the early stages of the Turkish War of Independence, these two gunboats did not return to Istanbul, despite heavy pressure from the Ottoman government and the Allies. Instead, they were placed under the command of the Turkish liberation forces led by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and headquartered in Ankara. Turkish War of Independence Directorate of Naval Affairs A large number of the naval officers and students of the Naval Academy went to Anatolia for participating in the Turkish War of Independence. On 10 July 1920, the Directorate of Naval Affairs (Umur-u Bahriye Müdürlüğü) was founded in Ankara under the Ministry of National Defense and was given the duty of organizing and maintaining strategic logistical shipping through the Black Sea in order to provide the Turkish liberation forces in Anatolia with weapons and other supplies. All existing naval institutions in the parts of Anatolia that were administered by the Ankara government were assigned to this Directorate. The Directorate of Naval Affairs was extremely successful in organizing local surface units and volunteers and in forming an intelligence network to discover the movements of the enemy ships. As a result, logistic transportation was carried out effectively. The Turkish Grand National Assembly in Ankara made an agreement with the Soviet Union to procure supplies for the Turkish liberation forces. Aydın Reis left from Samsun (on 16 September 1920) and Preveze left from Trabzon (on 30 September 1920) for Novorossiysk in order to transport weapons, other supplies and financial aid to the Turkish liberation forces. The Trabzon Shipping Detachment, which was founded on 21 September 1920, was renamed as the Trabzon Naval Shipping Command with the directive issued by the Ministry of National Defense on 26 October 1920. On January 1, 1921, the Samsun Naval Command was formed. In the subsequent stages of the Turkish War of Independence, due to the growing need for maritime shipping and the increase in the quantity and quality of the units and small ships, the organizational structure of the Directorate of Naval Affairs was gradually extended. In the same period, a number of Turkish civilian seamen formed a group under the name of the Naval Aid Organization (Muavenet-i Bahriye). This group secretly obtained cannons, light weapons, ammunition, landmines and ordnance from the former Ottoman military warehouses in Istanbul that were under the control of the occupying Allies and sent them to the Turkish liberation forces in Anatolia with civil water