesting the bombers aim near the ships so that expanding water pressure from the underwater blasts would stave in and separate hull plates. Further discussion with Captain Alfred Wilkinson Johnson, Commander, Air Force, Atlantic fleet aboard USS Shawmut, confirmed that near-miss bombs would inflict more damage than direct hits; near-misses would cause an underwater concussive effect against the hull.

The Navy and the Air Service were at cross purposes regarding the tests. Supported by General Pershing, the Navy set rules and conditions that enhanced the survivability of the targets, stating that the purpose of the tests was to determine how much damage ships could withstand. The ships had to be sunk in at least 100 fathoms of water (so as not to become navigational hazards), and the Navy chose an area 50 mi (80 km) off the mouth of Chesapeake Bay rather than either of two possible closer areas, minimizing the effective time the Army's bombers would have in the target area. The planes were forbidden from using aerial torpedoes, would be permitted only two hits on the battleship using their heaviest bombs, and would have to stop between hits so that a damage assessment party could go aboard. Smaller ships could not be struck by bombs larger than 600 pounds, and also were subject to the same interruptions in attacks.

Mitchell held to the Navy's restrictions for the tests of June 21, July 13 and July 18, and successfully sank the ex-German destroyer G102 and the ex-German light cruiser Frankfurt in concert with Navy aircraft. On each of these demonstrations the ships were first attacked by SE-5 fighters strafing and bombing the decks of the ships with 25-pound anti-personnel bombs to simulate suppression of antiaircraft fire, followed by attacks from twin-engined Martin NBS-1 (Martin MB-2) bombers using high explosive demolition bombs. Mitchell observed the attacks from the controls of his own DH-4, nicknamed The Osprey.

On July 20, 1921, the Navy brought out the ex-German World War I battleship, Ostfriesland. One day of scheduled 230, 550 and 600 lb (270 kg) bomb attacks by Marine, Navy and Army aircraft settled the Ostfriesland three feet by the stern with a five degree list to port. She was taking on water. Further bombing was delayed a day, the Navy claiming due to rough seas that prevented their Board of Observers from going aboard, the Air Service countering that as the Army bombers approached, they were ordered not to attack. Mitchell's bombers were forced to circle for 47 minutes, as a result of which they dropped only half their bombs, and none of their large bombs.

On the morning of July 21, in accordance with a strictly orchestrated schedule of attacks, five NBS-1 bombers led by 1st Lt. Clayton Bissell dropped a single 1,100 lb bomb each, scoring three direct hits. The Navy stopped further drops, although the Army bombers had nine bombs remaining, to assess damage. By noon, Ostfriesland had settled two more feet by the stern and one foot by the bow.

At this point, 2,000 lb (910 kg) bombs were loaded and a flight was dispatched consisting of two Handley-Page O/400 and six NBS-1 bombers. One Handley Page dropped out for mechanical reasons, but the NBS-1s dropped six bombs in quick succession between 12:18 p.m. and 12:31 p.m., aiming for the water near the ship. There were no direct hits but three of the bombs landed close enough to rip hull plates as well as cause the ship to roll over. The ship sank at 12:40 p.m., 22 minutes after the first bomb, with a seventh bomb dropped by the Handley Page on the foam rising up from the sinking ship. Nearby the site, observing, were various foreign and domestic officials aboard the USS Henderson.

Although Mitchell had stressed "war-time conditions", the tests were under static conditions and the sinking of the Ostfriesland was accomplished by violating rules agreed upon by General Pershing that would have allowed Navy engineers to examine the effects of smaller munitions. Navy studies of the wreck of the Ostfriesland show she had suffered little topside damage from bombs and was sunk by progressive flooding that might have been stemmed by a fast-acting damage control party on board the vessel. Mitchell used the sinking for his own publicity purposes, though his results were downplayed in public by General of the Armies John J. Pershing who hoped to smooth Army/Navy relations. The efficacy of the tests remain in debate to this day.

Nevertheless, the test was highly influential at the time, causing budgets to be redrawn for further air development and forcing the Navy to look more closely at the possibilities of naval airpower. Despite the advantages enjoyed by the bombers in the artificial exercise, Mitchell's report stressed facts repeatedly proven later in war:

"...sea craft of all kinds, up to and including the most modern battleships, can be destroyed easily by bombs dropped from aircraft, and further, that the most effective means of destruction are bombs. [They] demonstrated beyond a doubt that, given sufficient bombing planes—in short an adequate air force— aircraft constitute a positive defense of our country against hostile invasion."

The fact of the sinkings was indisputable, and Mitchell repeated the performance twice in tests conducted with like results on obsolete U.S. pre-dreadnought battleship Alabama in September 1921, and the battleships Virginia and New Jersey in September 1923. The latter two ships were subjected to teargas attacks and hit with specially designed 4,300 lb (2,000 kg) demolition bombs.

The bombing tests had several immediate and turbulent results. Almost immediately the Navy and President Harding were incensed by an apparent demonstration of naval weakness just after Harding had announced on July 10 invitations to other naval powers to gather in Washington for a conference on the limitation of naval armaments. Statements asserting the obsolescence of the battleship by disarmament proponents in Congress such as Sen. William Borah heightened official anxiety. Both services tried to defuse the results by reports from the Joint Board and Gen. Pershing dismissing Mitchell's claims, and suppressing Mitchell's report, but the latter was leaked to the press.

Gen. Menoher in September forced a showdown over Mitchell as the bombing tests continued. He confronted Secretary Weeks and demanded that either he relieve Mitchell as Assistant Chief of Air Corps or accept Menoher's resignation. Weeks allowed Menoher to resign on October 4 and return to the ground forces "for personal reasons". A reciprocal resignation offer from Mitchell was refused.

Maj. Gen. Mason Patrick was again chosen by Pershing to sort out a mess in the Air Service and became the new Chief on October 5. Patrick made it clear to Mitchell that although he would accept Mitchell's expertise as counsel, all decisions would be made by Patrick. When Mitchell soon got into a minor but embarrassing protocol rift with R/Adm. William A. Moffett at the start of the naval arms limitation conference, Patrick assigned him to an inspection tour of Europe with Alfred Verville and Lt. Clayton Bissell that lasted the duration of the conference over the winter of 1921-22.

Mitchell was dispatched by President Harding to West Virginia. His mission was to stop the warfare that had broken out between the United Mine Workers, Stone Mountain Coal Company, the Baldwin-Felts Agency, and other groups after the Matewan Massacre.

In 1922, while in Europe for Gen. Patrick, Mitchell met the Italian air power theorist Giulio Douhet and soon afterwards an excerpted translation of Douhet's The Command of the Air began to circulate in the Air Service. In 1924, Gen. Patrick again dispatched him on an inspection tour, this time to Hawaii and Asia, to get him off the front pages. Mitchell came back with a 324-page report that predicted future war with Japan, including the attack on Pearl Harbor. Of note, Mitchell discounted the value of aircraft carriers in an attack on the Hawaiian Islands, believing they were of little practical use as:

not only can they not operate efficiently on the high seas but even if they could they cannot place sufficient aircraft in the air at one time to insure a concentrated operation.

Rather he believed a surprise attack on the Hawaiian Islands would be conducted by land-based airpower operating from islands in the Pacific. His report, published in 1925 as the book Winged Defense, foretold wider benefits of an investment in air power:

Those interested in the future of the country, not only from a national defense standpoint but from a civil, commercial and economic one as well, should study this matter carefully, because air power has not only come to stay but is, and will be, a dominating factor in the world’s development.

Winged Defense sold only 4,500 copies between August 1925 and January 1926, the months surrounding the publicity of the court martial, thus Mitchell did not reach a widespread audience.

Mitchell experienced difficulties within the Army, notably with his superiors when he appeared before the Lampert Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives and sharply castigated Army and Navy leadership. The War Department had endorsed a proposal to establish a "General Headquarters Air Force" as a vehicle for modernization and expansion of the Air Service, to be funded through shared appropriations for aviation with the Navy, but shelved the plan when the Navy refused, incensing Mitchell.

In March 1925, when his term as Assistant Chief of the Air Service expired, he reverted to his permanent rank of Colonel and was transferred to San Antonio, Texas, as air officer to a ground forces corps. Although such demotions were not unusual in demobilizations (Patrick himself had gone from Major General to Colonel upon returning to the Army Corps of Engineers in 1919), the move was widely seen as punishment and exile, since Mitchell had petitioned to remain as Assistant Chief when his term expired, and his transfer to an assignment with no political influence at a relatively unimportant Army base had been directed by Secretary of War John Weeks.

