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Posted: 11/30/2008 8:30:20 AM EDT
So began the invasion of tiny Finland by its superpower neighbor, the USSR, which ended in Finland's surrender –– though astonishingly, still independent and mostly intact –– and the loss of nearly 1 million Soviet troops. It was an amazing display of what motivated, skilled defenders can do with next to no weapons in the face of overwhelming odds.
Basic Wiki info on the conflict For VERY detailed technical info From a friend of mine's personal photo collection |
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For you guys interested in this war, check out the movie "The Winter War". It's Finnish made, from 1990. The home-brew version is simply called "Talvisota". It's slightly cheesy, but it's good look into what the war was like. My dad bought me a copy years ago and I've wanted to go to Finland since, they have a great culture.
Because of that movie, I have a dog named "Paavo" |
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Thanks for posting this. The Finn's are badass warriors.
What's with the casket with the arm sticking up? Edited in the interest of respecting the dead. |
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Thanks for posting this. The Finn's are badass warriors. What's with the casket with the arm sticking up? Edited in the interest of respecting the dead. Died while holding rifle? Then frozen. |
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"A Frozen Hell" by Trotter is a good book on the subject. Thank you. Runs off to Amazon.com |
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From John Farnam's site...
"White Death" Simo Hayha of Finland, in his early thirties when the 1939 Soviet invasion of his country began, had grown up in a remote area on the far north Finnish frontier, just miles from the Russian border. Like most of his peers, Simo, of necessity, became an rugged outdoorsman and an accomplished rifleman at an early age, and, like most of his peers, he harbored deep fear and loathing for Russians, particularly Soviets. He had seen Lenin's and Stalin 's abject cruelty close up, and he knew and understood what a Soviet takeover would mean to his nation, and he knew the rest of the world would turn their backs, as they always do.. By the fall of 1939, with Hitler firmly in control of Austria, Czechoslovakia, and most of Poland, Stalin frantically looked for matching conquests in order to knock Hitler off the front page. He turned his attention west to Finland, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. Finland was the most sophisticated nation of the four and was the main objective of Stalin's attention. Stalin demanded that the Finns allow him to put air and navel bases on Finnish soil. Characteristically duplicitous, Stalin was, of course, planning an invasion whether they yielded to his demands or not. Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania had offered no resistance. The Finns, on the other hand, not only refused to allow Russians on their soil, but had mobilized on a national scale. Stalin was furious, but, like all bullies who face the prospect of a real fight, he was startled and a little frightened! Massacring rear-echelon troops and defenseless civilians is one thing. Facing a well-armed, well organized, and determined army, even a small one, was something else. Stalin was fearful, but he had no choice. He could not afford to look "weak" on the world stage. Germans, British, and Americans were all watching. Tolerating an insolent snub from tiny Finland was out of the question, even with winter coming on. The Finnish/Russian border was an immense, rugged forest with only a few roads and logging trails. It was late fall. The soil was slush. The full blast of winter would come in December, freezing everything solid and reducing daylight to only a few hours. Relentless darkness broken only by brief, timid, and cloudy twilight would go on until spring. Faced with this predicament, Meretsklov, the Russian general in charge, suggested to Stalin that the invasion be postponed until spring or at least until midwinter when frozen ground would support his tanks. He was contemptuously rebuffed and ordered to proceed without delay. So, the Russian invasion of Finland began on 30 Nov 1939, but bogged down almost immediately. By Christmas, the entire Russian offensive ground to a halt. Most units were out of fuel, out of food, out of ammunition, and freezing to death. Stalin angrily fired Meretsklov and rep laced him with Timoshenko. Timoshenko, with no fewer than twenty-four fresh divisions, renewed the offensive, but fared no better. The war became an effective stalemate. The Finns were not strong enough to eject the Russians outright , but the Russians had sustained crippling losses and could no longer generate forward momentum, so a truce was negotiated. Stalin knew he was not in a position of strength, but the Finns knew the Soviet assault would begin anew in the spring, and British and American help was unlikely. In the end, Finland ceded several bases, but was not, as a whole , annexed into the Soviet Union. It's citizens were spared the horrors that would have been inflicted by the NKVD (precursor to the KGB). Finland retained its independence. The invasion was (and is to this day) called "The Winter War." One book about the campaign is entitled, "White Hell ," as that is the way invading Soviet forces viewed it. During this conflict there emerged one man, a short, skinny Finnish infantryman, who arguably holds the title of the most deadly rifleman in hi story. The devastation this one man visited upon hapless Soviet troops has never been equaled, before or since. The Russians called him, "White Death" . Simo never thought of himself as a "sniper." He was just a humble infantryman doing his job. He used and liked the Mosin Nagant M28 (bolt action) rifle with open sights. The rifle was short and handy, particularly for this 5' 2" foot