I need to confirm something on page 148. Is there indeed a fact such as US navy ship USS Bancroft went to port of Izmir, Ottoman Empire in 1897 and got attacked?
Are you asking whether the dissertation asserts that on the given page? Or asking for confirmation from a different source?
The diss is open-access PDF online, downloadable from here.
Yes it really does mention the incident in the dissertation.
And yes it really happened, though was of even less import or seen as such at the time as is thought in the piece.
The gunboat Bancroft was sent to the port as a popular port of call for the USN and other powers when they had to be in the Aegean. As their presence was noted by the Ottomans, and the city was large and with a large populations of Christians or many stripes and Europeans(and some Americans) with property there.
However the garrison was of the policy of not allowing the port to be entered by ships at night, and fired a blank warning cannon shot when the Bancroft arrived on December 2nd. Apparently the lighthouse was still lit so nothing was thought unusually by the ship, then when a boat was lowered to sort things out apparently it was fired upon and retired to wait for day.
The normal protests were made and according to reporting 2 Turkish Officers were punished and dismissed from service.
Here are two papers noting it as just one of those matters fo operating as a 3rd power overseas in regions with either less professionalism or in tense areas.