Hydrogen Romantic

By Anna Green

The idea of the Hydrogen Romantic book came to my mind after working for several years with the leading hydrogen energy scientists and observing their activities. One of those scientists, Dr. Turhan Nejat Veziroglu, has devoted his life to this topic, becoming much loved and respected around the world.
In addition to all the momentous events in which Dr. Veziroglu has been involved, his memories are very interesting. Such a life is almost like navigating the pages of history, allowing admirers to gain information without being bored. I asked him to spend one hour with me every day, so I could interview him. During those one-hour periods, I asked him questions, and I recorded his responses. After I finished the interviews, I listened to the recordings. From this, I wrote the book. In addition, I did research on the sections dealing with the historical events. I've added this research as narratives in the book.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Dec 29, 2020
• ISBN: 9781664126985

Anna Green

Anna Green is Associate Professor in the Stout Research Centre for New Zealand Studies at Victoria University of Wellington

Book preview

Copyright © 2020 by Anna Green.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted

in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,

recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,

without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the

product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance

to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 04/08/2022

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CONTENTS

Foreword

Chapter 1 The Early Years

Chapter 2 Growing Up

Chapter 3 Journey to England during World War II

Chapter 4 Higher Education in the UK

Chapter 5 Becoming an Adult

Chapter 6 First Marriage and Moving to the USA

Chapter 7 Life in Miami and the Cyprus Problem

Chapter 8 Hydrogen Energy, China and Japan

Chapter 9 Our New Constitution and the Soviet Union

Chapter 10 Turkish Civilizations, University Project, Children

Chapter 11 The Turkish Common Market and the World

Chapter 12 An Idea of the International Centre for Hydrogen Energy Technologies

Chapter 13 Bengi’s Illness and Her Passing

Chapter 14 A Second Chance

Afterword

DEDICATED TO

Lili Ferruh Veziroglu

FOREWORD

The idea of the Hydrogen Romantic book came to my mind after working for several years with the leading hydrogen energy scientists and observing their activities. One of those scientists, Dr. Turhan Nejat Veziroglu, has devoted his life to this topic, becoming much loved and respected around the world.

In addition to all the momentous events in which Dr. Veziroglu has been involved, his memories are very fascinating. Such a life is almost like navigating the pages of history, allowing admirers to gain information without being bored. I asked him to spend one hour with me every day, so I could interview him. During those one-hour periods, I asked him questions, and I recorded his responses. After I finished the interviews, I listened to the recordings. From this, I wrote the book. In addition, I did research on the sections dealing with the historical events. I’ve added this research as narratives in the book.

I was grateful that Dr. Batuhan Osmanoglu and Diane Mahin reviewed my book. I thank them very much for their assistance. Of course, the greatest support and collaboration was provided by the subject of my book, Dr. T. Nejat Veziroglu. After I completed each draft of the book, he read it and contributed to the editing.

I hope that you, the reader, find this book inspiring and that it motivates you to serve humanity in some capacity.

Anna Green

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Nejat, Mother Ferruh, Brother Sedat

CHAPTER 1

The Early Years

(1915 – 1930)

I woke up on Sunday with Whiptail’s meow. Sedat, my mother and my grandmother were sleeping. The sun was just beginning to come up. I got out of bed quietly without waking anyone and drank a glass milk in the kitchen while watching the sunrise. I thought about what my grandmother had told me the previous evening and promised myself that one day I would go to Tutrakan, Bulgaria, where my grandfather had lived. Later, I went to my grandmother’s (Süreyya Lady) room. She was sound asleep and snoring. I tried to imagine what a life she must have had. She sewed all day to earn a living for our family. This lovely woman carried all the difficulties of life on her shoulders without any complaints.

Süreyya Lady, Ahmet Captain and the War

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In 1898, my grandmother fell in love with a handsome soldier, Ahmet Captain, who served in the Ottoman Army. He was from Akçay Village of Karamürsel. They married, and she followed her love to the Balkans, where the military sent him. My grandparents had gone to Bosnia and Herzegovina, Karadağ, Albania, and Prizren, Kosovo, where my mother Ferruh was born.

At that time, the Ottoman Army was fighting against the Balkan Union Army. The army comprised the Kingdoms of Bulgaria, Serbia, Greece and Montenegro. The political parties of the Ottoman Empire all had different political views, making it impossible for the Ottomans to form a united front against their enemies’ advances. The Balkan Union Army captured most of the Ottoman territory in the Balkans, resulting in the Ottomans’ defeat. My grandfather then decided to take his family – my grandmother, my aunt and my mother – to Turkey, and they settled in Üsküdar, Istanbul. He often left them to go from one war to another with the Ottoman Army.

