Asa Jennings
Asa K. Jennings was an employee of the International YMCA. Previously, he was a Methodist minister from Upstate New York. He was credited with saving 300,000 Greeks and 50,000 Armenians and Jews in 11 days in Smyrna during the Asia Minor disaster. He had acquired 26 Greek ships by blackmailing the Greek Prime Minister and his Cabinet. After all the refugees had been removed from Smyrna, Jennings got permission from the Turkish Government to remove all non-Muslims from Turkey. The Greek Government, which had changed due to a coup of King Constantine I during the rescue, increased the fleet to 55 ships which Jennings controlled for almost a year. His All Holiness Meletios Metaxakis credited Jennings with saving 1,250,000 people and in December 1922 decorated Jennings with the Golden Cross of Saint Xavier while the Greek Government conferred the Medal of Military Merit. This was the first time in Greek history both medals were awarded at the same time.
Jennings was born on September 20, 1877. He had been working with the YMCA for only two weeks in Smyrna, Asia Minor when the forces of Kemal Ataturk defeated the Greek Army on August 30, 1922. The Greek troops retreated to the port of Smyrna along with the civilians who feared the Turks. The Turkish Army entered the city peacefully on September 9, 1922 after some 350,000 people were trapped between the sea and City. People gave flowers to the Turkish Calvary, and there was peace until an Armenian threw a bomb at the Turkish officer. The officer lost sight in one eye, and his troops then went after Armenians killing them. These troops had witnessed the killing, destruction and rape by the retreating Greek soldiers, and were incensed. . In the next few days, Greeks, Armenians and other Christians living in the city were subjected to atrocities by the undisciplined Turkish shock troops who preceded the regular Turkish Army. Greek Archbishop Chrysostomos was stripped bare and murdered. The U.S. Navy had at most 2 destroyers in port at one time with some 210 sailors aboard. The sailors who were greatly outnumbered and out gunned patrolled the City to protect civilian life. At night, the destroyers used their spot lights trained over the refugees to reduce the number of crimes being committed. On September 13, 3/4 of the city was burned down and the Smyrniots - plus thousands of other Greek refugees from the hinterland of Asia Minor - who were pressed body to body on the quay of the once-bustling city. There were several allied war ships in the harbour, including U.S., U.K. and others but they did not have room for the thousands of refugees aboard. Jennings had formed the American Relief Committee at the beginning of the crisis. The Committee members were from the International College, Standard Oil and other American interests. They gathered flour and fuel to make bread, plus gathered orphans and helpless single women. Wealthy Greeks who could buy passage out of the City gave their houses to Jennings who then had 500 women in one house being used as a maternity ward. Other women were in other houses. There was no room for 2000 orphan children. So they were on the street in front of one of these houses guarded by the U.S. Navy. The orphans were removed from Smyrna on U.S. destroyers that shuttled to Istanbul where they loaded with flour which was a gift from Near East Relief, an organization established to help the Armenians. The senior U.S. diplomat was George Horton, a friend of Greece who had married a Greek woman. Horton attended meetings of the American Relief Committee and was repeatedly asked by Jennings to intercede with the Turks on behalf of the Greeks, but the notes from those meetings show Horton's response was always the same..."bring the subject up at the next meeting." Horton did nothing for the Greeks. The Greek government would not send ships fearing they would be seized by the Turks.
On September 13, 1922, a fire broke out in Smyrna that spread quickly due to the wind. The U.S. and U.K. ordered their citizens to board their warships and leave. Horton boarded a U.S. destroyer, but managed to take valuable Greek coins while leaving 300,000 Greek citizens behind to be killed by the Turks. The Turks had announced their intentions to march the civilians to the interior of Turkey which meant certain death as it had for the Armenians years earlier. Jennings put his wife and three children on a destroyer, but chose to stay behind to help the refugees. After his family was safely in Piraeus, his elder son Asa W. Jennings, age 15, returned to Smyrna to help his Father who was suffering the effects of Potts Disease, a form of tuberculosis. Jennings had become sick in 1904 and wore a body cast for two years. He cut the cast off himself, and his spine collaped. He lost 5" of height and was 5'2". During a period of two years 27 doctors told him he would die shortly. After a meeting with a council of doctors, the wife of Asa K. Jennings, Amy Jennings was advised to tell her husband he was about to die. She cried all night worrying how she could tell her husband such bad news. Then she came upon John 11:4 "at random" she said. That gave her hope. When she saw her husband in the hospital the next day, and informed him of what the doctors said, he was not at all concerned. Amy wrote "How many, many times Mr. Jennings said to me 'Amy, I can't die yet for I feel I have a great work to do and I must go to see Jerusalem.'" That was 1904.
