“WHERE WILL WE BURY THEM ALL?” FINNISH ARMS OF THE WINTER WA

[Sakobav]

This is amazing story of resilience and how small unit firearm training and Finns using their outdoors-man skills like skiing, etc resisted and got better of the Soviets in Winter continuation war before WW2. I had never heard of their machine guns, especially their exceptional self taught genius guns smith Aimo Lahti. Another thing common between Finland and India one of the two Air forces who used GNAT Folland fighter plane. To digress I came across this article and it piqued my interest because my uncle was captured as POW at Bunji / Gilgit in 1948 by treacherous act of Maj Brown of Gilgit Scouts and 6 Kashmir rifles. These folks had no training on basic surviving in forests or weapons and they were picked and massacred trying to escape to Skardu. Such lack of winter / mountain warfare training cost India during 1962 war and in subsequent engagements

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aimo_Lahti known for Lahti-Saloranta M/26 machine gun, Suomi KP/-31 submachine gun ( very accurate sub machine gun copied by Soviets)

Invaded by the expansionist Soviet Union in 1939, the Finns, a small nation of practiced riflemen, held Stalin’s hordes at bay for months with Mosin-Nagants and other small arms, including those designed by Aimo Lahti.
By Tom Laemlein (RSS)
There are so many Russians, and our country so small, where will we find room to bury them all?” —Anonymous Finnish soldier
Not many people in the United States remember when the Soviet Union cruelly invaded its tiny neighbor Finland in November 1939. It is not the kind of subject that the highly sanitized and “politically correct” history departments of our nation’s public schools are willing to discuss anymore. Our current generation of school children has no memory whatsoever of the power and the ambition that once drove the Soviet Union. But after World War I and the Russian Revolution, in that terrible era of war and suffering, any country sharing a border with the Soviets would dread the threats, being followed by unreasonable demands, and culminating in the attack that was sure to come. There is surely a lesson to be learned by examining how a tiny nation of dedicated riflemen defended their country against one of the largest armies the world has ever known.
http://www.americanrifleman.org/article ... sub=11&q=1

[TwoRivers]

resisted and got better of the Soviets in Winter continuation war before WW2.

"Winter War" is the Russian invasion leading to Finland's surrender and ceding of Karelia to Russia. "Continuation War" is Finland's retaking the lost territory after Germany invaded Russia, until Finland was forced to accept Russian demands, and was forced to switch sides.

Most Americans would be hard put to locate Finland on a map.

[essdee1972]

The most successful sniper ever, Siimo Hahya, fought in the Winter War. The Soviet conscripts, underequipped and badly-generaled (all the good ones having been executed or Gulag-ed by Uncle Joe), died in their thousands. But then, as another Commie said, God is on the side of the big battalions, so the Finns were forced to surrender.

[winnie_the_pooh]

ngrewal,

Thanks for posting this.The first time I am reading about it.

[timmy]

Thanks for posting, Navi! The history of Finland and what they achieved is a very stirring story. Lacking in even the ability to turn out their own battle rifle, they used 1891 Mosin Nagants that were acquired in Tsarist arsenals when Finland declared its freedom. After WW11, Finland traded and acquired more M1891s from the captured stocks of Germany and the former nations of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and from Poland.

Taking nothing away from the Finnish achievements, one must also point out that the performance of the Soviet Red Army versus the Finns was greatly affected by Stalin's purges, which had decimated the Red Army's leadership from the rank of colonel up. Also a problem was the command structure, which included political commissars who were required to countersign any major commands before they could be issued.

The articles fail to take notice of one major result of the Winter War: Hitler noticed the Red Army's inept performance against the Finns, and compared it with Germany's efficient performances against Poland, Denmark, Norway, Belgium, France, Luxembourg, and The Netherlands. This led to his famous appraisal of the Soviet Union: All we have to do is kick in the door and the whole rotting edifice will come tumbling down. The millions of Soviet soldiers lost during WW2 are directly attributable to Stalin's inept bolshevik regime.

Isn't it odd that the Western nations, in fighting two world wars against Germany and touting their stance for democracy, freedom, and human rights, teamed up each time with the most repressive goonda government at the time: Tsarist Russia and the Soviet Union?

We do forget Hitler's great ally, Stalin, and the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact!

But, leaving politics aside, I must observe that, each time I handle my Finnish M39, I am reminded of Finnish expertise in firearms!

[hamiclar01]

Not many people in the United States remember when the Soviet Union cruelly invaded its tiny neighbor Finland in November 1939.

