 Bozok was a close childhood and lifelong friend of Atatürk, both having been born in 1881 in Salonica and having attended the Monastir Military High School together.On November 10, 1938, upon witnessing the dead body of Atatürk in the latter's bedroom of Dolmabahçe Palace, a distraught and stunned Bozok stepped outside and shot himself through the chest with a pistol.However, the bullet narrowly missed his heart, and Bozok did not succumb to his fatal wound until April 1941.