soldier, and it did not feature a detachable magazine. Simo struck his targets at twenty to five hundred meters. He preferred a sitting position, hunkered down in a fox hole. Nearly all of his shots were in low light. As his reputation grew, Simo probably could have come into the possession o f a telescopic sight, but he had seen them before and had no interest. Years later, he stated that a scoped rifle would have forced him to raise his head more than he liked. Besides, in those days he had no access to sophisticated maintenance, and he thus considered scopes too delicate for this rugged, cold, and unforgiving environment. He had grown up using iron sights, and he had every confidence in his ability with them. He was a warrior, and, like all true warriors, would not allow himself to be defined by his equipment. He was not "equipment dependant." He was dangerous with any weapon, even with no weapon! His most famous exploits took place at the famous Battle on the Kollaa River, where a mere handful of brave Finns brought an entire Soviet army, twelve divisions, to an all-inclusive halt! In the end, the Russians were forced to withdraw with staggering losses. The Finnish stand at Kollaa is, even today, referred to as "The miracle at Kollaa," and it set the pattern for the entire War. The Kollaa was, of course, frozen, but its steep banks provided Finns with a series of strong, defensive positions. They repeatedly channeled ponderous Soviet columns into ambush after ambush until they were forced to disengage and pull back. When the War ended, the Kollaa river was still in Finnish hands. Simo was in continuous enemy contact for one hundred days. During that famous one-hundred-day period, Simo killed five hundred Soviet soldiers, give or take a few, wounded many more, and literally terrified the entire Russian army! His tenure ended when a Soviet bullet struck his face. However, even while grievously wounded, he quickly located the sharpshooter who has shot him, mounted his rifle to his bloody face, and killed the Russian with a single shot, passing out himself seconds later. As a testimony to his toughness, Simo recovered from his wound and went on to outlive all his comrades and nearly everyone else who participated in the War, dying in his nineties in the yea r 2002. In the native language, "Simo" translates to “fearlessness." When asked, many years later, about his extraordinary contribution to the Finnish Resistance, Simo said humbly, "I was just doing my job." |
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Also google Lauri Torni [Larry Thorne].
Served as a Fin Soldier, then German soldier, and finally as a Green Beret. |
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Thanks for posting this. The Finn's are badass warriors. Edited in the interest of respecting the dead. Finland has produced some great F1 drivers. I guess that goes along with the warrior mind set. |
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The Winter War in it's entirety is on youtube in 20 or so parts.
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Re: the arm sticking out of the coffin,
The winter of 1939-1940 was the coldest recorded in nearly 100 years. Temps approaching and passing 40 degrees Farenheit below zero were common. It doesn't take a human body long to freeze solid at those temps. And at that point the only way to get an arm to bend the way you want is to thaw it or cut it with a saw. The photos in my original post are some that were released by the Finnish Defense Forces only last year as part of a large declassification. They are some of the most personal and disturbing images from the war that I've seen. The extreme cold freezes dead men as they died –– and that's how they'll stay until thawed. Re: Simo Hayhaa: Here is a link to an interview with Simo conducted by Tuco of gunboards.com: http://mosinnagant.net/finland/simohayha.asp I do believe that some portion of his kills were taked while using the kp/31 rather than "sniping" in the fashion we are used to. Still an astounding feat. |
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Re: the arm sticking out of the coffin, The winter of 1939-1940 was the coldest recorded in nearly 100 years. Temps approaching and passing 40 degrees Farenheit below zero were common. It doesn't take a human body long to freeze solid at those temps. And at that point the only way to get an arm to bend the way you want is to thaw it or cut it with a saw. The photos in my original post are some that were released by the Finnish Defense Forces only last year as part of a large declassification. They are some of the most personal and disturbing images from the war that I've seen. The extreme cold freezes dead men as they died –– and that's how they'll stay until thawed. Re: Simo Hayhaa: Here is a link to an interview with Simo conducted by Tuco of gunboards.com: http://mosinnagant.net/finland/simohayha.asp I do believe that some portion of his kills were taked while using the kp/31 rather than "sniping" in the fashion we are used to. Still an astounding feat. When I worked on a commercial fishing boat, we'd have huge cod tails that sometimes froze "outside" the pan, making them impossible to fit in bags. We couldn't waste time, so we took a huge mallet and broke off the offending tails, then shoved the frozen block into the bag. |
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Finns are badass, They make badass guns also, Valmets are great!
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Finns are badass, They make badass guns also, Valmets are great! And why do you suppose Finland has one of the largest standing European militaries? Those Valmets were made to point East... |
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Seriously? Did he talk about it much? |
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Out of the ten or so Russians I know and work with only one knows what the Winter war was. Soviet History Rewriting at its best.