When the latest news of the Battle of Gallipoli arrived, my grandfather’s division went to Gallipoli (which is now called Gelibolu in modern Turkey) where he fought against the British and ANZAC (Australia and New Zealand Army Corps). At that time, Winston Churchill was the Minister of the British Navy. In September, 1914, Churchill prepared a plan for the British Army to pass through the Dardanelles and capture Istanbul. He gave the plan to the British Prime Minister, Herbert Asquith. In February of 1915, the British Royal Navy and French fleets, which consisted of several large-scale ships, attacked the Dardanelles. It was their first attack. The strongest attack was on March 18, 1915, but they suffered heavy losses and had to abandon the operation. They understood that it was not possible to reach Istanbul through the Dardanelles. They formulated a new plan which was to take over the Ottomans with a ground offense in the Dardanelles to disarm the coastal artillery batteries. In the dawn of April 25, 1915, the British and ANZAC forces came ashore at five points in the south of the Gallipoli Peninsula. The British and ANZAC forces had landed at the coastal towns of Sedd-el-Bahr and Arıburnu, which turned out to be a disaster for them. The British were caught in the fire of well dug-in Turkish machine gunners. Many British troops could not get ashore and were killed at sea. The Turks, who were led by an unknown Colonel named Mustafa Kemal, pushed back the initial ANZAC move inland, as well. The fighting was bloody and costly for both sides.

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Mustafa Kemal

Col. Mustafa Kemal and his forces bravely defended Arıburnu. As a result, the British and ANZAC were not able to gain a foothold on their first ground offensive. Thereupon, the allies, following Britain’s lead, attacked Suvla Bay in the north of Arıburnu on August 6, 1915. On August 9th, Mustafa Kemal successfully commanded his first Anafartalar battle against the British. The British forces were barely able to hold the line of fire on the beach. The following day, Mustafa Kemal led a counter-attack, and the ANZAC troops were pushed back further.

British and ANZAC forces were also unsuccessful in the second Anafartalar battle and ultimately, they couldn’t get past the Ottoman defense lines. The British and ANZAC forces were removed entirely from the Gallipoli Peninsula in December of 1915. Ahmet Captain, my grandfather, was one of Mustafa Kemal’s brave soldiers who fought heroically at the Anafartalar. Ahmet Captain died in the Gallipoli battles, and Col. Mustafa Kemal sent my grandfather’s belongings, whatever was in his pocket, to my grandmother. Every time my grandmother told us this story, her eyes would fill with tears, but she had a proud voice and would sit upright with poise and honor. She would tell her daughters, my Aunt Naciye and my mother, that they were also responsible for protecting the Republic of Turkey, which was founded in 1923 by the same colonel defending the Gallipoli, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.

After Ahmet Captain’s Death

After Ahmet Captain’s death, my grandmother Süreyya had to shoulder all the responsibilities of the family. She never complained and worked hard to give her daughters – my mother and my aunt – a good education. She became a tailor, working day and night to provide a good life for her children.

My mother Ferruh and Aunt Naciye began training in Darülfünun, the first western-style college in the Ottoman Empire, to become teachers. After their graduation, they taught at Beylerbeyi Primary School. Sometime later, my aunt became the director of that school while my mother continued teaching. When she had time, my mother helped my grandmother with tailoring. There were times my grandmother was not able to go to Abdülkadir Bey’s store in Üsküdar, Istanbul to buy some fabric, so she often sent my mother there to buy supplies for her. Abdülkadir Bey was a respected businessman from Dinar, a village of Afyon. He served as the mayor of Afyon for several terms. He was not too tall, but not too short, either, and had the typical features of an Anatolian man: a long, narrow nose, high cheekbones and a thick mustache. He exported tobacco and rose oil all over the world as well as ran the textile store in Üsküdar. Abdulkadir Bey liked my mother a lot and often gave generous discounts to her. One day, he told my mother that he had feelings for her and said that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. My mother said yes. Following the traditions, he visited my grandmother’s home, bringing flowers and chocolate, and asked for her blessing. Süreyya gave them her blessing, and Abdulkadir Bey and my mother got married in 1923 in the Üsküdar Municipality Marriage Office.

