Ahmet Esat Tomruk

Ahmet Esat Tomruk (1892 - 14 February 1966) was a Turkish spy better known as "İngiliz Kemal" [Kemal, the Englishman][1] in Turkey.

Tomruk was born in 1892 in Istanbul. At the age of five, his father Mehmet Reşit Bey had died, and he continued living with his mother Sıdıka Hanım and his uncle Sezai Bey[citation needed] [2]. Sezai Bey enrolled him in Galatasaray High School where he studied. In his school years he practiced Italian, Greek, English and French by exchanging letters with Young Turks who had fled to Europe. Kemal fled Turkey as a teenager, being a stowaway in a ship headed for England after being targeted by agents working for Abdulhamid II. He was raised by the captain of the ship he fled in and learned English. During the First World War, he returned to Turkey and fought in the Gallipoli campaign as an Ottoman officer, and worked for the Special Organization of the Ottoman Empire. In the Turkish Independence War he was received by Mustafa Kemal and was ordered to infiltrate an encampment of the Greek Army.[3] Tomruk was featured in the 1952 film "İngiliz Kemal Lawrense Karşı", and the 1968 "Ingiliz Kemal".[4][5]

References

  1. ^ Peter Cowie, World Filmography 1968, Volume 2, Tantivy Press, 1977, p. 564.
  2. ^ "İNGİLİZ KEMAL |Ahmet Esat Tomruk Kimdir?". Evrim Ağacı (in Turkish). 2022-10-28. Retrieved 2026-02-20.
  3. ^ Oğuz Aral, "Unutulan bir efsane: İngiliz Kemal"[dead link], Hürriyet, December 14, 2003. (in Turkish)
  4. ^ "Ingiliz Kemal Lawrense karsi (1952)" – via www.imdb.com.
  5. ^ "Ingiliz Kemal" – via www.imdb.com.