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Seriously? Did he talk about it much? He said it was very cold, and very little food. He got a cup of rice pudding to celebrate Christmas eve, and thought he should save it for breakfast when he was hungriest. He said when he got up in the morning, he opened the chow tin he'd wrapped in cloth and used as part of an improvised pillow in his tent, and found the rice pudding frozen solid. He was one of four from his family to fight in the war. I was named after his brother who was killed in the war. The last letter his mother ever got from the brother stated he was real excited as he was joining a new unit that was very aggressive in fighting the Russians. They never knew what happened to him. I recall he used to say the Russians had very little regard for age, they'd send soldiers who hadn't even reached puberty, along with men with gray hair, mixed with their optimum fighting age troops. |
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I do believe that some portion of his kills were taked while using the kp/31 rather than "sniping" in the fashion we are used to. Still an astounding feat. It was 500+ with the Mosin, and 200+ with the submachine gun. He would ski down through the Soviet column with a sub-gun in each hand. 10 seconds and 60 rounds later he would disappear into the trees on the other side. |
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I do believe that some portion of his kills were taked while using the kp/31 rather than "sniping" in the fashion we are used to. Still an astounding feat. It was 500+ with the Mosin, and 200+ with the submachine gun. He would ski down through the Soviet column with a sub-gun in each hand. 10 seconds and 60 rounds later he would disappear into the trees on the other side. This is info I have not heard before. Do you have a source for it? Thanks in advance. |
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I do believe that some portion of his kills were taked while using the kp/31 rather than "sniping" in the fashion we are used to. Still an astounding feat. It was 500+ with the Mosin, and 200+ with the submachine gun. He would ski down through the Soviet column with a sub-gun in each hand. 10 seconds and 60 rounds later he would disappear into the trees on the other side. Yep, one of the most bad-assed warriors of all time. |
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I do believe that some portion of his kills were taked while using the kp/31 rather than "sniping" in the fashion we are used to. Still an astounding feat. It was 500+ with the Mosin, and 200+ with the submachine gun. He would ski down through the Soviet column with a sub-gun in each hand. 10 seconds and 60 rounds later he would disappear into the trees on the other side. This is info I have not heard before. Do you have a source for it? Thanks in advance. I don't remember where I read it. The numbers are mentioned above in the thread. The skiing through the column is in one of the books I read; he wasn't the only one who did it. After they cut a motti out they would work it over like this and with the Mosins. |
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Random Google search from some time ago.
I was looking for some info on the Battle of Suomussalmi. The Finn babe caught my attention. IIRC the bare-chested soldier is back home on summer leave. |
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The Winter War in it's entirety is on youtube in 20 or so parts. whatching now! |
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In a way I feel bad for the Russian conscripts who were sent out as cannon fodders. In the book "A Frozen Hell", it described how after the Fins did a tactical retreat, the Russians swarmed their abandoned field kitchen and started gorging themselves. The Fins wiped them out, with many still have food in their hands and mouths.
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Funny the Fins were able to hold the Russians off while Germany got its ass kicked. I'm sure geography has a lot to do with that though.
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Funny the Fins were able to hold the Russians off while Germany got its ass kicked. I'm sure geography has a lot to do with that though. I think the climate was the deciding factor in both instances. |
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Funny the Fins were able to hold the Russians off while Germany got its ass kicked. I'm sure geography has a lot to do with that though. I think the climate was the deciding factor in both instances. The Russians did fine in the Russian winters against Germany, not so much against the Finns. Then again Germany got its ass kicked out of Russia and right back into Berlin through the Spring and Summer as well. |
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Funny the Fins were able to hold the Russians off while Germany got its ass kicked. I'm sure geography has a lot to do with that though. I'm not sure about this, but I would speculate that the Soviet Officer Corps probably suffered from the purges, and the Finns were able to take on Soviet troops who were poorly led. Combine that with the fact that the Finns were defending, not attacking, and the battlefield would seem to favor the Finns. To look at and hold an M39 compared to a M91/30 would explain why that war didn't go as well for the USSR as they hoped. |
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Makes me proud to be a Finn, even if only partially.
Also, "Ambush" is a good movie, but I can't remember if it's set in the Winter war or the Continuation war. More good fun: KevOs 4 |
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Funny the Fins were able to hold the Russians off while Germany got its ass kicked. I'm sure geography has a lot to do with that though. I think the climate was the deciding factor in both instances. The Russians did fine in the Russian winters against Germany, not so much against the Finns. Then again Germany got its ass kicked out of Russia and right back into Berlin through the Spring and Summer as well. The Soviet's skill in winter fighting against the Germans was based largely on the lessons learned during the winter of 39-40 against the Finns. |
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This makes me want an M39 again you bastards... The M39, while officially adopted in 1939, did not go into production into 1941. They were busy fighting instead. The VAST majority of Finn soldiers were armed with Imperial Russian M1891 rifles... inferior even to the M91/30. The Finns scooped up 91/30s wherever possible and pressed them into immediate service. |
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A thought about the arm sticking out of the coffin.
If they cared enough to put the dude in the coffin, why not do it properly and boil some water to thaw that arm instead of cutting a hole in the casket so that it will stick out for everyone to see before burial. |
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