Identifying Turkish engineer units

[trickcyclist]

Can anybody tell me the engineer units of the following Turkish divisions?

15th and 25th Infantry Divisions on the Romanian front, 1916

48th Division in the Jordan Valley, spring of 1918

Thanks very much.

TC

[Tosun Saral]

During Amman battle the 48th had a engeneers company with 30 men. (source: Birinci Dünya Harbinde Türk Harbi, cilt 2 (Turkish General Staffs puplication: Turkish Battle during WW1 vol.II) p.573)

[trickcyclist]

Thanks, Tosun.

Do you know the number of the engineer company?

Best,
TC

[Tosun Saral]

No sorry. The a/m book not mentions the number.
On page 578
The commander of the Army Group Yildirim decided an ambush attack to the bridge head of the English at east of Sheria River on the night of April 10/11. The8th AC was responsible for that attack. The units were 48th ID and Composed Division with 191st, 23rd IRs, 48th AR, the 152rg IR under command of Lt. Col. Ömer Lütfi (Col. and Statesman Argeşo), a battalion of 146th IR, The camel raiders Regiment (Estersüvar), an Artillary battalion, cavalry, Engineers and medical companies. There were also 6th and 7th Cav. regiments of the 3rd cav. Division, a battary, asquadron of infantry of guards of HQ, MG and AA squadrons.


On the other hand Hüseyin Hüsnü Emir (Major General Erkilet) who was the CoS of Army Group Yildirim gives the following information in his book "Yildirim" Genel Kurmay Basımevi, (Publication of Turkish General Staff), Ankara, 2002
p. 319
On August 12th 1917 15th the 3rd Battalion of 4th Engineers Regiment arrived to the order of 15th AC. On the same day 3rd barbed wire company of 6th Engineers R came to the order of 5oth Div. of 3rd AC.

p. 330
Number of Personal of independent units of 54 th Div. in May 1917 at Sinai Front
Cav. Company, 3rd Engineer company, medical company
officers: 21
soldiers: 751
animals:308

p.370

the number of men of 1st Company of 8th Enginers battalion of the 27th Div. of 3rd AC that could came to Tellü'ş-Şeria on Oct. 31st 1917
Officers: 2
men: 50
rifle.50

I am

[trickcyclist]

Thanks very much for the information. I appreciate it.

TC

[jwsleser]

TC

I finally remember to check my sources for this question. The Turkish officials (Birinci Dünya Harbi VII nci Cilt 2nci kisim Romanya Cephesi) indicates that the 15th and 25th Engineer companies were assigned to their respective divisions (ekler 3). This is partially based on some analysis as the volume doesn’t provide a detail discussion of the composition of the two divisions beyond an organizational chart (in which the engineer companies are un-number). It does discuss an exchange of infantry regiments before the divisions were deployed to Romania; the 73rd Infantry Regiment of the 25th Division was composed mostly of Arabs, so it was replaced by the 59th Infantry Regiment (pg 31-32).

Not much help I can offer on the 48th Division. 1918 is not well documented in Turkish sources, the lost of records likely accounting for this.

Jeff

[Tosun Saral]

According to the Ottoman and still todays's modern republican army system:
each army have a engineers and signal regiment
e.g. 4th Engineers regiment

each AC have a engineer and signal battalion
e.g as I wrote above :"p. 319 On August 12th 1917 15th the 3rd Battalion of 4th Engineers Regiment arrived to the order of 15th AC."

each division have a engineer and signal company

The traditional color of the Engineers is blue. In the recent years a clever wise guy working in Turkish Army HQ put a symbol of castle on the blue as seen on the image. 500 years of tradition is americanized by a wise guy.

[trickcyclist]

Here's a Turkish castle:

http://www.west-crete.com/dailypics/cre ... 16-07.shtm

The turret looks exactly like the symbol on the Turkish engineer shoulder strap.

Didn't Turkish military engineers traditionally build castles like this?

[Tosun Saral]

Yes They did. There were 2 kinds of Engineers units in the Ottoman Turkish Army till the new reforms of 1829.
a- Cebeci
b- lagimci
Cebe means armour. Cebeci means armourer. They supplied the army armour, weapons, powder, guns, arrows ect
Lağım means sewer, canaliazation. Lağımcı means digger of canalizations under castles to burst the walls.
Until XVIII th century Turkish engineers by means of tecnic and building fortifications were without ant comparison in whole world. The founder of modern Engineering in the army are the Turks. Many foreign generals and military writes confim that. It was the French who learned from the Turks and applied the mothots during the reign of Louis XIV.
(Lavisse-Rambaud, VI, 96) The father of European Enginering system general Vauban, who learned turkish fortificationsystem during the siege of Kandiye/Creta, applied in Holland during the siege of Maestricht.

