Ahmet Ali Çelikten
Great PeopleBorn in İzmir, 1883
Ahmet Ali Çelikten was born in İzmir in 1883, into the Afro-Turkish community of the Aegean coast — families brought from East Africa and Sudan over generations, who by his lifetime had been Ottoman for as long as anyone could remember. His mother, Emine Hanım, was of Nigerian descent; his father, Ali Bey, was of mixed African and Turkish origin. He was both, and never only one.
The navy first, and then the water at Yeşilköy
In 1904 he entered the Haddehâne Mektebi, the Ottoman naval technical school, and was commissioned a first lieutenant in 1908. Flight came later and almost by accident of timing: the Ottoman navy formed its flight school on the water at Yeşilköy on 25 June 1914, weeks before the First World War began. Çelikten was already a naval officer when the aeroplanes arrived.
11 November 1916
On 11 November 1916 he qualified as a military pilot. He was thirty-three years old, and he flew for the Ottoman squadrons through the rest of the war. In February 1917 he was promoted captain, and that December he was sent on to Berlin for advanced courses — a mark of how seriously the navy took him.
On being 'the first' — and why we do not say it
Çelikten is often described online as the world's first Black military pilot. That claim does not survive checking, and this lesson will not make it. Domenico Mondelli, an Italian officer born in Eritrea, preceded him. The dated comparison that does hold is with the American Eugene Bullard, who could not fly for his own country's army and went to France instead: Bullard's pilot's brevet is dated 20 July 1917, eight months after Çelikten's. He was one of the very first Black military pilots anywhere. The records genuinely argue about the exact order, and he does not need to win that argument.
The war he did not have to fight
The empire he served lost the First World War. The armistice of 30 October 1918 brought occupation, and the fleet and its aircraft were seized. On 15 May 1919 foreign troops landed at İzmir — the city he had been born in. Four days later Mustafa Kemal Atatürk landed at Samsun and the War of Independence began from almost nothing. Çelikten volunteered. Nobody conscripted him; the empire was finished and the national movement had barely any aircraft at all. He served at the Konya military air base, and in 1922 was sent to the Black Sea coast at Amasra to take possession of aeroplanes the movement was forbidden to own, under the eyes of the occupying powers.
Medal of Independence No. 480
The Republic of Türkiye was declared on 29 October 1923. In 1924 it awarded Çelikten the Medal of Independence for valour — number 480. He went on serving the country's air arm for another quarter of a century, retiring a colonel in 1949 after forty-five years in uniform. He died on 24 June 1969 in İzmir, the city where he was born.
Key Dates to Remember
- 1883 — Born in İzmir
- 1904 — Enters the Ottoman naval technical school
- 1908 — Commissioned a first lieutenant
- 11 Nov 1916 — Qualifies as a military pilot
- Feb 1917 — Promoted captain
- 1919 — Volunteers for the War of Independence
- 1922 — Sent to Amasra to recover aircraft
- 1924 — Awarded Medal of Independence No. 480
- 1949 — Retires a colonel
- 24 Jun 1969 — Dies in İzmir