At the time, the Turkish Republic had just been established, and Mustafa Kemal Pasha’s struggle with enemies would often grab the headlines on the radio. My parents had just gotten married when the Turks seized back control of İzmir from the Greeks in 1922. Christians living in İzmir were nervous and fearful of the Turks. They thought that the Turks would seek revenge for what happened during the Greek occupation. At that point, tensions were still rising. Shortly after Turkey’s independence, a massive fire took place in İzmir. Halide Edip Adıvar, a great writer and politician at that time, wrote a book regarding this fire and named it The Turkish Ordeal.

My grandmother told us that Mustafa Kemal was also in İzmir at that time. He established his command base at the Uşakizade mansion, the house of a prominent local businessman. Uşakizade’s daughter, Miss Latife Uşakizade, hosted him, and they married in 1923.

A Short Marriage and Ferruh Takes Control

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Abdulkadir, Father

I was still a baby when my mother was expecting another child. My father had been traveling very often to Dinar during mother’s pregnancy, and she had some doubts about my father’s business. When she hired a private detective to follow him, she found out that my father was married to another woman in Dinar and had five other children – three boys and two girls. My mother got very upset and moved us to my grandmother’s house immediately. Soon after, she filed for divorce. It was her good fortune that Mustafa Kemal had recently modernized the civil law which stated one man could only have one wife. My parents were divorced at the first trial. We didn’t see or hear from my father for a long time after the divorce. He never called us, and my mother never called him. She was a proud woman. Even though we needed help to survive, she never asked him or anyone else to help us. Instead of asking for help, she looked for a job. Finally, she started teaching in Karşıyaka Cumhuriyet Elementary School, and the whole family moved to İzmir. My grandmother continued to work as a tailor. My younger brother, Sedat, was born in Karşıyaka.

We rented a small house in the district of Bostanlı. Our landlords were Mr. Avnï Bey and his wife Sabiha. Avnï Bey had a well-known jewelry store in the city. Sabiha’s brother Mahmut and their mother were also living in the same house. Our home was adjacent to theirs, and it was a little smaller.

Life gradually became easier for us. My grandmother became a very famous tailor in Karşıyaka and made a lot of money. My mother was also making some money, so our economic situation got quite good. My grandmother took care of me most of the time because Sedat was younger, and my mother had to take care of him. Grandmother usually entrusted me with the travel documents and money we used during the holidays for safekeeping. I kept our ID’s and money in my closet, and I would do the accounting as well.

Ms. Sabiha’s brother, Mahmut, called our mother ‘Sister’ and because of that, we also called our mother ‘Sister’ and called our grandmother ‘Mother’. Ms. Sabiha did not have any children, and she loved us a lot. We also loved her very much, especially when sitting on her lap. Mother didn’t like us calling Ms. Sabiha ‘Sister’, but we liked it. On the other hand, my mother’s friends told her that it was OK that we called her ‘Sister’. They thought my mother was young and could get married again. Therefore, if we called Ms. Sabinha ‘Sister’, it could help my mother find a husband. My mother’s friends tried finding a suitable candidate for her. One time, they came to our home and gave my mother their opinions about the best candidate. He was educated and had a good income. Nevertheless, my mother said, I won’t get married until my children are grown-up.

İzmir

Our house in İzmir had four rooms. There was a kitchen and a very big living room. We ate our dinner in the living room. I never had much of an appetite, and my mother was always very disappointed, but she had a strategy. She would read an interesting book to us during meal times. While I was listening to the book, I ate my meal quickly. As soon as I was done with my food, she stopped reading, and we never finished a book in one sitting. Mother would say, I will read the remainder of the book during the next meal. The one exception was when my grandmother prepared bumbar (stuffed intestine) especially for me. It was my favorite dish, so I did not need to have my mother read to me.

On the weekends, we took the tram to either Pınarbaşı or Çiğli Park to have picnics. The parks were in the countryside, and I loved to go there. Sometimes, we would go to a restaurant with our friends in Karşıyaka. Musicians played traditional music next to the pier, and the singers would sit on wooden stools. One by one, they would stand up and sing a song. Another of our favorite restaurants was on the Bostanlı tram route. There, musicians played French dance music. We usually went to this restaurant with our neighbors, Leman and Cevdet. When they got up to dance, my mother had me dance with her. One of the musicians held an instrument that looked like a woman’s figure. When I looked at the instrument, I saw two holes shaped like a handwritten f in the middle section. I asked my mother what the name of this instrument was, and she said that it was called violoncello or cello for short. Another musical instrument caught my attention. It looked like a very enlarged violin. The person who was playing this instrument sometimes used his fingers and other times used a bow. The sound of this instrument was very deep. I asked my mother what it was called, and I learned that its name was contrabass. These two instruments would get all my attention when we danced, and I couldn’t take my eyes off them. These weekend outings were entertaining because I always learned new things.

