IN 1890, A JAPANESE FISHING VILLAGE SAVED 69 TURKISH SAILORS. 95 YEARS LATER, TURKEY PAID IT BACK 🇯🇵🇹🇷 September 1890. An Ottoman warship called the Ertugrul was heading home from Japan when a typhoon threw it onto the rocks near Kushimoto, at the southern tip of Japan's main island. More than 500 sailors died. The people of the small island nearby ran down to the water in the storm and pulled survivors out. By many accounts, they had very little food themselves, and gave the sailors what they had. 69 men survived. Japan sent them home on two of its own warships. Japan mostly forgot. Turkey didn't. Generations of Turkish kids learned the story at school. March 1985. War between Iran and Iraq. Iraq announced it would shoot down any plane over Iran after a deadline. More than 200 Japanese were stuck in Tehran, and under Japan's laws at the time, its own military planes could not go and get them. Turkey sent two Turkish Airlines planes. They flew 215 Japanese out before the deadline. When people later asked why, the answer from Turkey kept coming back to one word. Ertugrul. Today, Kushimoto still holds a memorial for the sailors, and Turkey still sends people to stand there.