Winter War, the first week, A Veterans Day Tribute

[DevilDog]

dateline London, Wednesday December 6th, 1939

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Finland's high command claims that 64 Russian warplanes have been destroyed in three days fighting on the Carelian Isthmus. War communique #4 issued in Helsinki early today announced that 2000 Russian soldiers were killed in a single engagement. The Russians are accused of using dum-dum machine gun bullets -one tracer bullet in every 10 being a dum-dum. At Salmi, runs the Helsinki communique, there was heavy gunfire in the past three days. Eight out of 10 Soviet tanks were destroyed and many prisoners were taken. The prisoners are quoted as saying that they have been on service three months, but have had only one months regular training. They had been living in caves and had been told the war would only last five or six days.


Reported raid on Murmansk

The Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet, carries report that Finnish bombing planes have raided the important Soviet naval base at Murmansk in the arctic.
Incendiary bombs are said to have been dropped, destroying 60 red warplanes.
The newspaper adds that the Russians were taken by surprise by the Finnish raiders.
The Russian newspaper Pravda states that the Finns attempted to bomb Leningrad, but that one plane was shot down and the others chased away. According to an unconfirmed report broadcast from New York, Finnish aeroplanes have also attacked Paldiski, the Soviet based in Estonia.
President Roosevelt announced that the installments of the Finnish debts to the United States (about 47,000 pounds), payable on December 15, will be placed in a suspense account. When Congress reassembles the President will ask that this installment, together with all payments made in the last 4 to 5 years, should be used in some way beneficial to Finland. Sweden yesterday called up 15 classes in a partial mobilization. Most of these men will be drafted to the Swedish-Finnish Border.


(I picked this up on eBay because of the wonderful timing and content..all the way from England!)

[iridium-192]

I've heard many stories about this war from my grand father (he had two Mosins from that war & finn military knife called "Finka") . I've visited personally most of those places myself in 2003 which are part of Russian Federation now called Karelian autonomic region.

[DevilDog]

How wonderful that you listened and REMEMBERED your Grandfather's stories, as we remember all who bravely served, fought, and died on this Veterans Day!

[tdocz]

No mention here of the greatest military sniper of all time, Simo Hahya(sp?). During the Winter War, he logged 505 confirmed kills, Soviet insurgents, in a mere 100 days, in the few daylight hours of the Finnish winter. A true historical bada$$, his weapon of choice, an M91/30 with iron sights!

[iridium-192]

Well I would not call soviet army "insurgents" but rather "invaders" or "occupants" even though officially they were called "liberators" (in soviet mass media, of course...)

[tdocz]

Lol. Touche'. Poor choice of language on my part. Frankly, I know very little about the conflict, other than a few anecdotes. Evidently, Simo H. isn't exactly a popular historical figure on this forum, eh? No worries. Cheers.

[iridium-192]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simo_H%C3%A4yh%C3%A4
Simo Häyhä was a very interesting character... He used iron sight of his M28/30 to hunt Soviets...

[iridium-192]

Vladimir Putin announced to the members of historical - military society during a meeting that Russia needs heroes & advised to revise historical books for schools which contain errors especially in regard of 1939 war with Finland. He said that Soviet government of that time just wanted to correct a mistake of giving up to Finns a territory which was a part of Russian Empire before the revolution of 1917 & that was an important strategic move to take it back for a sake of security of northern Capitol Leningrad with over 5 million citizens (today's Saint Petersburg) which was just 15-20 km away from Finn border.
One of the historians suggested to create memorials in various places of Russia "to remember those people who in one or other way gave their lives ..." Putin has interrupted him saying that words "one or other are unnecessary in defining the people who have fulfilled their duty."
"I'm sure that main resource of power of Russia & it's future lays in its historical memory" said V Putin.

Here is the original...
http://www.newsru.com/russia/14mar2013/ ... story.html