Quote:
Originally Posted by Dowly
That's cool! 
Did he tell any stories from the war, or have you looked into finding stuff about him?
The photo was taken by Erkki Viitasalo according to SA-kuva. |
He did tell some and even wrote something up when 84 years old. I translated one story for another forum. Here it is, a sauna war story:
Just before the sauna story begins, his platooon has been ordered to rest and refit during the last days of Tali-Ihantala battle in the summer of 1944. When my grandpa joined the platoon, back from the hospital, it was led by a private first class as all the higher ups had been killed or wounded, and my grandpa took the command as a corporal. The platoon had under 10 men left, but every man was equipped by a submachine gun, taken from a fallen comrade or enemy - the submachine gun part background needs to be told to understand the actual sauna story. Here's the story:
"The sun was already shining high, when I woke up. A messenger ordered me to come see the company chief. The chief ordered me to send to men to heat a sauna. He showed me the place on the map, nearly 4 kilometres away. There was a sauna of a farm in a brick cowshed that the battalion had assigned for our use. When the stokers of the sauna would have left, the company was to start marching to the sauna after three hours had passed.
I chose two men to heat the sauna. I showed the place on the map and to make sure they would find the place I even drew a road map for them. The company was just about ready to leave for the sauna, when the stokers came back and said that they can’t heat the sauna, because the men from heavy mortar were there bathing and had said that they were going to hold the place for themselves the whole day. I went to the chief to tell him about what had happened. He went out of his mind. He started bellowing at me: you have lousy men, when they can’t fulfil the battalion’s order, and you can’t get their act together. He shouted a lot more, before I interrupted him by saying that it isn’t so that my men are lousy. We are all armed with submachine guns and the sauna is emptied in a second or two, if the order is given, but that it’s pointless to start fighting against own troops, when there are empty saunas to heat everywhere close-by. The chief paused to think for a while and said: Well heat a sauna then, I don’t care where, just as long as the company bathes today.
I went to my men and said: “The whole platoon goes to heat a sauna now”. Just after waking up I had – as was my habit – taken a run around the encampment area to get a grip on the surroundings and I had noticed the river Kilpeenjoki took a bend towards our area, just 100 meters from us. The river was 10 meters wide at this area, over a meter deep and had a fine sand bottom. On the other side of the river there were two saunas. When I had seen a wooden causeway over the river, I had examined these saunas. They were really nice, with a living room. Maybe villas of residents from the city of Viipuri. I brought the men to these saunas and we heated up both of them. I said, that the other sauna would be reserved for the chief first, but when you get the other sauna warm, you can start bathing right then. When the saunas were heating, many of the men were already swimming in the river. When the sauna reserved for the chief was ready I told Valjakka: “Fetch the lieutenant to the sauna”. The man came, looked on for a second with eyes wide. Then said: “these are some very nice saunas you got here”. So then we bathed and swam in that sunny July afternoon, laid down by the beach grass like we were in Riviera, while the artillery fire rumbled on the front lines. Maybe we even forgot about the war for a short while. When the sunlight started to dim, we went back and occupied the same foxholes by the flood meadow stronghold, where we had left for the saunas.
Afterwards I have wondered if this sauna incident had an effect on the fact that if the chief had something to decide on that he wasn’t sure about, he often wanted to know my view on the problem. Anyway after the incident our co-operation worked perfectly after that, for as long as the company was held intact."