In response to the Navy dirigible Shenandoah crashing in a storm, killing 14 of the crew, and the loss of three seaplanes on a flight from the West Coast to Hawaii, Mitchell issued a statement accusing senior leaders in the Army and Navy of incompetence and "almost treasonable administration of the national defense." In October 1925, a charge with eight specifications was preferred against Mitchell on the direct order of President Calvin Coolidge accusing him of violation of the 96th Article of War, an omnibus article that Mitchell's chief counsel, Congressman Frank Reid, declared to be "unconstitutional" as a violation of free speech. The court martial began in early November and lasted for seven weeks.

The youngest of the 12 judges was Major General Douglas MacArthur, who later described the order to sit on Mitchell's court-martial as "one of the most distasteful orders I ever received." Of the thirteen judges, none had aviation experience and three were removed by defense challenges for bias, including Major General Charles P. Summerall, the president of the court. The case was then presided over by Major General Robert Lee Howze. Among those who testified for Mitchell were Edward Rickenbacker, Hap Arnold, Carl Spaatz and Fiorello La Guardia. The trial attracted significant interest, and public opinion supported Mitchell.

However, the court found the truth or falseness of Mitchell's accusations to be immaterial to the charge and on December 17, 1925, found him "guilty of all specifications and of the charge". The court suspended him from active duty for five years without pay, which President Coolidge later amended to half-pay. The generals ruling in the case wrote, "The Court is thus lenient because of the military record of the Accused during the World War." MacArthur later claimed he had voted to acquit, and Fiorello La Guardia claimed that MacArthur's "not guilty" ballot had been found in the judges' anteroom. MacArthur felt "that a senior officer should not be silenced for being at variance with his superiors in rank and with accepted doctrine."

Mitchell resigned instead on February 1, 1926, and spent the next decade writing and preaching air power to all who would listen. However, his departure from the service sharply reduced his ability to influence military policy and public opinion.

Mitchell viewed the election of his one-time antagonist Franklin D. Roosevelt as advantageous for air power, and met with him early in 1932 to brief him on his concepts for a unification of the military in a department of defense that intrigued and interested Roosevelt. Mitchell believed he might receive an appointment as assistant secretary of war for air or perhaps even secretary of defense in a Roosevelt administration, but neither prospect materialized.

In 1926, Mitchell made his home with his wife Elizabeth at the 120-acre (0.49 km2) Boxwood Farm in Middleburg, Virginia, which remained his primary residence until his death. He died of a variety of ailments including a bad heart and an extreme case of influenza in a hospital in New York City on February 19, 1936, and was buried at Forest Home Cemetery in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Mitchell's son, John, served in the Army as a First Lieutenant, dying in 1942. Mitchell's first cousin, the Canadian George Croil, went on to secure an autonomous status for the Royal Canadian Air Force and serve as its first Chief of the Air Staff during the opening year of World War II.

Mitchell's concept of a battleship's vulnerability to air attack under "war-time conditions" would be vindicated after his death; a number of warships were sunk by air attack alone during World War II. The battleships Conte di Cavour, Arizona, Utah, Oklahoma, Prince of Wales, Roma, Musashi, Tirpitz, Yamato, Schleswig-Holstein, Impero, Limnos, Kilkis, Marat, Ise and Hyūga were all put out of commission or destroyed by aerial attack including bombs, air-dropped torpedoes and missiles fired from aircraft. Some of these ships were destroyed by surprise attacks in harbor, others were sunk at sea after vigorous defense. However, most of the sinkings were carried out by aircraft carrier-based planes, not by land-based bombers as envisioned by Mitchell. The world's navies had responded quickly to the Ostfriesland lesson.

• The North American B-25 Mitchell bomber, introduced in 1941, is the only American military aircraft type to ever be named after a specific person. Nearly 10,000 Mitchell were produced, including the sixteen bombers which Lt. Colonel Jimmy Doolittle and his raiders used to bomb Tokyo and four other Japanese targets in April 1942.
• In 1942, President Franklin Roosevelt, in recognizing Mitchell's contributions to air power, elevated him to the rank of major general (two stars) on the Army Air Corps retired list and petitioned the U.S. Congress to posthumously award Mitchell the Congressional Gold Medal, "in recognition of his outstanding pioneer service and foresight in the field of American military aviation." It was awarded in 1946.
• In the 1943 classic World War II movie A Guy Named Joe the unnamed "General" who gives the deceased pilot his new assignment was "probably modeled after Billy Mitchell."
• In 1955, the Air Force Association passed a resolution calling for the voiding of Mitchell's court-martial. His son William Jr. petitioned in 1957 to have the court-martial verdict set aside, which the Air Force denied while expressing regret about the circumstances under which Mitchell's military career ended.[citation needed] The Association named their Institute for Airpower Studies for the General and the current director is Dr. Rebecca Grant.
• The 1955 motion picture The Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell, directed by Otto Preminger, portrays Mitchell's plight in a dramatic and vindicating light.
• Inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame in 1966.
• In 1971, Pipes and Drums, the Billy Mitchell Scottish, was created in Milwaukee to honor Mitchell and his ties to Scotland and Milwaukee.
• General Mitchell International Airport in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, is named after him, as is the much smaller Billy Mitchell airstrip in Cape Hatteras, North Carolina.
• Mitchell Hall, the cadet dining facility at the United States Air Force Academy, was dedicated in honor of Mitchell in 1959.
• William (Billy) Mitchell High School in Colorado Springs, Colorado, is also named after him.
• Turn 13 at the Road America race circuit near Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin, is also known as Bill Mitchell Bend. A now-demolished bridge that formerly crossed the track was known as the Billy Mitchell Bridge.
• At The George Washington University in Washington, D.C., General Mitchell was honored by his alma mater with the naming of a large residence building, William Mitchell Hall.
• The Civil Air Patrol cadet program includes an award called the General Billy Mitchell Award., signifying the rank of Cadet 2nd Lieutenant, and completion of several tests and essays.
• The U.S. Air Force Pipe Band, which existed as a free-standing unit within the U.S. Air Force Band between 1960 and 1970, wore a tartan created in honor of Billy Mitchell.
• In 1999, General Mitchell's portrait was put on a US postage stamp. Although the 55-cent stamp met an airmail rate and portrayed a figure important to the development of aviation, it was not marked or issued as an airmail stamp. It also met the two-ounce first-class rate in effect at the time.
• In 2004, Congress voted to reauthorize the President to posthumously commission Mitchell as a Major General in the Army, which the President did in 2005, although President Franklin Roosevelt had previously done this in 1942.
• On May 18, 2006, the US Air Force unveiled two prototypes for new service dress uniforms, referencing the service's heritage. One, modeled on the United States Army Air Service uniform, was designated the "Billy Mitchell heritage coat" (the other was named for Hap Arnold).
• Hap Arnold told reporters shortly after Mitchell's death, "People would often say Billy Mitchell was years ahead of his time, but many would forget how it was also true."
• In 2007, the Air Force first awarded the Air Force Combat Action Medal, which is based on the insignia painted on Billy Mitchell's own aircraft during World War I.
  

Sources :
Book "A Concise History of the U.S. Air Force" by Stephen L. McFarland
www.af.mil
www.en.wikipedia.org

Patrick Cleburne (1828-1864), Stonewall of the West

"Every man should endeavor to understand the meaning of subjugation before it is too late... It means the history of this heroic struggle will be written by the enemy; that our youth will be trained by Northern schoolteachers; will learn from Northern school books their version of the war; will be impressed by the influences of history and education to regard our gallant dead as traitors, and our maimed veterans as fit objects for derision... It is said slavery is all we are fighting for, and if we give it up we give up all. Even if this were true, which we deny, slavery is not all our enemies are fighting for. It is merely the pretense to establish sectional superiority and a more centralized form of government, and to deprive us of our rights and liberties." - Maj. General Patrick R. Cleburne, CSA, January 1864, writing on what would happen if the Confederacy were to be defeated


"If this cause, that is dear to my heart, is doomed to fail, I pray heaven may let me fall with it, while my face is toward the enemy and my arm battling for that which I know is right." - Major General Patrick R. Cleburne before his fatal wound at the battle of Franklin, Tennessee.