Sometimes my mother sketched to entertain me or to get me to eat my meals. Sedat was not like me; he had a good appetite. My mother asked me one day while she was trying to make me eat my food, What shall I draw? I asked her to depict me jumping off the tram, so she did. I looked at the picture and asked, Where is the bandage under my foot? My mother was very surprised at this remark and laughed. She remembered the time I fell off the tram and added some cotton under my foot on the picture. There, my son, she said. Is that OK? I happily replied, Yes, now it is done.

My mother read books mostly about Arsene Lupin (a character created by French author Maurice Leblanc) and Sherlock Holmes, the private investigator that lived in London. He was the character created by Scottish author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I really enjoyed listening to Sherlock Holmes. He was famous for investigating the events in a scientific way and would solve the crimes using logic.

Alaybey

On September 9, 1922, The Turkish government allocated the properties of the Anatolian Greeks who had returned to Greece. These properties went to Turkish families who had migrated from the Balkans. My grandmother applied for one of these properties. The government provided homes based on the applicants’ past. For example, if they came from a city, they got a house in a city. If they came from a village, they got a house in a village. My grandmother was from the city, and with our neighbor and lawyer Mr. Simsar’s help, my grandmother got a property in the Alaybey District of Karşıyaka. The government placed us at Fevzipaşa Street, number 121, a house that was facing the street. It was a home with a very large basement. It also had a room over the kitchen as well as an enormous backyard. One of the tram lines passed right in front of our house. It merged with two others and continued to the center of Karşıyaka. At that time, trams were drawn by horses. There were three tram lines. One of the routes was from the Karşıyaka ferry docks to Bostanlı, the second one went in the opposite direction to Alaybey, and the third went to Fevzipaşa Street. Our new home was quite a beautiful one on this tram line.

When we moved to Alaybey, in Karşıyaka, İzmir, only the main streets had wooden poles carrying electricity. Electricity, which was produced by a small, old diesel generator, was used to light up the streets. Inside the houses, we had kerosene lamps or a gas furnace. Some houses also had a charcoal grill. We bought kerosene from the local grocer and used it for both the stove and the lamps. The grocer obtained the kerosene from Turan, located in Alaybey in the district of İzmir, where there were four or five large cylindrical storage tanks. Some held kerosene while others were said to hold diesel. This was the state of the oil infrastructure. The storage tanks in Turan had an image of a flying horse on them along with the text SOCONY Vacuum. SOCONY was short for the Standard Oil Company of New York. Most of the world’s oil distribution network was controlled by this company which was owned by the Rockefeller family.

Several outdoor movie theaters operated in the summer in Alaybey. They showed silent movies. The movies with Pat and Patachon were really funny. Pianists who sat next to the curtain would play music during the movies. The dialogs were projected onto the curtain. I had a habit of falling sleep halfway through the movies, so I looked for a remedy and invented a project. I imagined that there was a pole in the middle of the movie theater, and a little room was built on top of the pole. I pretended to watch the movie lying down in that elevated room. I was always thinking of such inventions.

When I was four years old, we were sitting at home, and the house began to shake. I was frightened, and I rushed to the street and found myself on the tram rails. Luckily, I pulled myself together quickly because if a tram were to come, I would not be alive right now. Later, we learned that there had been a magnitude seven earthquake in İzmir’s Torbalı District to the southeast of us. The earthquake cracked the kitchen wall on the side of our house. A big wall at my friend Basri’s house was completely destroyed. The earthquake hit on a weekend when we were all at home, and my grandmother was taking a break from her work. When she saw me, she could not control herself and bit my cheeks. This love hurt, and I was thinking to myself, What kind of love is this?, but I did not make a sound.

Grandmother Learns to Read Again

My grandmother had a subscription to some newspapers. On the weekends, Sedat and I would read the newspapers until noon. My grandmother also loved to read the papers, but she had a huge task in front of her. Under Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the first President of the Republic of Turkey, the government replaced the Ottoman Turkish alphabet with the Latin-based alphabet, thinking that it would make it easier to teach reading and writing. My grandmother went to school following the Ottoman education system, and she did not know the Latin alphabet. The new Turkish alphabet was prepared by a commission following Ataturk’s order. He planned a quick transition and announced the new alphabet revolution to the public in Sarayburnu Park,