Former Deputy Chairman of the Retired Noncommissioned Officers' Association of Turkey, retired Noncommissioned Officer Yüksel Binici, contacted all colleagues on July 15th and warned them against the coup attempt. He tried his best not to make any mistakes and not to perform any actions that could possibly be illegal.
On the night of July 15th, putschists bombed critical locations such as the National Intelligence Service, the General Staff building, the Parliament, Special Operations Department Directorate; during these attacks, soldiers, policemen, and many civilians were martyred. Anti-coup soldiers and their commanders prevented putschists from capturing more aircraft.
Yüksel and his friends, by breaking the target acquisition system of 60 F-16 aircrafts which were going to be used by FETÖ members to continue bombing cities and state institutions, hindered putschists from cruelly murdering citizens who were resisting.
60 F-16s putschists had captured were damaged and a massacre was prevented
Yüksel describes that night as follows, “We did our best to enlighten our friends, to prevent the coup from being successful and to completely hinder it. Our friends resisted at any area when they realized that it was a possible crime.
Our friends removed part of the target acquisition system of F-16s in order to prevent the coup. There were about 60 jets included in the coup plot in Akıncı Base. If those aircrafts were to take off, there would have been huge destruction and therefore, these bombardments were prevented. If we consider that each of these bombs are capable of damaging a diameter of 25m2, the result would be devastating had they been successful. Thankfully, they were not successful and so the number of casualties has been decreased.”
“Ömer Halisdemir was the rupture point of the coup plot.”
Noting that anti-coup soldiers displayed exemplary deeds that night, Yüksel continued as follows, “Although they were given an order to capture civilian authorities in the area, the gendarmerie thought that it could be a crime and they didn’t follow the orders.” Noncommissioned officers who were sent to suppress the people, refused to comply with orders. Those were definitely the main elements which prevented the coup from succeeding. Especially at the point that the coup plot could be successful, our friend, our colleague, our hero, Ömer Halisdemir who was in charge against the brigadier who came to take control of the command’s administrative function, resisted, did not hand over the headquarters, and even drew his gun and fired it despite knowing that he could die himself, and interrupted the coup plot even before it started. Those were the rupture points of the coup attempt.