Battle of Franklin, by Kurz & Allison, Art Publishers, 1891. This battle was fought on November 30, 1864, at Franklin, Tennessee, as part of the Franklin-Nashville Campaign of the American Civil War. It was one of the worst disasters of the war for the Confederate States Army. Confederate Lt. Gen. John Bell Hood's Army of Tennessee conducted numerous frontal assaults against fortified positions occupied by the Union forces under Maj. Gen. John M. Schofield and was unable to break through or to prevent Schofield from a planned, orderly withdrawal to Nashville

Statue of Confederate General Patrick R. Cleburne at Ringgold, Georgia. Photographed in 19 November 2011

Patrick Ronayne Cleburne (play /ˈkleɪbɜrn/ KLAY-burn; March 16 or March 17, 1828 – November 30, 1864) was an Irish American soldier, best known for his service in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War, where he rose to the rank of major general.

Patrick Cleburne was promoted in the Confederate army at an astounding rate – enlisting as a private in early 1861, and rising to the rank of Major General by December 1862. Highly respected by both his soldiers and his enemies, he showed great physical and moral courage. In fact, it took great courage to issue his controversial – but sincere – January 1864 proposal to arm slaves to fight for the Confederacy.

No Irish-born soldier rose higher in the ranks of the army of the Confederacy during the American Civil War than did Major General Patrick Ronayne Cleburne. But this stature only hints at the high esteem in which he was held by nearly all of his subordinates, his fellow officers, historians up until today, and even those who fought against him. Only Federal General Phil Sheridan — if he was actually born in Ireland, which is not certain — could be compared to him.

Cleburne was born March 16, 1828, at Bride Park Cottage, County Cork. His father was a physician. His early life was one of privilege and personal tragedy, for he never knew his mother, who died when he was 18 months old. His father died when he was just 15.

Patrick — called Ronayne by his family — was expected to follow in the footsteps of his father and become a physician. However, after failing in two attempts to enter Trinity College, Dublin, to study medicine, Cleburne, confused and dispirited, enlisted in the British army in 1846. His experiences serving in the army in Ireland, coming as they did during "The Great Hunger," could not have been pleasant.

In 1849, the fourth year of the famine, his family, suffering from financial difficulties, proposed that four of the Cleburne siblings go to America. Patrick agreed, and bought his way out of the army. With brothers William and Joseph and sister Anne, he made his way to the United States, trading a life in the enlisted ranks of the army for the wide-open freedom of the American frontier.

Cleburne would soon make his home in Helena, Arkansas, where he worked his way up from a drugstore clerk to become a lawyer. He involved himself in politics deeply enough to be seriously wounded by a member of the anti-immigrant "Know-Nothing " party in 1856. Fully recovered by the summer of 1860, he enlisted in a militia group that gave itself the unlikely name of the "Yell Rifles," in honor of Archibald Yell, an Arkansas hero of the Mexican-American War , not for any prowess in the soon-to-became renowned "rebel yell."

He enlisted as a private, but his former British military training, and no doubt the strength of his personality, inspired the men of the company to elect him captain. With Abraham Lincoln's election galvanizing the South, Cleburne, like many other Irish immigrants, faced a daunting choice. On April 9, 1861, civil war began when South Carolinians fired on Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor. The day after, Cleburne wrote his brother Robert, "I am with the South in life or in death, in victory or in defeat."

The Yell Rifles joined with other militia companies from Arkansas to form the 1st Arkansas Infantry (which later became the 15th Arkansas). On May 14, Patrick Cleburne's qualifications for military command were recognized again, and he was elected colonel. In the ensuing months, he drilled them into a unit that many said was the finest Confederate regiment beyond the Eastern states!

In October, Cleburne's regiment moved up to join Confederate forces gathering in Bowling Green, Kentucky, and Cleburne's hard work in training his regiment paid off with his promotion to command a brigade in Hardee's division. In March 1862, he received his promotion to brigadier general to go with the command.

Cleburne proved to be an outstanding brigade commander. He was praised by Hardee for his conduct at Shiloh , where his brigade came within 400 yards of Pittsburg Landing, held desperately by the beleaguered Federals. There his brigade sustained more than 40 percent casualties over the two days of battle, which finally ended in a Northern victory. And we should take note also that, though he had British army experience, the first time that Cleburne experienced actual combat was at Shiloh as the commander of a brigade.

At the Battle of Richmond in August, Cleburne commanded a division, a sure sign that his ability was recognized by others. His performance in his first battle as a division commander proved conspicuous once again, but nearly deadly, too. He took a musket ball through his open mouth and out his cheek, performing a multiple tooth extraction — without novocaine — along the way. But the orders he had given before this wound forced him from the field played a major part in the Confederate victory.

When he returned to duty two months later, just in time for the Battle of Perryville , army commander Braxton Bragg returned him to brigade command, an early indication of Bragg's famous shortcomings as a commander. At Perryville, Cleburne's brigade captured a strongly held Federal position, and he was also instrumental in saving a large amount of supplies during the army's retreat to Tennessee. In December, his stellar performance in 1862 was rewarded with promotion to major general and command of a division.

The year 1863 would be very eventful for Cleburne. At Stones River as the year began, his division drove the opposing Federals several miles back. At Chickamauga in September, Gen. D.H. Hill said, "I have never seen troops behave more gallantly than did his [Cleburne's] division." And it was his division that thwarted the Federal's victorious pursuit of Bragg's army after the debacle at Missionary Ridge in November. During the aftermath of this rear guard action, his brigade gave Joe Hooker a thrashing, fighting in independent command at Ringgold Gap, Ga. He would be voted a resolution of thanks from the Confederate Congress for that action.

As 1863 was fading into 1864, with the cause he loved and served valiantly being inexorably ground to defeat, Cleburne proposed what for many Southerners was the unthinkable to the Confederate government. Cleburne drafted a well-considered, written proposal that would arguably become the nearly invincible Cleburne's ironic legacy, his only failure. In the January 2 proposal, presented to General Joe Johnston and the rest of the command structure of the exhausted Western army, Cleburne suggested that Southern slaves be offered freedom in return for service in the Confederate army.

Though Gen. Johnston declined to send it on to Richmond, Gen. William Walker, who considered the idea close to treason, forwarded a copy to Confederate President Jefferson Davis. Davis ordered Johnston to suppress any mention of the idea, saying it was "injurious to the public service." Bragg, failed as a field commander, yet now a military advisor to Davis, said, "We must mark the men (who backed the idea) ... and feel they will bear watching." Cleburne's advancement into the army's top echelons ground to a halt.

Through 1864, Cleburne continued his stellar performance as a division commander in Johnston's army during the battles around Atlanta, but no promotion to corps command would be forthcoming for the best division commander the Confederate army ever had. This professional disappointment was tempered by personal joy, however, as Patrick met, and became betrothed to Susan Tarleton of Mobile, Alabama. But this relationship, like so many in the war, was star-crossed.

On Nov. 30, the army, now under the command of the irascible, one-legged John Bell Hood , stood before a nearly impregnable Federal fortification at Franklin, Tennessee. Hood ordered a frontal assault. The men of the Army of Tennessee knew they were headed to destruction. "Few of us will ever return to Arkansas," Gen. Daniel Govan told Cleburne. "Well, Govan," Cleburne replied, "if we are to die, let us die like men." Cleburne mounted his horse, and before the day was over he was shot dead.

Gen. William Hardee later said, "Where his division defended, no odds broke its lines; where it attacked, no numbers resisted its onslaught, save only once - and there is the grave of Cleburne and his heroic division."

Cleburne was buried in Columbia, near St. John's Episcopal Church. In 1870, his remains were moved to his native Helena, Arkansan, and buried in the Evergreen Confederate Cemetery, on Crowley's Ridge, where he lies today.


