When Balkan War started, he joined as volunteer. Upon his return, he was assigned as the commander of a POW camp in Beykoz. Then during World War I, in early 1916, he was sent to, Bagdat, during Mesopotamia Campaign as a mechanic. He was sent back to Istanbul after he was injured. He subsequently joined Tayyare Mektebi, the Ottoman aviation school in Yeşilköy. His first solo flight was on 21 May 1916. Soon after receiving his pilot certificate he joined 7th airplane company (Tayyare Bölüğü) and commenced bombing and reconnaissance missions against the Russians on the Caucasus front. In one of these sorties, he shot down a Russian airplane, becoming the first Turkish pilot to bring down an enemy aircraft.