In March 1985, 215 Japanese citizens were waiting to get out of Tehran. On March 17, Iraq had announced that any aircraft over Iranian airspace could be attacked once a deadline passed. Other countries were flying their own citizens out. Japan could not easily do the same: its legal and logistical arrangements made it difficult to send military aircraft overseas, and no Japanese airline flew to Tehran. So Japan asked Turkey for help. Turkish Airlines sent special aircraft, and on March 19 all 215 people left Iran before the deadline.
In both countries, that flight is told alongside a much older story. In 1890, an Ottoman frigate called the Ertugrul came to Japan on a diplomatic mission. On its way home, a powerful storm drove it onto the reefs off Wakayama. More than 500 sailors died. Sixty-nine survived, many of them injured, on a remote stretch of coast far from home, where they could barely communicate with anyone.
What happened to those 69 men is the reason the two events, 95 years apart, are still remembered together.