Source:
www.civilwar.org
www.civilwarartist.com
www.confederateamericanpride.com
www.en.wikipedia.org
www.thewildgeese.com

Otto Liman von Sanders (1855-1929), Commander of German-Turkish Forces in World War I

Equestrian portrait of Otto Liman von Sanders in a picture taken between circa 1910 and circa 1915. Probably before the Kassel Ottoneum

A portrait of Otto Liman von Sanders taken in 1914. As commander of the German Military Mission, Otto von Sanders was given the rank of Turkish marshal and command of the First Army Corps. Under his guidance the mission provided an infusion of experience and professionalism that had previously been lacking in the Turkish Army. Specialist troops, artillery units, armaments and other military supplies were provided as part of this alliance


A portrait of Otto Liman von Sanders taken in 1914. He is wearing Turkish fez, German general jacket and Pour le Mérite in his neck


A portrait of Otto Liman von Sanders taken in 1916. He is wearing Turkish fez and Pour le Mérite in his neck


Otto Liman von Sanders (sitting, 3rd from right) with Turkish officers, 1914. Depicted in this picture: Hüseyin Rauf Bey, chief of staff of the ottoman admirality; Vehib Pasha, Commander of the south group (Gallipoli); Esat Pasha, Commander of the north group (Gallipoli); Süleyman Pasha, head of the medical service; and Cevat Pasha, military governor of İstanbul

Generalleutnant Otto Liman von Sanders (February 17, 1855 – August 22, 1929) was a German general who served as adviser and military commander for the Ottoman Empire during World War I.

He was born in Stolp in Pomerania region in Germany. His father was a Jewish nobleman. Like many other Prussians from aristocratic families, he joined the military and rose through the ranks to Lieutenant General. Like several Prussian generals before him (e.g., Von Moltke and Baron von der Goltz), the unpopular Liman served in numerous staff and divisional commands before being appointed director of a German military mission to Turkey in 1913 intended to reorganise the army of the Ottoman Empire.

Liman's appointment brought a storm of protest from Russia, who suspected German designs on the Ottoman capital. A compromise arrangement was subsequently agreed whereby Liman was appointed to the rather less senior (and less influential) position of Inspector General in January 1914.For nearly eighty years, the Ottoman Empire had been trying to modernize their army along European lines. Liman von Sanders would be the last German to attempt this task.

Liman had little time to organize the defences, but he had two things in his favor. First, the Ottoman 5th Army was the best army they had, some 84,000 well-equipped soldiers in six divisions. Second, he was helped by poor Allied leadership. Instead of using their massive fleet to force a passage through the straits to Istanbul, the British and French admirals called for ground troops to capture the Dardanelles peninsula so their battleships could sail on into the Sea of Marmara unmolested. Liman had just over a month to prepare. Then, on 23 April 1915, the British landed a major force at Cape Helles. One of Liman's best decisions during this time was to promote Mustafa Kemal (later known as Atatürk) to commander of the 19th division. Kemal's division literally saved the day for the Ottomans. His troops marched up on the day of the invasion and occupied the ridge line above the ANZAC landing site, just as the ANZAC troops were moving up the slope themselves. Kemal recognized the danger and personally made sure his troops held the ridge line. They were never forced off despite constant attacks for the next five months.

From April to November 1915 (when the decision to evacuate was made), Liman had to fight off numerous attacks against his defensive positions. The British tried another landing at Suvla Bay, but this also was halted by the Ottoman defenders. The only bright spot for the British in this entire operation was that they managed to evacuate their positions without much loss. However, this battle was a major victory for the Ottoman army and some of the credit is given to the generalship of Liman von Sanders.

Early in 1915, the previous head of the German military mission to the Ottoman Empire, Baron von der Goltz arrived in Istanbul as military advisor to the (essentially powerless) Sultan, Mehmed V. The old Baron did not get along with Liman von Sanders and did not like the three Pashas (Enver Pasha, Cemal Pasha and Talat) who ran the Ottoman Empire during the war. The Baron proposed some major offensives against the British, but these proposals came to nothing in the face of Allied offensives against the Ottomans on three fronts (the Dardanelles, the Caucusus Front, and the newly opened Mesopotamian Front). Liman was rid of the old Baron when Enver Pasha sent him to fight the British in Mesopotamia in October 1915. (Goltz died there six months later just before the British army at Kut surrendered).

In 1918, the last year of the war, Liman von Sanders took over command of the Ottoman army during the Sinai and Palestine Campaign, replacing the German General Erich von Falkenhayn who had been defeated by British General Allenby at the end of 1917.

Liman was hampered by the significant decline in power of the Ottoman army. His forces were unable to do anything more than occupy defensive positions and wait for the British attack. The attack was a long time in coming, but when General Allenby finally unleashed his army, the entire Ottoman army was destroyed in a week of fighting (see the Battle of Megiddo). In the rout, Liman was nearly captured by British soldiers.

After the war ended he was arrested in Malta in February 1919 on charges of having committed war crimes, but he was released six months later. He retired from the German army that year.

In 1927 he published a book he had written in captivity in Malta about his experiences before and during the war (there is an English translation). Two years later Otto Liman von Sanders died in Munich at the age of seventy-four.


Sources :
www.dev.links.com.au
www.en.wikipedia.org
www.firstworldwar.com

Alfred von Schlieffen (1833-1913), Famous Because of His Schlieffen Plan

Alfred Graf von Schlieffen


Alfred Graf von Schlieffen


Alfred Graf von Schlieffen. Looks like it's the same picture with the previous one, but note the left hand!


grave of Alfred Graf von Schlieffen on Invalidenfriedhof cemetery in Berlin, taken in 22 June 2008

Alfred Graf von Schlieffen, mostly called Count Schlieffen (German pronunciation: [ˈʃliːfən]; 28 February 1833 – 4 January 1913) was a German field marshal and strategist who served as Chief of the Imperial German General Staff from 1891 to 1906. His name lived on in the 1905 Schlieffen Plan for the defeat of the French Third Republic and the Russian Empire.

Schlieffen was born in Berlin on 28 February 1833 as the son of a Prussian army officer. He entered the army in 1854 at the age of 20. Quickly moving to the general staff, he participated in the Austro-Prussian War in 1866, and in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71. In 1884, Schlieffen became head of the military history section of the general staff, replacing Count von Waldersee as chief of the Prussian General Staff in 1891, after thirty-eight years of military service.

In 1905 Schlieffen presented the Schlieffen Plan a scheme to prevent Germany from having to fight a two-front war by first defeating France quickly, then throwing its full weight against Russia.

The rest of Schlieffen’s career was spent inculcating the operational ideas required to make this strategy work. He retired on 1 January 1906 after nearly 53 years of service and died in Berlin on January 4, 1913, just nineteen months before the outbreak of the First World War. In reference to his Schlieffen Plan, Schlieffen's last words were said to have been, "Remember: keep the right wing strong."

Schlieffen was perhaps the best-known contemporary strategist of his time, although criticized for his "narrow-minded military scholasticism." Schlieffen's operational theories were to have a profound impact on the development of maneuver warfare in the twentieth century, largely through his seminal treatise, Cannae, which concerned the decidedly un-modern battle of 216 BC in which Hannibal defeated the Romans.

The plan was not applied in its pure form at the beginning of World War I. Schlieffen’s successor, Helmuth von Moltke, drastically reduced the strength of the attacking armies and thus, is often blamed for Germany’s failure to win a quick, decisive victory.

His theories were studied exhaustively, especially in the higher army academies of the United States and Europe after World War I. American military thinkers thought so highly of him that his principal literary legacy, Cannae, was translated at Fort Leavenworth and distributed within the U.S. Army and to the academic community!

As General Walter Bedell Smith, chief of staff to General Dwight D. Eisenhower, supreme commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force in World War II, pointed out, General Eisenhower and many of his staff officers, products of these academies, "were imbued with the idea of this type of wide, bold maneuver for decisive results."

General Erich Ludendorff, a disciple of Schlieffen who applied his teachings of encirclement in the Battle of Tannenberg, once famously christened Schlieffen as "one of the greatest soldiers ever."

Long after his death, the German General Staff officers of the Interwar and World War II period, particularly General Hans von Seeckt, recognized an intellectual debt to Schlieffen theories during the development of the Blitzkrieg doctrine.

