Yakup Satar

Who was Yakup Satar?

Yakup Satar was, at 110, believed to have been the last Turkish veteran of the First World War. He died at age 110.

Born in Crimea, Satar joined the army of the Ottoman Empire in 1915. On February 23, 1917, he was taken prisoner by the British in the Baghdad campaign's Second Battle of Kut. Freed after the end of the war, Satar then served in the forces of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk in the Turkish War of Independence, which lasted from 1919 to 1923.

Shortly before his 110th birthday, he was treated for a minor infection at a military hospital before being released home, where he lived with his daughter in the Seyitgazi district of Eskişehir. He died soon after turning 110.

His memories from the War of Independence and his daily life along with those of two other veterans, Ömer Küyük and Veysel Turan, are depicted in the documentary film Son Buluşma by Nesli Çölgeçen.