I am surprised by the author's attitude. After all, there aren't a lot of people around alive who were old enough to be reading newspapers seriously in 1939. If they are, they are going to be very old.

Also,Time-Life books (which is/was American, when I last checked) did an excellent section on the Finnish war (in the volume "Battles for Scandinavia") as part of their 38 volume set on World War two

[Grumpy]

The number of guns captured by the Finns was phenomenal - including M98s and M96s.
Swedens involvement in WWII was less than meritorious ..... especially as a supposedly neutral nation although they suffered - like Finland - from being a small nation caught between Germany and the USSR.
The whole situation re Finland, the USSR, Germany, Sweden and the allies was very confused with the UK being technically at war with Finland from 1941. Finland was basically crap*ed on by just about everyone.

[TwoRivers]

Finland was basically crap*ed on by just about everyone.

Including Hitler, who was honoring his pact with Uncle Joe, and expressly forbade all German aid to Finland during the Winter War. But captured 98s ?

[xl_target]

The Finns were superlative soldiers. AsGrumpy says, they were dumped on a lot during WW2 but their overriding enemy was the Russian. At first they fought alone against the Russians and got away with just ceding Karelia when any other army so outnumbered would have lost their entire country. After Germany declared war on Russia, they allied with the Germans and had access to better weapons like the Me109 fighter. However, the aircraft that the Finnish pilots of WW2 have the fondest memories of is the much maligned Brewster Buffalo.

We have all heard about the Brewster Buffalo. Flown by the ill fated Marines during the battle of Midway, they were simply no match for the fighters of the Imperial Japanese Navy. Buffalo fighters of the Royal Air Force (Burma) and the Dutch Air Force (Militaire Luchtvaart van het Koninklijk Nederlands-Indisch Leger ) in the far-east were similarly brushed aside by the Japanese Zeros and Oscars. The Brewster Buffalo has been called a “Flying Coffin” by the US Marine aviators who flew them. In fact, after Rangoon and Midway, no one in any Allied air force wanted anything to do with them.
It was left to the Finn’s who with their puny Air Force took on the mighty Russian VVS (Voyenno-Vozdushnye Sily) and to the surprise of the rest of the world, they kicked some serious booty. Surprisingly they did a lot of this with their Brewster B239 (the export model of the Brewster Buffalo). During the War, the Finns flew their Buffalo’s off frozen lakes and makeshift airstrips and practically destroyed anything that they came us against. The Finns did not call them flying coffins, they gave the Buffalo affectionate nicknames like Taivaan helmi (Sky Pearl) or Pohjoisten taivaiden helmi (Pearl of the Northern Skies).

In Finnish Air Force service, the B-239s were regarded as being easy to fly, a "gentleman's plane."[citation needed] The Buffalo was also popular within the FAF because of its relatively long range, and also because of a good maintenance record. This was in part due to the efforts of the Finnish mechanics, who solved a problem that plagued the Wright Cyclone engine by inverting one of the piston rings in each cylinder which had a positive effect reliability. The cooler weather of Finland also helped. The Brewster Buffalo earned a reputation in Finnish Air Force service as one of their more successful fighter aircraft. In service from 1941 to 1945, Buffalos of Lentolaivue 24 (Fighter Squadron 24) claimed 477 Soviet Air Force warplanes destroyed, with the combat loss of just 19 Buffalos, an outstanding victory ratio of 26:1

During the Continuation War, Lentolaivue 24 was equipped with the B-239s until May 1944, when the Buffalos were transferred to Hävittäjälentolaivue 26 (Fighter Squadron 26). Most of the pilots of Lentolaivue 24 were Winter War combat veterans. This squadron claimed a total of 459 Soviet aircraft kills with B-239s, while losing 15 Buffalos in combat.

Many Finnish pilots racked up enormous scores by using basic tactics against Soviet aircraft. The default tactic was the four-plane "parvi" (swarm) with a pair flying lower as bait, and a higher pair to dive on enemy interceptors. The Soviet Air Force was never able to counteract this tactic. The top-scoring B-239 pilot was Hans Wind, with 39 kills in B-239s.[55] Lt Hans Wind with six other Buffalos of LeLv 24 intercepted some 60 Soviet aircraft near Kronstad. Two Russian Pe-2 bombers, one Soviet Hawker Hurricane fighter, and 12 I-16s were claimed for the loss of just one B-239 (BW-378).[56] After evaluation of claims against actual Soviet losses, aircraft BW-364 was found to have been used to achieve 42½ kills in total by all pilots operating it, possibly making it the highest-scoring fighter airframe in the history of air warfare. The top scoring Finnish ace, Ilmari Juutilainen, scored 34 of his 94½ kills in B-239s, including 28 in BW-364.

quotes from HERE




Buffalos in Finnish service
Images from here

[Grumpy]

Yes, M98s captured by the Russians from the Germans and then captured from the Russians by the Finns.