In his report to his superiors at the YMCA Jennings wrote "No one can ever describe the sensations of those days. I have seen men, women and children whipped, robbed, shot, stabbed and drowned in the sea. And while I helped many, it seemed like nothing compared with the great need. It seems as though the awful agonizing, hopeless shrieks for help would haunt me. After the burning of Smyrna, September 13, which occurred four days after the occupation by the Turks and two days after Mustapha Kemal himself had entered the city, every one knew that the only salvation for the Christians of Smyrna, including the refugees who had been successful in reaching Smyrna before the Turkish troops overtook them, was ships and many of them. There were others who were trying to secure ships and to whom we looked for results in this connection, and I confined my attention to the care of the people who we had encouraged to believe we would save and were temporarily protecting in the house along the Quay while we relieved the distress and hunger of the masses as much as we were able.. .... However, on the 20th of September (my birthday) I was seized by an almost uncontrollable desire to find some available means of saving at least the persons I had been responsible for gathering into;my house' and other houses on the Quay." Jennings then drove his YMCA Chevy and secured a meeting with Mustapha Kemal. The terms for the release of the non-Muslims were established, and Jennings returned to the port. By the authority of Kemal, who was a dictator, Jennings had 7 days to remove all the refugees from Smyrna. No Greek flag could be displayed for fear of enraging the Turkish soldiers. Men ages 17-45 would not be allowed to leave Turkey for fear they would return as another invading army like the Greek Army that had landed in Smyrna in 1919. No Greek ship could tie up at the Quay, because the Turks wanted to control the people leaving Turkey. The monumental problem now was how to acquire sufficient ships for the task.
Jennings was provided with a boat and coxswain by the U.S. Navy to visit ships in the harbour. The Captain of the French ship Pierre Loti refused to take any refuges even though he had an empty ship, because he did not want to get involved. Jennings then went to the Italian ship Constantinople. The Captain agreed to take 2000 refugees, but demanded a bribe. Jennings agreed, paid the bribe and loaded the 2000 people. The Captain then reneghed on his promise, and demanded more money. Jennings settled the dispute by going on the ship to Mytilene] where it would be his responsibility to get the people off the ship with the approval of the local authorities. There he found anchored the Greek ships that had evacuated the Greek army just days before. Jennings went to the Greek General in charge, Frangos, and requested the ships saying Kemal had approved and the U.S. Navy had promised protection for the Greek ships. General Frangos refused repeatedly. Jennings did not know that Frangos was part of a group of officers planning to overthrow King Constantine I, and the General needed the ships for the coup. Power was more important than saving 300,000 Greek lives. Then Jennings saw the Greek battleship (the former USS Mississippi that the U.S. had given to Greece) coming into the harbor. Jennings approached Captain I. Theofanides requesting help. The Captain was lower rank than the General who had refused, but nevertheless agreed to help. Jennings then wrote a series of radio messages which the Captain translated into Greek, and the radio room put into code. In the end, the Prime Minister and his Cabinet refused to allow Greek ships be used to save 300,000 Greeks stranded in Smyrna. Then Jennings sent his final message. In this message he said his next message would not be in code, that he would transmit openly for all the world to hear that the Greek Government let the Turks kill 300,000 Greek citizens. The blackmail worked, and 26 ships were put under the command of Jennings. The merchant captains were then ordered to attend a meeting on the Kilkis. Most said their ships could not sail due to mechanical problems. Captain I. Theofanides told the merchant captains that any ship not ready to sail by midnight would have its captain court marshaled and shot. Captain I. Theofanides is the great Greek hero no one in Greece knows. Without his help, the non-Muslims in Turkey would have been killed. Thus, Jennings took charge of 26 Greek ships - flying the US flag - which evacuated from Smyrna's quay nearly 350,000 refugees.
Once the rescue operation started, progress was too slow transferring people in small boats to ships at anchor. The Turks relaxed the terms, and ships were allowed to tie up at the railroad pier. The Turks also extended the deadline from 7 days to 11 days so that all refugees, except the men 17-45, could be removed. Many of those men were never seen again.
After the rescue, Jennings was appointed by Greece as its diplomat at the Treaty of Lausanne for the repatriation of prisoners of war and civilian population exchange. The Turkish Government also appointed Jennings to the same position. So Jennings was representing two countries at war who hated each other, but both trusted Jennings. The Turks offered one Greek for each Turk received in return. Jennings agreed knowing the Turks had many more Greeks than Greece had Turks. Jennings employed the U.S. Navy to make the actual transfer in such a way that the Turks could not keep count.
By Jennings' own word, his greatest accomplishment was not his work to save so many lives, or his work at Lausanne. He was asked after the crisis by both Greece and Turkey to stay and help with humanitarian needs. He could not do both. All of the educated people of the Ottoman Empire were the minorities, and they had left Turkey. Greece was a modern country with many friends. Turkey had no friends and was in desperate condition. So Jennings formed the American Friends of Turkey that was financed by wealthy Americans. Working with Turkish leaders, including Ataturk, Jennings instilled Christian values in Turkish society while providing playgrounds, vocational training, clinics, prison reform and many other social services. Ataturk closed the mosques and banished the mullahs. Turkey became a secularized country of Muslims, and better neighbor to Greece and the world. Jennings also provided Turkey with its first foreign aid, and the seeds and livestock for Ataturk's model farm in Ankara. The Ojak building in Ankara was built with these U.S. funds. Jennings never made any attempt to convert anyone to Christianity. His opinion of his greatest work now is prophetic, because Turkey stands in contrast today to all the other former Ottoman lands like Iraq, Syria, etc.
Jennings died on January 27, 1933.
