English: Admiral Ali Osman Pasha

Ottoman monarch Sultan Abdul Hamid II was deeply impressed by Japan’s rapid modernization following the Meiji Restoration of 1868. His government approached Japan in the hope of forging ties of friendship; to which the Meiji government responded by dispatching Prince Komatsu-no-miya Akihito to Constantinople in 1887 to affirm its mutual sentiment. The Ottomans continued the exchange by sending the frigate Ertugrul on a goodwill visit to Japan in July 1889.. Heading the Ottoman mission was Admiral Ali Osman Pasha. He and his crew of over 600 sailors and officers arrived in Yokohama aboard the 2,344-ton, 76-meter Ertugrul in June 1890 after a long and trouble-prone voyage. While in Japan, the admiral received an audience with Emperor Meiji, presenting the monarch with gifts and bestowing prestigious titles of the Ottoman Empire. After a three-month stay, the Ertugrul set sail from Yokohama on its return voyage on September 15. During its call the contingent had lost several crew members in a cholera outbreak, but worse still awaited the ill-fated mission. The Ertugrul encountered a typhoon a day out of Yokohama. Tossed by wind and waves throughout the night of September 16, the vessel ultimately broke up on rocks off the island of Kii Ōshima in the present-day town of Kushimoto, Wakayama Prefecture.

Five hundred eighty-seven sailors and officers perished, including Admiral Ali Osman Pasha and the ship’s captain. Kii Ōshima islanders braved the typhoon, making frantic efforts to save 69 members of the vessel’s contingent. Word of their heroic deeds soon reached Turkey, where it elicited an effusion of pro-Japanese sentiment. That sentiment has endured, inspiring a cinematic dramatization of the incident—a joint Turkish-Japanese production—which will open in theaters in both nations this December.