Quotations
- "A man is born, and not made, a strategist."—Schlieffen
- "To win, we must endeavour to be the stronger of the two at the point of impact. Our only hope of this lies in making our own choice of operations, not in waiting passively for whatever the enemy chooses for us."—Schlieffen


Sources :
www.britannica.com
www.de.wikipedia.org
www.en.wikipedia.org
www.kingsacademy.com
www.wypracowania24.pl

Hayreddin Barbarossa (1478-1546), the Greatest and most Successful Naval Commander in the History of Islam

16th century Portrait of Barbaros Hayreddin Pasha (1478-1546)


16th century Western depiction of Hayreddin Barbarossa


A depiction of Hayreddin Barbarossa by Italien painter circa 1580


Barbarossa Hayreddin Pasha's force led by Sinan Reis defeats the Holy League of Charles V under the command of Andrea Doria at the Battle of Preveza in 1538


Statue of Khayreddin Barbarossa in Algiers, Algeria next to the Dey Fort. Photo taken on 18 August, 2011, corresponding to 18 Ramadan, 1432 of the Hijri calendar

Hayreddin Barbarossa, or Barbarossa Hayreddin Pasha (Turkish: Barbaros Hayreddin (Hayrettin) Paşa or Hızır Hayreddin (Hayrettin) Paşa; also Khizr Reis before being promoted to the rank of Pasha and becoming the Kapudan-i Derya, born Khizr or Khidr, Turkish: Hızır; c. 1478 – 4 July 1546), was an Ottoman admiral who dominated the Mediterranean for decades. He was born on the island of Lesbos/Mytilini and died in Constantinople (Istanbul), the Ottoman capital. Hayreddin (Arabic: Khair ad-Din خير الدين, which literally means "goodness" or "best of the religion" of Islam) was an honorary name given to him by Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent. He became known as "Barbarossa" ("Redbeard" in Italian) in Europe, a name he inherited from his elder brother Baba Oruç (Father Aruj) after Aruj was killed in a battle with the Spanish in Algeria. This name sounded like "Barbarossa" ("Redbeard") to the Europeans, and Aruj did have a red beard. The nickname then stuck also to Hayreddin's Turkish name, in the form Barbaros.

The Battle of Preveza in 1538 was a major turning point in the history of naval power in the Mediterranean. Taking place on the same body of water where Caesar Augustus claimed final power during the Battle of Actium in 31 BCE, this climactic battle of the ongoing Turkish-European war would be an epic conflict that would definitively determine jurisdiction over the Greek coast, ultimate dominion over the planet's most coveted and lucrative naval trade routes, and near-infinite bragging rights around the beer coolers at the next annual Turkish-Venetian Super Bowl Barbeque Bash.

On one side was the great Italian Admiral and perpetually-shirtless egomaniac Andrea Doria. Widely believed to be the most brilliant seaman Christianity had to offer, this dauntless, self-aggrandizing gut-buster had been whomping Turkish asses up and down the coast of Southern Greece for years, crushing Ottoman warships into sawdust and whacking babies in the face with his pimp-cane, and he now sought to finally exert his power over his hated rivals once and for all by incinerating all that remained of the Turkish Fleet. At his command was a seemingly-endless Death Armada of crusading vessels from the European nations that comprised the powerful Holy League; 300 badass warships from Papacy-Approved locales like Spain, Venice, Genoa, and Malta. Hell, when the Pope heard about the assbeating that was about to go down, he decided to get in on the action himself, sending over a dozen of his own battleships to fight the heathen Turks, and prove once and for all that the Christian God indeed was an Awesome God.

This of course was back in the day when the Pope had his own army and navy. Can you imagine what the world would be like today if Benedict XVI could send a strafing run of A-10s every time somebody pissed him off?

Well this masturbatory Grand Showcase of naval might was great and all, but as Harvey Keitel would say, "let's not start sucking each other's dicks quite yet, gentlemen." You see, across the Gulf of Arta stood the most badass Muslim warlord to ever sail the high seas - a man known to his countrymen simply as Kheir-ed-Din – The Defender of the Faith. Outnumbered and heavily outgunned, on this day the Grand Admiral of the Turkish Navy remained unimpressed by his enemies' vulgar display of power. This brilliant tactician and naval asskicker was determined to smite the fuck out of the infidel crusaders to the fullest extent of his impressive abilities. His beleaguered fleet of 122 battle-hardened warships stood at the ready, eagerly waiting his command. It wouldn't be long before they'd have an opportunity to show the European Nations what it was like to be on the receiving end of a Turkish shoe to the fucking face.

The boy who would become the Defender of the Faith was born on the Isle of Lesbos in the Aegean Sea at the end of the 15th century. Coming from lower-class parents on a tiny, isolated island more well-known for its etymological association with the word "lesbianism" than for it's penchant for producing epic skull-crushing hardasses, young Hizir Reis was more or less received as just one in a long line of male children produced by a nondescript family of little to no importance. His rise to prominence as Grand Admiral started from very humble beginnings - with minimal opportunity for fiscal advancement through legitimate means, the young Reis boys initially opted to turn to adventure, glory, fame, and money by buying a boat, recruiting a crew of cutthroats, and turning to a life of badass piracy on the high seas of the Mediterranean.

Operating of the Tunisian coast in the early 1500s, Hizir Reis and his band of bloodthirsty buccaneer brothers got busy bashing peoples' faces in with their scimitars on a daily basis. Over time, these enterprising asskickers built up a pretty sweet pirate empire, preying on European shipping, kicking the heads off of the Knights Hospitaller, and plundering with relative impunity all over the place like crazy whoah. As news of their success spread, they gained the support of local Moorish seafaring warriors, fought against Spanish expansion into North Africa, and pummeled a bunch of Christian knights unconscious with their own crucifixes.

Hizir eventually took over control of the ever-expanding criminal enterprise after the death of his older brother, and decided to ally himself with the Ottoman Turkish Empire. You see, back in the 16th century, the Turks really had their shit together. The Sultan basically went around to the most badass Muslim pirates in the Middle East and told them, "Hey dude if you promise only to fuck up the Christians and leave Turkish shipping alone, I'll give you a bunch of troops, cannons, supplies, and money in return." This government-sanctioned piracy worked out pretty well for everybody - the Turks gained a powerful ally, and corsairs like Hizir Reis pretty much had free reign to wreak havoc on anybody and everybody who was pissing them off. It was as a badass Turkish privateer that this ferocious corsair made a name for himself as a serious face-melting assbeater, crushing the enemies of the Ottoman Empire like empty soda cans and basically crotchpunching the European powers up and down the coastlines of the Mediterranean.

The notorious Muslim pirate, known to the Europeans as Barbarossa ("Red Beard", because he had, well, red hair. And a beard), became an overnight celebrity when he put together a massive pirate army and captured the heavily-fortified North African city of Algiers in 1517. The Sultan was so mega pumped-up about that awesome shit that he appointed Barbarossa Governor of Algiers and commander of the entire fucking Western Ottoman Fleet, and sent him out to do what he did best – smash European ships until they were no longer capable of flotation. The Empire’s newest admiral got his Darth Vader on pretty much immediately, conquering basically all of North Africa by 1529. The Hapsburg King-Emperor Charles V tried to retake the areas that had fallen to the Turks, but ended up getting kicked in the balls repeatedly by the unstoppable Peasant-turned-Pirate-turned-Admiral.

It was around this time that our buddy Andrea Doria arrived on the scene. At this point in time, Doria’s name wasn’t yet synonymous with sinking ships, but that situation that would soon be remedied by Admiral Barbarossa and his cannon-laden, shit-wrecking warships.

Doria decided he was going to liberate Greece from the Turkish yoke, sailing into the port city of Coron in 1532 and capturing it with relative ease. After hearing about this defeat, the Turkish Sultan was like, "that’s fucking it." He slammed his fist down on a table, swore loudly in basically every language he could think of, and immediately promoted Barbarossa to the position of Grand Mega Super Inane Admiral of the Entire Goddamned Turkish Navy.

Barbarossa didn’t fuck around. He built a huge fleet, relentlessly trained his men, and set out for action. In 1535 he re-captured Coron, conquered Tunis, blew up Sicily, and plundered the shit out of the Italian coast. His raids and assbeatery pissed off the Europeans so badly that they sent Andrea Doria to dish out some much-needed retaliation. Doria assembled a massive Christian Fleet, sailed out to the afore-mentioned harbor of Preveza, and prepared to teach the Muslims a lesson in getting their faces kicked in with a chainmailed boot.