[TwoRivers]

Yes, M98s captured by the Russians from the Germans and then captured from the Russians by the Finns.

Hadn't heard that one before. I know they equipped tank units with captured German tanks, but was not aware they equipped their divisions on the Finnish front with K98s.

[timmy]

Swedens involvement in WWII was less than meritorious ..... especially as a supposedly neutral nation although they suffered - like Finland - from being a small nation caught between Germany and the USSR.

Grumpy, your description of Sweden is quite charitable. They were quite willing to sell all the iron ore to Germany for building ovens to cook Jews in, and make a profit doing so. They were also quite willing to allow hitler to transport troops hither and yon across their nation, which is hardly a sign of neutrality.

There were some nations that chose to fight the enemy in WW2, and some that chose to roll over and take in the profits. Sweden, for all of its protestations of neutrality, definitely fell into the latter category. Both the British and the Germans knew this, which is why the Norwegian campaign was waged by both parties: Swedish iron ore was vital to the German war effort. If the French are denigrated, as I often hear, as first lacking the will to fight Germany and then as collaborators with hitler (and with some justification), they did at least fight. This is much more than can be said for Sweden.

The whole situation re Finland, the USSR, Germany, Sweden and the allies was very confused with the UK being technically at war with Finland from 1941. Finland was basically crap*ed on by just about everyone.

The UK and Commonwealth declared war on Finland, after trying to help the Finnish in the Winter War. The United States did not do so.

After Germany declared war on Russia, they allied with the Germans and had access to better weapons like the Me109 fighter.

Calling the Finns "allies" of hitler is not quite accurate. "Co-belligerant" would be a better term for the relationship. To some, this may be somewhat picky, however it fits in better with the rejection of the "white hats vs black hats" that often dominates the viewpoint of history. Such a viewpoint has a hard time taking into account fighting as an ally with a party to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact for the goals of the Atlantic Charter, which were then ignored for hitler's on-time collaborator when stalin decided to ignore his promises and assert dominance over Central Europe by force, and which the Western Allies countenanced with some degree of agreement -- to underscore this, I will cite the degree of Polish participation in the post-war "Victory Parade."

However, the aircraft that the Finnish pilots of WW2 have the fondest memories of is the much maligned Brewster Buffalo.

We have all heard about the Brewster Buffalo. Flown by the ill fated Marines during the battle of Midway, they were simply no match for the fighters of the Imperial Japanese Navy. Buffalo fighters of the Royal Air Force (Burma) and the Dutch Air Force (Militaire Luchtvaart van het Koninklijk Nederlands-Indisch Leger ) in the far-east were similarly brushed aside by the Japanese Zeros and Oscars. The Brewster Buffalo has been called a “Flying Coffin” by the US Marine aviators who flew them. In fact, after Rangoon and Midway, no one in any Allied air force wanted anything to do with them.

It was left to the Finn’s who with their puny Air Force took on the mighty Russian VVS (Voyenno-Vozdushnye Sily) and to the surprise of the rest of the world, they kicked some serious booty. Surprisingly they did a lot of this with their Brewster B239 (the export model of the Brewster Buffalo). During the War, the Finns flew their Buffalo’s off frozen lakes and makeshift airstrips and practically destroyed anything that they came us against. The Finns did not call them flying coffins, they gave the Buffalo affectionate nicknames like Taivaan helmi (Sky Pearl) or Pohjoisten taivaiden helmi (Pearl of the Northern Skies).

In Finnish Air Force service, the B-239s were regarded as being easy to fly, a "gentleman's plane."[citation needed] The Buffalo was also popular within the FAF because of its relatively long range, and also because of a good maintenance record. This was in part due to the efforts of the Finnish mechanics, who solved a problem that plagued the Wright Cyclone engine by inverting one of the piston rings in each cylinder which had a positive effect reliability. The cooler weather of Finland also helped. The Brewster Buffalo earned a reputation in Finnish Air Force service as one of their more successful fighter aircraft. In service from 1941 to 1945, Buffalos of Lentolaivue 24 (Fighter Squadron 24) claimed 477 Soviet Air Force warplanes destroyed, with the combat loss of just 19 Buffalos, an outstanding victory ratio of 26:1

During the Continuation War, Lentolaivue 24 was equipped with the B-239s until May 1944, when the Buffalos were transferred to Hävittäjälentolaivue 26 (Fighter Squadron 26). Most of the pilots of Lentolaivue 24 were Winter War combat veterans. This squadron claimed a total of 459 Soviet aircraft kills with B-239s, while losing 15 Buffalos in combat.

