The 27th September, the anniversary of the Battle of Preveza, is celebrated as the Turkish Naval Forces Day.
On 27th September 1538, a naval battle for the supremacy in the Mediterranean was fought between the Ottoman Navy commandeered by Barbaros Hayrettin Pasa and the fleet of a Christian alliance assembled by Pope Paul III and commandeered by Andrea Doria.
With the victory at Preveza and the subsequent victory in the Battle of Djerba in 1560, the Ottoman Empire successfully repulsed the efforts of Venice and Spain, the two principal Mediterranean powers, to stop the Turkish drive to control the Mediterranean. This only changed with the Battle of Lepanto in 1571.
According to marvelous book Empires of The Sea by the historian Roger Crowley, the importance of the Battle of Preveza lays in its psychological effects as the battle shattered the morale of the Christian Alliance that fought against the Ottoman Empire for the control of the Mediterranean.
The celebrate the 474th anniversary of this battle on 27th September, the MEKO 200 class frigate F-243 TCG Yıldırım visited İstanbul and was opened to the public. As a bonus, I was able to witness the southbound passage of the two training ships of Turkish Navy A-577 TCG Sokullu Mehmet Paşa and A-579 TCG Cezayirli Hasan Paşa. Both ships were on a training cruise with the cadets of the Naval Academy in the Black Sea.
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