[Dowly]

Here's a translated (yours truly) story from Kansa Taisteli Journal 12/1986.


Written by Paavo Heino, this *might* be him: https://www.sotapolku.fi/henkilot/he...8-02-23_lohja/


He writes about a mission that took place in Summer of 1943, where he and few others decided to go and snatch a machine gun from the enemy side. Especially the original Finnish text makes it seem like this was partly done due to boredom.

Our fire direction center "Jousi 10" was at the shore of Jandeba river at Svir in 6./IR 13's sector. Our unit was battery 7 of field artillery regiment 8.
Artillery was forbidden from firing unless it was a large target or we were asked for interdiction fire. Even in case of the former, we had to get permission from someone higher up to fire. There wasn't much to do for an artillery spotter. We did our daily routine of walking the front lines, which were about 1km in width in our sector.
At times I climbed a thick spruce tree to observe the enemy side that was about 400 metres away.
One of these times nearly cost me my life.
Either I had climbed carelessly or the enemy sentry was more alert than usual. In any case, the result was an angry machine gun burst aimed at the tree I was in. Luckily it went over my head. I managed to spot where the fire was coming from as I was making my hasty retreat from the tree.

The next time I went up, I had my binoculars with me. I scanned the enemy side and soon saw a well camouflaged wooden bunker and a connecting trench behind it leading to a dug-out. Next to the bunker was a tall pine tree, which I thought made for a great landmark for the mission I had in mind.
I returned to our living dug-out and brought up my plan with the men. Soon I had more volunteers than I had planned, which didn't surprise me; we had made a number of patrols over to the enemy side and always came back without casualties.
The team I chose for the mission included yours truly, Laaksonen, Salonius, Arttila and Luostarinen, who was the only one without patrol experience. The rest I knew I could count on no matter what happened.
The plan was simple: Head off from base "Maski", advance straight to the objective and silence the sentry. Laaksonen and Arttila take the machine gun, Salonius tosses a satchel charge in the dug-out and I keep watch with my submachine gun. Luostarinen will stay 100 metres behind us. Once we're done, we leave immediately back to base.
I called the CO of the battery (Jokinen) for permission, who then called the regiment CO before giving me green light. Lastly, I informed our infantry of the mission.

We had planned to head off at 0130hrs, so we'd be sure everyone but the sentries were fast asleep on the neighbour's side.
Preparations were done during the evening; ever man got a submachine gun with 1 extra drum, some hand grenades and a satchel charge around which we strapped some more explosives to double its weight.
We had hoped for some wind to conceal any noises we made while moving, but we had no such luck that night. Snap of a single branch would be heard, so we had to move carefully. Before heading out I talked to the CO of the base and told him how long I expected the mission to take so our sentries would know to expect us.
The no man's land was dried swampland with lots of short spruce, pine and birch trees. The branches of taller trees that had been cut earlier that hampered our movement slightly. We started off slowly crouching through the swamp, then we dropped on all fours and finally crawled to get to a striking distance.
As we were 40 metres away from the bunker, I told everyone to get their grenades ready. I glanced over at each man for the last time and got a nod in return.

All four of us jumped up at the same time, the battle had begun.
Before we had gotten up to speed the Unknown Factor stepped in in the form of a trip line concealed in the foliage. I saw it in time to jump over it and continued forward throwing my grenades in the direction of the bunker. I looked back and to my horror realised I was alone; the rest of the men were entangled in the trip line.
The whole situation had changed completely in seconds. Our task was now not to snatch the machine gun, but to get back alive.
My men were still trying to get free of the trip line, while I was right at the bunker, some 30cm to the side of the barrel of the gun.
From inside the bunker I heard the sound of loading the gun and soon the machine gun began to sing.
Is this it?
No time for worry- do something!
What's the best way to silence the gun? With my submachine gun or a grenade?
The decision was made for me as the gun jammed. The two Russkies in the bunker must've been the fastest of the sector in that situation; one was trying to clear the jam, the other was readying a grenade.
Who'd be faster?
I primed my grenade against the butt of my submachine gun just as the machine gun began to sing again. I waited for before throwing the grenade so they'd have no time to throw it back.
I heard the grenade land on the floor of the bunker.
The Russkies didn't react in any way and kept firing, I suppose he didn't see it.
The grenade did its job and the machine gun fell silent.

Quick glance revealed my men to be still alive, I guess the Russkie's nerves had gone after the gun jammed to not hit any of them.
The situation was still on.
-"Watch out!"
Arttila screamed at me.
I turned around with my weapon ready to fire.
In the connecting trench, about 10 metres from me, was a Russkie trying to get a grenade out. I pulled the trigger just as he threw it and he never got to see the result of his throw. Too bad, it was a good throw, hit me square in the chest. He had thrown it too early, I had time to back away for a couple of metres before it blew.
I felt a sharp pain in my thigh.
Bullet snapped past my ear. Someone was shooting. From where? I tried to find the shooter, but couldn't.
Submachine gun burst from the direction of the trip line. I looked over, it was Salonius. He had seen a rifleman behind a pine tree, aiming his second shot at me.
The rifleman fell silent.
The fight didn't last long, but had surely woken up everyone in the base. I decided it was time to go.

-"Let's go!" I yelled to the boys.
We ran to where Luostarinen was and hit the ground as the base sprung to life; light-machine guns, submachine guns, rifles were all shooting at something. Once the mortars joined in, we thought it was better to stay put and wait for the situation to calm down. We had good cover, safe from small-arms fire.
-"Everyone OK?" I asked as we waited for the mortar fire to shift.
Arttila had a flesh wound on his arm that we patched up while waiting, but everyone else was ok.
We returned back at 0300hrs.
During the morning Arttila and I walked to the first aid station to have our wounds checked. I had a grenade shrapnel in my thigh where it remains to this day.
Arttila, the calm and brave soldier, later lost his life on a patrol.