Many Finnish pilots racked up enormous scores by using basic tactics against Soviet aircraft. The default tactic was the four-plane "parvi" (swarm) with a pair flying lower as bait, and a higher pair to dive on enemy interceptors. The Soviet Air Force was never able to counteract this tactic. The top-scoring B-239 pilot was Hans Wind, with 39 kills in B-239s.[55] Lt Hans Wind with six other Buffalos of LeLv 24 intercepted some 60 Soviet aircraft near Kronstad. Two Russian Pe-2 bombers, one Soviet Hawker Hurricane fighter, and 12 I-16s were claimed for the loss of just one B-239 (BW-378).[56] After evaluation of claims against actual Soviet losses, aircraft BW-364 was found to have been used to achieve 42½ kills in total by all pilots operating it, possibly making it the highest-scoring fighter airframe in the history of air warfare. The top scoring Finnish ace, Ilmari Juutilainen, scored 34 of his 94½ kills in B-239s, including 28 in BW-364.

I think that other factors were also at play here (but please don't take my comments as lessening the skill of the Finnish pilots): One thing that Brewster was notorious for was the poor quality control of their products. I'm sure that this hardly endeared them to the men who flew them. Why these complaints don't seem to come from Finnish sources, I don't know (maybe I just haven't read enough about Finnish experiences, and maybe they prepared the aircraft differently). Also, the Brewster company was connected with financial shenanigans and nazi sympathies. Whether this affected their products or not, I'm sure that such things did not put them in a favorable public light.

Some say that the Buffalo was a superior fighter to its contemporary, the Wildcat. However, it must be remembered that in the early part of the War, the Wildcat, which actually was a fairly capable aircraft against the Zero, also faired badly until US forces revised their combat tactics. Japanese pilots were intensively trained from a pool that was "the best of the best," and many had extensive combat experience. The Dutch would also, I think, have found themselves at the mercy of such pilots as the Japanese, along with the British.

On the other hand, I'm not so sure about the quality of the Soviet pilots at the outbreak of the War, in the 1940-41 timeframe.

I'm not sure that the real truth about the Buffalo is all good or all bad -- at least, that's my opinion.

[timmy]

Yes, M98s captured by the Russians from the Germans and then captured from the Russians by the Finns.

Hadn't heard that one before. I know they equipped tank units with captured German tanks, but was not aware they equipped their divisions on the Finnish front with K98s.

How did this work? In the Winter War, the Germans were allies of the Soviets, and there would not have been a pool of M98s for the Soviets to use that the Finns could have captured.

On the other had, during the Continuation War, or at least the first part of it, Soviet forces would not have had the chance to capture significant numbers of M98s until Stalingrad, which would have been the first part of 1943.

We certainly know that the Soviets stockpiled vast numbers of captured M98s after the War, and kept them as reserve weapons -- these rifles have been dribbling out into the surplus market from Ukrainian stocks -- but I'm not familiar with the details of how the Finns would have been able to capture significant quantities of captured M98s from Soviets in the 1040-1943 timeframe.

[Sakobav]

Thanks for the great posts folks timmy grumps xl and two river appreciate the correction between continuation and winter war..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molotov_cocktail
Finns were also very effective in using Molotov cocktails and improved their design too..

[timmy]

Generally, I prefer footnoted academic history books to visual media, but if you are familiar with the British "Battlefield" series, their episode on Scandinavia was pretty good.

Actually, the Finns did play some "Footsies" with the nazis before the Winter War, and supposedly this led Stalin to plan on a move toward moving the border further away from Leningrad. This may be so, but I find it much easier to believe that Stalin expected to swallow up Finland, just as he had the Baltics.

It makes a lot of sense for the Finns to be quite leary of Stalin. Also, the Finnish government was fairly right-wing, and had outlawed the Communist Party. For a number of reasons, they would feel more comfortable with Germany and against the Soviets. Frankly, the only countries that had much use for the Soviets or the Russians were the Bulgarians, the Serbs, and the Montenegrins. Pretty much the rest of Europe wanted little to do with them. This was an attitude that predated the Bolsheviks and was very much a reaction to the Muscovite State. Reading about the way the Tsarist Empire functioned gives one a good reason why this was, as they were worse than the Hohenzollerns and even the Habsburgs -- which is saying a lot!