After reading this story, you will understand how funny the Turkish army is. In July 1974, the Turkish naval formation, which was on alert off the coast of Cyprus, was suddenly attacked by a fighter formation and was forced to counterattack. But after the battle, the Turkish Navy found that the fighter that attacked it came from its own air force.
It turned out that there was a "oolong battle"!
Finally, it was not until the end of the war that the respective commanders of the two sides realized that it was their own people who had beaten their own people, and hurriedly stopped the war.
Afterwards, after an inventory, the Turkish naval formation was sunk by a destroyer, 2 of which were severely damaged and more than 300 soldiers were wounded.
On the part of the Turkish Air Force, the destruction of only one fighter can be said to have achieved a considerable "victory".
To this end, the Turkish Navy immediately took the Air Force to a military tribunal, requesting that the Turkish Air Force generals in the incident be dismissed.
Not only that, but in order to insult the Turkish Air Force, the Turkish Navy also specially made a huge pennant with the following words:
"Congratulations to the heroic and great Turkish Air Force, after a hard battle, finally destroyed one Turkish Navy destroyer and severely damaged 2 other destroyers, causing more than 300 naval casualties in total."
When the pennant with the meaning of "insult" was delivered to the Turkish Air Force, everyone felt blushing.
Yes, what is the ability to sink one's own warship?
So, by 1974, how could the Turkish Air Force and Navy, which already had modern communications equipment, still attack each other there, and eventually cause this accident?
It turned out that there was a coup d'état in Cyprus at that time, and Turkey and the enemy Greece had sent troops to the region.
Because of the disagreement, coupled with centuries of hatred, there was a local war between the two sides.
Halfway through the war, the Turkish military found that the navy seemed to have done more credit than the air force, so it issued medals to the commander of the navy with great fanfare at home, and all the naval soldiers involved in the war also received a lot of bonuses.
At this point, the Turkish Air Force was not happy, they fought hard, lost so many comrades and fighters, and finally all the credit was taken away by the Navy.
So they vowed in their hearts that they would make a great achievement, and then look for explanations from the top level to find the lost face for the Air Force.
Soon the Turkish Air Force's radar showed that the Greek Navy had a fleet of warships passing near cyprus waters without warplanes escorting them.
As a result, the Turkish Air Force dispatched all the elite pilots to form a huge formation of fighters to the target sea.
After arriving at the designated coordinates, the pilots of the Turkish Air Force fighters, sure enough, saw that there were several destroyers of "enemy countries" on the sea, and they were determined to make meritorious contributions, and under the leadership of the commander, they immediately launched an attack on the warships on the sea.
Because the sea was very foggy at that time, the Turkish destroyers could not tell which side the fighters in the air came from, and when they saw the other side attacking themselves, they immediately organized a counterattack.
In this way, the two sides came and went and fought for about half an hour.
Until the fog cleared, the front-line soldiers on both sides suddenly found that it was not the enemy who fought with them, but the fraternal troops of their own country. So, the exchange of fire quickly stopped.
After a brief confirmation, the commanders of both sides regretted slapping the door in the head.
Not only that, at this time, the real Greek naval fleet also rushed to the sea of the incident.
However, seeing that the Turkish Navy and Air Force themselves had become like that, the Greek Navy, which did not want to expand the war, just watched the hilarity from the side, did not launch an attack, but took pictures to admire, and after returning home, told all the international media about the humiliating behavior of the Turkish Navy and Air Force.
This was followed by an endless quarrel between the Turkish Navy and Air Force, and until the end of the local war, neither side apologized to each other.
After the war, Turkey sent an investigation team to find out the cause. The main reason is that the Turkish Air Force is determined to make a contribution, and after obtaining the appearance of the Greek naval fleet, it rushed to the sea area in advance, and as a result, it subconsciously regarded its own naval fleet on the sea as the Greek naval fleet.
There is another important detail here, the Turkish Navy and the Greek Navy at that time, many of the warships in their fleet were purchased from the United States, some of them were similar in appearance, and some were even the same model, which is why the Turkish Air Force was wrong at high altitudes.
Some people may ask, it is all this era, radar, radio, why is the Turkish navy and air force not communicating? I would like to say that Turkey, this country, has always been like this.
