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[1] http://www.turkeyswar.com/aviation.html
[2] British General Staff. (1995) 1916 Handbook of the Turkish Army. Battery Press, Nashville: 178.
[3] Ibid. "Part of the VIII Army Corps (Damascus) 'Air Company'."
According to the Aerodrome website the Ottoman Empire entered the war in
October of 1914, it had less than a dozen military aircraft.
- These were identified by red rudders marked with a white crescent and five-point star, in the design of the Ottoman flag.
- The crescent was open to the rudder’s trailing edge on both sides. No fuselage markings were carried. One of these aircraft, a Deperdussin, is known to have carried
the crescent-and-star marking on the underside of the wing.
- Some of the early Ottoman aircraft, including L.V.G. B.Is and Bleriots, carried a red-white-red roundel on the underside of the starboard wing and the
crescent-and-star on their rudders. This is most likely a pre-war marking scheme and was abandoned by mid-1915, the potential for confusion being obvious.
As Germany began to supply aircraft in substantial numbers (1915 – 1918), the Ottoman markings were changed:
- These were a black square surrounded by a thin white border. This was painted over the German crosses on wings, fuselages and rudders and matched the various cross
styles in size and position.
Gotha seaplanes, some two dozen of which were supplied to the Ottoman Empire:
- These retained the crescent-and-star markings throughout the war. These were carried at the wingtips on the upper and lower surfaces of both wings, and on the rudder.
The design was mirrored from port to starboard wing, so that the crescent was always open to the wingtip and the star outboard.