I have no objection to Atatürk's name being given to a ship, or to the largest and most powerful ship ever seen in the Navy's flotilla. However, this is a ship that will be in service for 40 or even 50 years, but who knows what the future holds, in 20 years we may be talking about a larger aircraft carrier with EMALS.We have seen navy ships named carried the title of Ottoman sultans, but is there a special reason why they are not named after our national heroes of the Republican era? Atatürk is more than a national hero, he is the eternal leader of our nation, the founder of the republic and our first president. If a republican-era monument is to be named after him, I don't know what could be better than the flagship of the navy. The aircraft carrier will not only be the flagship of the navy, but also a symbol of its face in the new century.
Just as 10 to 15 years ago there was no talk of an aircraft carrier, only an LHD, although the Navy's decades-long ambition for an aircraft carrier was well known, we were also expecting a 40-50,000 tonne ship, whereas we know we have 60,000 tonnes to start with.
So in a scenario where we happen to have a 100,000 tonne carrier, what are we going to do?
For these reasons, I wanted to take Atatürk's name off the list. And I came up with a name that met both of these criteria;
- to complete Anadolu - Trakya in the context
- greater than Anadolu - Trakya
For Atatürk's name, which can be given to the CSG flotilla, rather than assigning it to an entity seems more reasonable. We are lesslikely to have another group command in addition to kuzey - guney ( or maybe kuzey - bati - guney if speaking for combatants flotillas), or very lesslikely to have more than one CSG to feel to urge to call them by numbers as US does, or China will do, so calling it ' Atatürk Flotilla / Battle Group ' seems very reasonable. Note this, we referred the ships which held the ceremony in Istanbul Strait, in 100th year of Republic as 'Flotilla of Republic'.