Well Andrea Doria needed to recognize that stepping to Barbarossa is a good way to get one's eye swole up. Off the coast of Preveza in 1538, the Allied galleys of the Holy League were face-smashed into driftwood by the gigantic nutbag of Hayreddin Barbarossa and his Ottoman Fleet. Outnumbered more than three-to-one (six-to-one according to some accounts), Barbarossa not only demolished the invasion force – he made the combined naval might of five mighty Christian nations look like that adorable fleet of rubber duckies that menaced the shores of New England a couple years ago. The Allies were crushed in a humiliating manner, their ships were sunk and/or captured, its galleys were plundered – shit, the Republic of Venice was fucked up so hard it was forced to pay war reparations to the Turks and publicly apologize for wasting Barbarossa’s time with such a pitiful, insignificant military effort.

For his success, Barbarossa was given the top honors of the Ottoman Empire. He was even awarded the right to sit on the Imperial Council and help run the higher-workings of the government. His victory also established the might of the Turkish Navy in the Mediterranean - from that point on, Ottoman ships dominated the Adriatic and Aegean Seas, and the Sultan held sole power over some of the world's most profitable trade routes. Barbarossa continued his adventures for a couple years, sacking Sicilian cities, meddling in petty European succession wars, and plundering Spanish galley squadrons. He eventually retired to a life of luxury, and died in 1546 at the age of 68, the greatest and most successful naval commander in the history of Islam!


Sources :
www.badassoftheweek.com
www.en.wikipedia.org

Turgut Reis (1485-1565), Ottoman Admiral from Greek Descent

Portrait of Turgut (Dragut) Reis 1485 – 23 June 1565) who was a Turkish Ottoman Admiral and privateer. This is merely a cropped and enlarged version of the original image


Painting of Turgut (Dragut) Reis made by Ali Sami BOYAR (1880-1967) and in the possession of İstanbul Askeri Müze


Turgut Reis landing on Malta by Eugenio Caxes (1575-1634). Photographed at Istanbul Naval Museum


Statue of Turgut Reis in front of the Topkapı Palace in Istanbul

Turgut Reis (1485 – 23 June 1565) was an Ottoman Admiral and privateer who also served as Bey of Algiers; Beylerbey of the Mediterranean; and first Bey, later Pasha, of Tripoli. Under his naval command the Ottoman Empire maritime was extended across North Africa. When Turgut was serving as pasha, he adorned and built up the city of Tripoli, making it one of the most impressive cities along the North African Coast. Known in different languages under such names as Dragut or Darghouth (Arabic: درغوث‎), the name in Turkey is Turgut Reis.

Turgut was a Muslim seaman of Greek descent. He was born in a village near Bodrum, on the Aegean coast of Asia Minor. He was captured and taken prisoner by the corsairs in his youth and had converted to Islam. He was born in the sub-distirct called Saravalos in the western tip of Bodrum peninsula (which is called Turgutreis in his honour today) and most probably in the Karabağ village on the Aegean coast of Asia Minor. At the age of 12 he was noticed by an Ottoman army commander for his extraordinary talent in using spears and arrows and was recruited by him. Under his support the young Turgut became a skilled sailor, an outstanding gunner, and was trained as a cannoneer and master of siege artillery, a skill which would play an important role in Turgut's future success and reputation as a superb naval tactician. The Ottoman Turkish governor eventually carried Turgut off to Egypt in 1517, where he participated in the Ottoman conquest of Egypt as a cannoneer. He further improved his skills in this field during his presence in Cairo. Following the death of his master, Turgut went to Alexandria and began his career as a sailor after joining the fleet of Sinan Reis. He immediately became one of the favourite crewmen of the famous corsair due to his success in hitting enemy vessels with cannons. Turgut soon mastered the skills of seamanship and became the captain of a brigantine, while given 1/4 of its ownership. After several successful campaigns, he became the sole owner of the brigantine. Turgut later became the captain and owner of a galliot, and arming it with the most advanced cannons of that period, he started to operate in the Eastern Mediterranean, especially targeting the shipping routes between Venice and the Aegean islands belonging to the Repubblica Serenissima.

In 1520 he joined the fleet of Hayreddin Barbarossa, who would become his protector and best friend. Turgut was soon promoted to the rank of chief lieutenant by Barbarossa and was given the command of 12 galliots. In 1526 Turgut Reis captured the fortress of Capo Passero in Sicily. Between 1526 and 1533 he landed several times at the ports of the Kingdom of Sicily and the Kingdom of Naples, while intercepting the ships which sailed between Spain and Italy, capturing many of them. In May 1533, commanding four fustas and 18 barques, Turgut Reis captured two Venetian galleys near the island of Aegina.

In June and July 1538 he accompanied Barbarossa on his pursuit of Andrea Doria in the Adriatic Sea, while capturing several fortresses on the coasts of Albania as well as the Gulf of Preveza and the island of Lefkada. In August 1538 Turgut Reis captured Candia in Crete as well as several other Venetian possessions in the Aegean Sea.

In September 1538, with 20 galleys and 10 galliots, Turgut Reis commanded the center-rear wing of the Ottoman fleet that defeated the Holy League under the command of Andrea Doria at the Battle of Preveza. During the battle, with two of his galliots, he captured the Papal galley under the command of Giambattista Dovizi, the knight who was also the abbot of Bibbiena, taking him and his crew as prisoners.

In 1539, commanding 36 galleys and galliots, Turgut Reis recaptured Castelnuovo from the Venetians, who had taken the city back from the Ottomans. During the combat he sank two Venetian galleys and captured three others. Still in 1539, while landing on Corfu, he encountered 12 Venetian galleys under the command of Francesco Pasqualigo and captured the galley of Antonio da Canal. He later landed at Crete and fought against the Venetian cavalry forces under the command of Antonio Calbo.

Later that year, when Sinan Reis, the Governor of Djerba, was appointed by Suleiman the Magnificent as the new Commander-in-Chief of the Ottoman Red Sea Fleet based in Suez, Turgut Reis was appointed as his successor and became the Governor of Djerba.

In early 1540 Turgut Reis captured several Genoese ships off the coast of Santa Margherita Ligure. In April 1540, commanding two galleys and 13 galliots, he landed at Gozo and sacked the island. He later landed at Pantelleria and raided the coasts of Sicily and Spain with a force of 25 ships, inflicting so much damage that Andrea Doria was ordered by Charles V to chase him with a force of 81 galleys! From there, Turgut Reis sailed to the Tyrrhenian Sea and bombarded the southern ports of Corsica, most notably Palasca. He later captured and sacked the nearby island of Capraia.

Turgut Reis later sailed back towards Corsica and docked his ships at Girolata on the western shores of the island. Taken by surprise while repairing his ships, Turgut Reis and his men were attacked by the combined forces of Giannettino Doria (Andrea Doria's nephew), Giorgio Doria and Gentile Virginio Orsini. Turgut Reis was captured and was forced to work as a galley slave in the ship of Giannettino Doria for nearly four years before being imprisoned in Genoa. Barbarossa offered to pay ransom for his release but it was rejected. In 1544, when Barbarossa was returning from France with 210 ships sent by Sultan Suleiman to assist King Francis I in a Franco-Ottoman alliance against Spain, he appeared before Genoa, laying siege to the city and forcing the Genoese to negotiate for the release of Turgut Reis. Barbarossa was invited by Andrea Doria to discuss the issue in his palace at Fassolo, and the two admirals reached an agreement for the release of Turgut Reis in exchange of 3,500 gold ducats.

Barbarossa gave Turgut his spare flagship and the command of several other vessels, and in that same year Turgut Reis landed at Bonifacio in Corsica and captured the city, inflicting particular damage to Genoese interests. Still in 1544 he assaulted the island of Gozo and fought against the forces of knight Giovanni Ximenes while capturing several Maltese ships which were bringing precious cargo from Sicily. In June 1545 he raided the coasts of Sicily and bombarded several ports on the Tyrrhenian Sea. In July he ravaged the island of Capraia and landed at the coasts of Liguria and the Italian Riviera with a force of 15 galleys and fustas. He sacked Monterosso and Corniglia, and later landed at Menarola and Riomaggiore. In the following days he landed at the Gulf of La Spezia and captured Rapallo, Pegli and Levanto. In 1546 he captured Mahdia, Sfax, Sousse and Al Munastir in Tunisia, afterwards using Mahdia as a base to assault the Knights of St. John in Malta. In April 1546 he raided the coasts of Liguria. In May, still in Liguria, he captured Laigueglia, a province of Savona, with a force of 1000 men. He later captured Andora and took the podestà of the town as a prisoner. There he and his troops rested for a brief period, before resuming their assault on the Italian Riviera and landing at San Lorenzo al Mare. He also destroyed the village of Civezza. From there he once again sailed towards Malta and laid siege to the island of Gozo.

