Bandırma Vapuru

The story behind the name

Bandırma Vapuru

Bandırma is the steamer that carried Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, then Inspector of the Ninth Army, and his staff from Istanbul to Samsun in May 1919 — the voyage that marks the start of the Turkish War of Independence.

She was built in Glasgow, Scotland, in 1878 as a 279-gross-ton passenger and cargo steamer. After five years with her first owner she was sold in 1883 to a Greek company and renamed Kymi, with her registry moved from London to Piraeus. She sank in an accident on 12 December 1891, was refloated the same year, sold to an Istanbul firm and registered in the port of Istanbul.

In 1894 she passed to the Ottoman state shipping line İdare-i Mahsusa, raised the Turkish flag and was renamed Panderma, carrying cargo and passengers between Tekirdağ, Mürefte, Şarköy, Karabiga and Erdek on the Sea of Marmara. When the line became the Ottoman Maritime Administration on 28 October 1910, she took the name Bandırma and served as a mail steamer.