Mustafa Ertuğrul Aker

Mustafa Ertuğrul Aker
Yüzbaşı Mustafa Ertuğrul (Aker) in 1927
Born	1892, Hanya, Crete, Ottoman Empire
Died	1961, Antalya, Turkey
Allegiance	Ottoman Empire, Turkey
Rank	Artillery captain
Battles/wars	World War I Turkish War of Independence
Awards	Medal of Independence, Iron Cross
Other work	Wrote his memoirs of war

Mustafa Ertuğrul (full name after the Surname Law of 1934 in Turkey; Mustafa Ertuğrul Aker) was an officer of the Ottoman Army during World War I and of the Turkish Army in the early stages of the Turkish War of Independence (he was wounded near Aydın in 1919).

He accomplished a number of brilliant military feats, the most notable being the sinking of the British seaplane tender HMS Ben-my-Chree with shore artillery fire. In the same campaign along the coasts of southwestern Turkey, he also sank the French auxiliary aviso Paris II, the converted naval trawler Alexandra and a number of other Allied vessels in 1917.

He was born in 1893 in Hanya to Turkish Cretan parents. His family remained in Crete until 1903 when they moved to Istanbul where Ertuğrul attended the Ottoman Military Academy.

He married a daughter of his commander Şefik Bey (Aker). After the 1934 Surname Law, he chose the family name of his father-in-law.

By the start of the Greco-Turkish War (1919-1922), he had been posted to Aydın region where he had the task of organizing and training Demirci Mehmet Efe's efe militia units. He was wounded in an ambush in 1919, and he spent the rest of his life in Antalya as a disabled officer. Mustafa Ertuğrul died in 1964.