During the
Turkish War of Independence, Sivrihisar was captured by the advancing
Greek forces on 12 August 1921. The town later was recaptured on 20 September 1921 during the
Battle of Sakarya. During the war,
Turkish army had only five warplanes, which were old and not maintained. The military badly needed a new airplane. After the Turkish control was reestablished, the citizens of Sivrihisar decided to buy a new airplane to show their gratitude to the army and after a fund drive they collected TL 4,000. With this money, they bought a single-engine two-seat biplane bomber aircraft of type
Breguet 14 B.2 from
Breguet Aviation in
France. The plane was named after the place of the donors, "Sivrihisar". This was one of the first up-to-date warplanes of the
Turkish Air Force. In
Atatürk’s journal of the war, there is a note "a check from Sivrihisar to
Osmanlı Bankası to buy a new airplane is entrusted to Eskişehir MP Mehmet Efendi". Also
Semyon Aralov, then the
Soviet representative in Turkey notes that an airplane donated by the Sivrihisar citizens was flying over Sivrihisar during his visit there on 27 March 1922. Piloted by Halim Canko, the warplane carried out the roles of
reconnaissance,
fighter and
bomber aircraft. ==Commemoration==