In June 1546 Andrea Doria was appointed by Emperor Charles V to force Turgut Reis away from Malta, and Doria based his forces at the island of Favignana. The two admirals, however, did not meet up, as Turgut Reis had sailed to Toulon in August 1546, staying there for several months and letting his men have some rest in the security of a French port.

After Barbarossa's death in July 1546, Turgut succeeded him as supreme commander of Ottoman naval forces in the Mediterranean. In July 1547 he once again assaulted Malta with a force of 23 galleys and galliots, after hearing the news that the Kingdom of Naples was shaken by the revolt against Viceroy Don Pietro of Toledo, which would make a naval support from there to Malta rather unlikely. Turgut Reis landed his troops at Marsa Scirocco, the extreme southern point of the island which faces the shores of Africa. From there the Ottoman troops quickly marched towards the vicinity of the Church of Santa Caterina. The guards of the church tower escaped as soon as they saw the forces of Turgut Reis, which prevented them from igniting the tub of gunpowder—a common method used then to warn the local inhabitants of attacks. After sacking the island, Turgut Reis headed towards Capo Passero in Sicily, where he captured the galley of Giulio Cicala, son of Duke Vincenzo Cicala. He later sailed to the Aeolian Islands, and at Salina Island he captured a Maltese trade ship with valuable cargo. From there he sailed to Apulia and towards the end of July 1547 he assaulted the city of Salve. He later sailed to Calabria, forcing the local population to flee towards the safety of the mountains. From there he went to Corsica and captured a number of ships.

In 1548 he was appointed Beylerbey (Chief Governor) of Algeria by Suleiman the Magnificent. In that same year he ordered the construction of a quadrireme galley at the naval arsenal of Djerba, which he started using in 1549. In August 1548 he landed at Castellamare di Stabia on the Bay of Naples and captured the city along with nearby Pozzuoli. From there he went to Procida. A few days later, he captured a Spanish galley loaded with troops and gold at Capo Miseno near Procida. In the same days he captured the Maltese galley, La Caterinetta, at the Gulf of Naples, with its cargo of 70,000 gold ducats which were collected by the Knights of St. John from the churches of France with the aim of strengthening the defenses of Tripoli, which was then under Maltese control.

In May 1549 he set sail towards Liguria with 21 galleys and in July he assaulted Rapallo, later replenishing his ships with water and other supplies at San Fruttuoso. From there he sailed to Portofino and landed at the port, before appearing at San Remo where he captured an Aragonese galley from Barcelona which was heading towards Naples. From there he first sailed towards Corsica and later towards Calabria where he assaulted the city of Palmi.

In February 1550, sailing with a force of 36 galleys, he recaptured Mahdia along with Al Munastir, Sousse and most of Tunisia. In May 1550 he assaulted the ports of Sardinia and Spain and landed on their coasts with a force of six galleys and 14 galliots. Still in May he unsuccessfully tried to capture Bonifacio in Corsica. On his way back to Tunisia, he stopped at Gozo to replenish his ships with water and to gather information on the activities of the Maltese Knights. He later sailed towards Liguria.

In June 1550, while Turgut Reis was sailing near Genoa, Andrea Doria and Bailiff Claude de la Sengle of the Maltese Knights attacked Mahdia in Tunisia. In the meantime, Turgut Reis was busy assaulting and sacking Rapallo for a third time, before raiding the coasts of Spain. He then sailed to the Tyrrhenian Sea and towards the beginning of July landed at the western shores of Sardinia, before returning to Djerba, where he learned that Doria and Claude de la Sengle had been attacking Mahdia and Tunis. He collected a force of 4500 troops and 60 sipahis and marched on Mahdia to assist the local resistance. He did not succeed and returned to Djerba with his troops.

In September 1550 Mahdia surrendered to the joint Spanish-Sicilian-Maltese force. In the meantime, Turgut Reis was repairing his ships at the beach of Djerba. On October, Andrea Doria appeared with his fleet at Djerba and blocked the entrance of the island's lagoon with his ships, trapping the beached galleys of Turgut Reis inside the Channel of Cantera. Turgut Reis had all his ships dragged overland through hastily dug canals and on a heavily greased boardway to the other side of the island and sailed to Constantinople, capturing two galleys on the way, one Genoese and one Sicilian, which were en route to Djerba in order to assist the forces of Doria. Prince Abu Beker, son of the Sultan of Tunis, who was an ally of Spain, was on the Genoese galley.

After arriving in Constantinople, Turgut Reis, authorized by Sultan Suleiman, mobilized a fleet of 112 galleys and two galleasses with 12,000 Janissaries, and in 1551 set sail with the Ottoman admiral Sinan Pasha towards the Adriatic Sea and bombarded the Venetian ports, inflicting serious damage on Venetian shipping. In May 1551 they landed on Sicily and bombarded the eastern shores of the island, most notably the city of Augusta, as revenge for the Viceroy of Sicily's role in the invasion and destruction of Mahdia, where most inhabitants had been massacred by the joint Spanish-Sicilian-Maltese force. They then attempted to capture Malta, landing with about 10,000 men at the southern port of Marsa Muscietto. They laid siege to the citadels of Birgu and Senglea, and later went north and assaulted Mdina, but lifted the siege after realizing that it was impossible to capture the island with the number of troops in hand. Instead, they moved to the neighboring island of Gozo, where they bombarded the citadel for several days. The Knights' governor there, Galatian de Sesse, realizing that resistance was futile, surrendered the citadel, and the corsairs sacked the town. Taking virtually the entire population of Gozo (approximately 5,000 people) into captivity, Turgut and Sinan set sail from the port of Mġarr ix-Xini in Gozo and headed towards Libya, where they shipped the captives to Tarhuna Wa Msalata. They later sailed towards Tripoli with the aim of conquering the strategic port city and its environs.

In August 1551 Turgut Reis attacked and captured Tripoli (Ottoman Tripolitania, modern Libya) which had been a possession of the Knights of St. John since 1530. Gaspare de Villers, the commander of the fort, was captured, along with other prominent knights of Spanish and French origin. However, upon the intervention of the French ambassador in Constantinople, Gabriel d'Aramon, the French knights were released. A local leader, Ağa Murat, was initially installed as governor of Tripoli, but subsequently Turgut himself took control of the area. In recognition of his services, Sultan Suleiman awarded Tripoli and the surrounding territory to Turgut, along with the title of Sanjak Bey (Province Governor).

In September 1551, Turgut Reis sailed to Liguria and captured the city of Taggia, before capturing other ports of the Italian Riviera, after Ottoman troops landed at the beach of Riva Brigoso. Later that year, he returned to Tripoli and sought to extend his territory, capturing the entire region of Misrata all the way to Zuwara and Djerba to the west. Turning inland, he enhanced his territory until reaching Gebel.

In 1552 Sultan Suleiman appointed Turgut Reis commander-in-chief of the Ottoman fleet which he dispatched to Italy (on the basis of a treaty between the Sultan and King Henry II of France). Turgut Reis first landed at Augusta and Licata in Sicily, before capturing the island and castle of Pantelleria. In July 1552 he landed at Taormina and later bombarded and disabled the ports on the Gulf of Policastro. He later landed at Palmi and captured the city, before sailing to the Gulf of Naples in order to meet with the other branch of the Ottoman fleet under the command of Sinan Pasha and the French fleet under the command of Polin de la Garde. After arriving at the meeting location, Turgut Reis anchored his ships off the beach of Scauri, near Formia, where he met with the fleet of Sinan Pasha, but their French ally did not show up in time. After waiting for several days, Sinan Pasha decided to return to Constantinople, following an order by Suleiman to do so in case of a delay or postponement of the meeting. Turgut Reis convinced Sinan Pasha to join him, and their combined fleet bombarded various ports of Sardinia and Corsica, before capturing the island of Ponza. From there the Turkish fleet sailed towards Lazio and bombarded the ports belonging to the Papal States and the Kingdom of Naples, even though Henry II had guaranteed the Pope that the Ottoman fleet would not damage the Vatican's possessions. Due to bad weather, however, Turgut Reis and Sinan Pasha sailed back to the Gulf of Naples and landed at Massa Lubrense and Sorrento, capturing both towns. They later captured Pozzuoli and the entire coastline up to Minturno and Nola.

