Birgül Erken, a champion free diver who represents Turkey in international competitions, performed a memorial dive on Tuesday to commemorate the fallen soldiers of the Çanakkale victory during World War I. March 18 will mark the 107th anniversary of the battle.
Erken, born and raised in the western Turkish province of Çanakkale, where she works as a teacher, jumped into the Mediterranean Sea in the early hours of Tuesday from Anzac Cove. As she touched the remnants of British SS Milo at a depth of 7 meters (22.9 feet), she unfurled a Turkish flag in memory of soldiers who died fighting the invading forces during the famous Gallipoli campaign. “I dedicate this to all revered martyrs and our soldiers who currently serve for their patriotic duty,” she said after completing the dive.
The 50-year-old diver chose the wreckage of a 70-meter British transport ship for her dive. The ship was recently opened for diving tourism. It was one of the largest to join the campaign at Çanakkale (Dardanelles) Strait and is believed to have been sunk by its own crew as a breakwater. It is also among the most visible shipwrecks at the bottom of the sea surrounding the Gelibolu (Gallipoli) Peninsula, where troops of the Ottoman army fended off the invading forces seeking to reach Istanbul, the capital of the Ottoman Empire.
“What I really want with this dive is to raise awareness of our history to the Turkish youth. They can visit here and see the underwater park. An important chapter of history lies beneath these waters,” she told Anadolu Agency (AA) after the dive.
Erken said that, as a native of Çanakkale, she grew up listening to the stories of heroics of soldiers fought here and thought of them during her dive. “I thought of the difficulties they went through and got emotional. It was a ‘great war’ as it was called back then but it was a war fought fairly, too, unlike the wars today where children, civilians are killed,” she said,” referring to the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war.