Grave of Engineer capt. Tahir Efendi at the shore of Dardanelles killed in 15.5.1915
Fortress of Rumeli on the European side of Istanbul build by Sultan Mehmet II (Conquerer) for to conquer Costantinoble.
Ottaman Enginere in blue uniform.

[stevebecker]

Mate,

I am sure Tosun has answered this but I show the folowing Engineer units for those Div's;

15th Div - 15th Eng Co
25th Div - I have none listed
48th Div - 4th Sapper Bn

What that means is not known by me.

Most Turkish Div's show no Engineer units in them and those that do are confuzing at best and sketchy.

1 Div - 1 Eng Co
2 Div - 1Co/15 Enginer Bn and 1Co/14th Enginer Bn
3 Div - 1Co/5th Eng Bn
4 Div - 4th Eng Co
5 Div - 5th Eng Co
6 Div - 6th Eng Co
7 Div - none listed
8 Div - none listed
9 Div - 9th Eng Bn
10 Div - ? Co/10th Eng Bn
11 Div - 11th Eng Bn
12 Div - 2nd Sapper Bn
13 Div - 13th Eng Co
14 Div - 14th Eng Co
15 Div - 15th Eng Co
16 Div - none listed
17 Div - none listed
18 Div - none listed
19 Div - 4thCo/3rd Eng Bn
20 Div - 4thCo/ 4th Eng Bn
21 Div to 23rd Div - none listed
24 Div - 24th Eng Co

As can be seen by this list I would think most Engineer companies were a Division based units but it also appears that not all Divisions had them and as Tosum said were a Corps based unit and allocated as required?

Do you want me to complete the list?

Cheers

S.B

[trickcyclist]

Thanks very much for the info.

I'm trying to identify Turkish engineers who may have had training in flamethrowers.

According to a Turkish contact, Turkish officers, NCOs, and men from the XV Army Corps at Galicia (19th and 20th Infantry Divisions) and the VI Army Corps at the Romanian front (15th and 25th Infantry Divisions) were sent to assault courses in Bulgaria taught by the assault battalion of the Bulgarian 1st Army. There they learned how to use flamethrowers.

Also, in the spring of 1918 the Turkish 48th Division conducted training in the employment of machine guns, hand grenades, and flamethrowers at facilities on the Jordan River on the Palestine Front.

The Turks apparently had flamethrowers at Gallipoli in 1915 but didn't use them. If you can identify the engineer units there, I'd be grateful.

Cheers,
TC

[Tosun Saral]

flamethrowers.??????????
Every body is searching this thema. It is still a mystery. There is no single word or sentence found in turkish books about
flamethrowers.

[glaswegian]

"The Turks apparently had flamethrowers at Gallipoli in 1915 but didn't use them. If you can identify the engineer units there, I'd be grateful.

Cheers,
TC[/quote]"

forgive me for ma ignornce but tis the furst time i hae heard the turks had flamaethrowers at gallipoli?,is there any kind of source of information you can gie us regarding this thing you hae put forward?

william tuna

[trickcyclist]

I'm writing a book about World War I flamethrower troops. I've identified all the models used by all the combatants, including the Russians, Bulgarians, and Czechs, and I've found photos or made drawings of every flamethrower.

The last country I need is Turkey. I have one photo of a Turkish flamethrower shock troop in Galicia in 1917, but it's apparently the only image in existence. I've checked with several Turkish sources, and nobody has any photos.

Here are two sources that confirm that the Turks had flamethrowers at Gallipoli (provided by the Germans) but didn't use them:

S.S. McClure. Obstacles to Peace. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1917. Page 340. General Sir Ian Hamilton, Commander in Chief of the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force at Gallipoli, wrote that the Turks had flamethrowers but did not use them.

Peter Downham (ed.). Diary of an Old Contemptible. Barnsley, South Yorkshire: Pen and Sword, 2004. Page 136. The men of the East Lancashire Regiment spoke of the "chivalrous, clean-fighting" Turk who had flamethrowers at Gallipoli but didn't to use them, and refused German offers of poison gas.

Edward J. Erickson. Ordered to Die: A History of the Ottoman Army in the First World War. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 2001. Page 233. The Germans gave the Turks a wartime total of thirty flamethrowers.

Even if the Turks had wanted to use flamethrowers, they would not have been able to do much damage with so few weapons.

[Tosun Saral]

Even if the Turks had wanted to use flamethrowers, they would not have been able to do much damage with so few weapons.

wrong Sir! The trenches in gallipoli were very close to each other in some places only one meters. They even exchanged gifts to each other only just throwing concerves, cholate and tabacco to other side. If Turks had flametrowers it was very easy to "kebab" the poor Brits and Anzac.
It is good that they didnt.