In response, Andrea Doria set sail from Genoa with a force of 40 galleys and headed towards Naples. When the two fleets first encountered off Naples, Turgut Reis managed to capture seven galleys, with colonel Madruzzi and many German soldiers of the Holy Roman Empire on board.

The two fleets later went southwards, where, on 5 August 1552, Turgut Reis defeated the Spanish-Italian fleet under Andrea Doria at the Battle of Ponza.

Following this victory, Suleiman appointed Turgut Beylerbey (Chief Regional Governor) of the Mediterranean Sea.

In May 1553 Turgut Reis set sail from the Aegean Sea with 60 galleys, captured Crotone and Castello in Calabria, and from there marched inland. Later he landed on Sicily and sacked most of the island until stopping at Licata for replenishing his ships with water. Afterwards he assaulted Sciacca and Modica in southern Sicily. From there he went to the island of Tavolara and to Sardinia, later headed towards Porto Ercole and landed on the coast, before setting sail towards Elba, where he captured Marciana Marina, Rio and Capoliveri. From there he sailed to Corsica and took Bonifacio, Bastia and Calvi on behalf of France, then ally of the Ottoman Empire, which paid him 30,000 gold ducats for the expense of ammunition in the conquest. Leaving Corsica, Turgut Reis returned to Elba and attempted to capture Piombino and Portoferraio, but eventually gave up and captured the island of Pianosa and recaptured the island and castle of Capri (previously captured by Barbarossa back in 1535) before returning to Constantinople.

In 1554 he sailed from the Bosphorus with 60 galleys and passed the winter in Chios. From there he sailed to the Adriatic Sea and landed at Vieste near Foggia, capturing and sacking the city. He then sailed towards Dalmatia and bombarded the port of Ragusa (Dubrovnik), capital of the maritime Republic of Ragusa. In August 1554 he landed at Orbetello and raided the coasts of Tuscany.

The following year, in July 1555, he landed at Capo Vaticano in Calabria, and from there marched to Ceramica and San Lucido, bombarding these cities, before capturing Paola and Santo Noceto. He then sailed to Elba and captured the city of Populonia before assaulting Piombino. From there he sailed to Corsica and ransacked Bastia, taking 6000 prisoners. He later assaulted Calvi before setting sail towards Sardinia and bombarding the ports of that island. From there he turned towards Liguria and landed at Ospedaletti, capturing the city and the coastline around it. He later landed at San Remo before returning to Constantinople.

In March 1556 Turgut Reis was promoted to the rank of Pasha of Tripoli. There, he strengthened the walls of the citadel surrounding the city and built a gunpowder bastion (Dar el Barud). He also strengthened the defenses of the port and built the Turgut (Dragut) Fortress in place of the old Fortress of San Pietro. In July 1556 he again set sail and landed at Cape Santa Maria at the island of Lampedusa, where he captured a Venetian ship which transported ammunition and weapons for the defense of Malta. He later landed in Liguria and captured Bergeggi and San Lorenzo. In December 1556 he captured Gafsa in Tunisia and added it to his territory.

In the summer of 1557 he left the Bosphorus with a fleet of 60 galleys and, arriving at the Gulf of Taranto, he landed in Calabria and assaulted Cariati, capturing the city. He later landed at the ports of Apulia.

In 1558 he added Gharyan, about 70 miles south of Tripoli, to his territory. He then defeated the Beni Oulid dynasty with a force of janissaries and added their territories to the Ottoman Empire. He later took Taorga, Misrata and Tagiora, before recapturing the island of Djerba and adding it to his province. In June 1558 he joined the fleet of Piyale Pasha at the Strait of Messina, and the two admirals captured Reggio Calabria, sacking the city. From there, Turgut Reis went to the Aeolian Islands and captured several of them, before landing at Amalfi, in the Gulf of Salerno, and capturing Massa Lubrense, Cantone and Sorrento. He later landed at Torre del Greco, the coasts of Tuscany, and Piombino. In August he captured several ships off Malta. In September 1558 he joined Piyale Pasha, and the two admirals assaulted the coasts of Spain before capturing Ciutadella (Minorca) and inflicting particular damage on the island's ports.

In 1559 he repelled a Spanish attack on Algiers and put down a revolt in Tripoli. In that same year he captured a Maltese ship near Messina. Learning from its crew that the knights were preparing for a major attack on Tripoli, he decided to sail back there and strengthen the city's defenses.

In the meantime, he had made enemies of many of the nominally Ottoman, but practically independent rulers in Tunis and the adjoining hinterland, and several of them concluded an alliance in 1560 with Viceroy Cerda of Sicily, who had orders from King Philip II of Spain to join his forces in an effort to capture Tripoli. This campaign ended in failure when the Ottoman fleet under the command of Piyale Pasha and Turgut Reis defeated the fleet of the Holy League of Philip II in the Battle of Djerba.

In March 1561 Turgut Reis and Uluç Ali Reis captured Vincenzo Cicala and Luigi Osorio near the island of Marettimo. In June 1561 Turgut landed on the island of Stromboli. In July 1561 he captured seven Maltese galleys under the command of knight Guimarens, whom he later freed for a ransom of 3,000 gold ducats. After stopping at Gozo to replenish his galleys with water, he sailed back to Tripoli. In August 1561 he laid siege to the city of Naples and blocked the port with 35 galleys.

In April 1562 he sent scout ships to explore all corners of the island of Malta. Still in 1562 he laid siege to Oran which was under Spanish control.

In 1563 he landed at the shores of the province of Granada and captured coastal settlements in the area like Almuñécar, along with 4,000 prisoners. He later landed at Málaga. In April 1563 he supported the fleet of Salih Reis with 20 galleys during the Ottoman siege of Oran, bombarding the Fortress of Mers-el-Kebir. In September 1563 he sailed to Naples and captured six ships near the island of Capri, which carried valuable goods and Spanish soldiers. He later landed at the Chiaia neighbourhood of Naples and captured it. From there he sailed to Liguria and Sardinia, raiding the coastal towns, particularly Oristano, Marcellino and Ercolento. He then sailed to the Adriatic Sea and landed on the coasts of Apulia and Abruzzo. He later landed twice at San Giovanni near Messina with a force of 28 galleys. In October 1563 he sailed towards Capo Passero in Sicily and later landed once more on Gozo, where he briefly fought against the knights.

When Sultan Suleiman ordered the Siege of Malta in 1565, Turgut Reis joined Piyale Pasha and the Ottoman forces with 1,600 men (3,000 according to some sources) and 15 ships (13 galleys and 2 galliots; while some sources mention 17 ships) on 31 May 1565. He landed his troops at the entrance of Marsa Muscietto, a cape which is now named 'Dragut Point' after Turgut Reis. There he met with Lala Mustafa, commander of the Ottoman land forces, who was besieging Fort St. Elmo. He advised him to first capture the citadel of Gozo and Mdina (the old capital city of Malta) as soon as possible, but this advice was not taken. He also arranged for more cannon fire to be concentrated on the recently-built Fort St. Elmo which controlled the entrance of the Grand Harbour and seemed weaker than the other forts; joining the bombardment with 30 of his own cannons. In only 24 hours the Ottomans fired 6000 cannon shots. Realizing that Fort St. Elmo and Fort St Angelo (the main headquarters of the Knights on the other side of the Grand Harbour) could still communicate with each other, Turgut Reis ordered a complete siege of Fort St. Elmo with the aim of isolating it from Fort St. Angelo. On 17 June 1565, during the bombardment of the fort, a cannon shot from Fort St. Angelo across the Grand Harbour struck the ground close to the Turkish battery. Debris from the impact mortally injured Turgut Reis, who lived until 23 June 1565, just long enough to hear the news of the capture of Fort St. Elmo.

Turgut's advice to capture Mdina and Gozo was never taken, to the detriment of the Ottomans. Maltese forces, from Mdina in particular, harried the Turkish troops for the remainder of the siege, and at one point prevented the key city of Senglea from falling into Ottoman hands.

His body was taken to Tripoli by Uluç Ali Reis and buried there.


Sources :
www.en.wikipedia.org
www.turkkorsanlari.com