A Last look at the old Sultan, 60 Years Ago
On the road in Idaho at an industry event, so instead of our regular Warship Wednesday programming, please accept this glimpse of the past.
Every warship fan knows of the (in)famous Great War-era Moltke-class battlecruiser SMS Goeben, which had been used by the Ottomans as Yavuz Sultan Selim and then by the Turkish Navy simply as TCG Yavuz.
Decommissioned in 1950 and used as a pier-side naval headquarters until 1960, she was put up for sale when efforts by the Turkish government to have West Germany buy her back as a museum ship for a nominal fee failed.
By August 1966, the old girl was sitting idle at Gölcük Naval Base, Turkey, nearing the final chapter of her historic existence, being recycled for her value in pre-Atomic steel.
A series of amazing, if somewhat forlorn, images was captured by British gentleman photographer Aubrey Houston Bowden in August 1966, now in the Imperial War Museum, which chronicled the world’s last remaining battle cruiser and the final capital ship of both the Kaiserliche Marine, the Donanma-yı Humayun, and the Türk Deniz Kuvvetleri.
Below is a sample:
