Winter War, day by day.

Dowly · 11-20-21, 09:32 AM

Extracts from a sergeant's war diary 4/5

Written by then sergeant H. Kolehmainen, translated using machine translation (w/corrections) from "Kansa Taisteli"-journal issue 1/1958.

4 March 1940, in Lyykylä

After leaving the intermediate position, we skied along the road leading to the
village of Kämärä. During the twelve days we had been in the intermediate
position, the scenery had become unfamiliar. All that was left of the forest
were ragged, jutting stumps. Grenades had ploughed the road into a lumpy field.

It is remarkable how your eyes adapt to "night life". When the moon was behind
a thin veil of clouds, it was hard to tell whether it was night or day. All
objects were clearly visible, even plain text was easy to read.

From Kämärä road we turned to the horse road leading to Pilppula and stopped
approximately in the midpoint of Kämärä lake. There we had to establish
delaying positions. The last of our own troops passed us. The day dawned, and
it was the first warm day of winter. It was very quiet at the front. It was
only in the afternoon that the first artillery shots rang in our ears.

The second platoon stayed in position by the road, the third platoon near
Kämärä lake and my platoon between them about 300 meters from the road. Each
platoon was reinforced with a machine gun. We prepared the positions from
packing snow. The terrain was hilly grassland where there had been a forest
fire a few years ago.

There was a sand pit in my team's area. We chose it as a fallback position,
where we placed our skis and backpacks. Our actual position was 70-80 meters
away on a small hill.

It would have been a great day to rest, but according to battalion orders we
were not allowed to pitch tents, and sleeping on snow even in warm weather is
no rest. This order was grimly cursed. The messengers told us that the
battalion headquarters slept in peace and quiet 7 or 8 kilometres to the rear
of our positions in some house.

But we couldn't sleep. We walked, shuffled and wrestled to stay warm. And so
evening came and night came. Still the same shuffling. We changed sentries and
shuffled. At night it became cold. Our wet clothes and boots froze. We stayed
awake and shuffled in our armour-clad clothes.

Finally, the tops of the trees began to turn red, a sign that the sun was
rising. At the same time, a swarm of fighter planes flew over us, and from the
direction of the road the sound of tanks could be heard in the distance. We
drank the soup sent by the sergeant-major to refresh our weary limbs and then
walked along the path to the position and began to wait.

There was gunfire and the sound of fighting from the direction of the road. A
tank had been set on fire as a tall column of smoke rose above the forest. We
waited and froze in our snow holes.

Then it appeared in front of us. A hundred and fifty metres away, a line of men
came towards us in two columns. Two large men in snow suits were in front,
side by side, knees high, trampling a path for those behind them. Our gunfire
erupted and the queues disappeared into the snow. But the approach did not
stop, but continued -- inside the snow. The Russians had learned the art of
"swimming" and "diving" forward in the snow. Occasionally one of them would
rise slightly and several guns would pop out at once to catch the unwary.

We were so engrossed in the stalking that we were not paying attention to what
was happening elsewhere. I happened to glance behind us and -- the blood
almost froze in my veins.

Along the path leading to our fallback position and very close to us, two tanks
roared in succession. The woodland in front of the one in front swept like hay
under a mower.

That's the end of it -- flashed in my mind. They're sure to run us over and
crush us under their treads. In a metre deep snow we can't outrun them. But
maybe they don't know about us -- hope whispered in my ear. "Take cover in
your holes!", I managed to yelp as the foremost tank was already roaring on
our positions and so close to one of the men that a piece of his overcoat was
chipped off under the track. The tank that followed stopped twenty meters
behind us.

What the hell am I supposed to do now -- I thought. Less than a hundred meters
ahead of us were Russians, swimming in the snow, getting closer by the minute,
behind us on our only path was a tank, and all around us was more than a meter
of snow.

I already had time to order the group on the extreme left to start trampling
the path diagonally backwards to the third platoon's position. It was at least
300 metres. When the first man stood up he was immediately shot in the chest.

I guess some instinct led me to the right decision. I shouted to the boys
"Follow me!", got up and headed straight down the path towards the tank -- and
there was no shooting. I passed the tank a meter away, came up behind it on
the path and the boys followed. At the edge of our fallback position, we set
up another fighting position. The Russians in the tank had mistaken us for
their own men.

I realised that I had made an unforgivable mistake by leaving our skis in the
fallback position. It had actually been done without thinking, -- out of old
habit. I had been taught, and I in turn would teach, that when going to
fighting positions you leave your skis behind. Only luck had saved us from the
unfortunate consequences of that teaching.

Then a messenger of the company commander crawled towards us along the track
left by the tank. He had a rucksack on his back and it was visible above the
snow. Somewhere a machine gun cracked and the messenger's backpack jerked as
bullets hit it. And the boy laughed. Laughed truly as death scratched his
back. In the past, this boy had shown a downright contempt for death. There
hadn't been much of a shellstorm that he'd bothered to take cover unless a
superior told him to. And yet bullets and shrapnel seemed to skirt him. If he
had a normal self-preservation instinct, he kept it in check in an abnormal
way. The word 'fearless' can be used with perfect justification. Otherwise, he
was a man of silence, and no one ever heard him bite his tongue against even
his heaviest duties.

He brought orders from the company commander that these positions be abandoned
and the company move to a new delaying position one kilometre further back.

Through the forest we skied straight north for half an hour and then turned
sharply left. By chance we came to the spot where the company's roadside
element had taken up position. We were told that there had been some heavy
fighting on the road. The brigade's anti-tank platoon had been involved and
had destroyed four tanks. A corporal in the platoon had jumped on the rear
armour of a moving tank, placed a satchel charge at the base of the turret and
then jumped into the snow. The explosion had left him with minor scratches.

The Russians started attacking again, and the company commander sent me and my
platoon to occupy the positions near the Pilppula stop.

It was already afternoon. There were large rocks in the terrain, and we each
prepared a position for ourselves behind the rocks. The elements of the
company in front began to retreat to our level, and the engineers hurriedly
laid their mines. A few tanks could already be seen across the clearing. One
of the tanks broke away from the group and started to drive along the road
towards us. The engineers threw snow on their mines and jumped behind the
nearby rocks. The tank approached and -- explosion -- seemed to leap into the
air. It was out of action, but only one track was broken. The gun lowered and
a dozen rounds of rapid fire boomed out of the tank. The tanks behind them
approached in jerks. They moved in for a moment, paused to fire, and then
moved in again. The infantry tried to follow, but our fire forced them to
resort to swimming in the snow. The men left in the stalled tank were tired of
waiting. They opened the hatch and one after the other tried to jump behind
the tank. The first to try succeeded. He even managed to take the light
machine gun with him. But the next two got caught halfway outside the hatch.
In the course of this, Jäger Savolainen got too excited and raised himself too
high from his rock, and a bullet in the middle of his forehead extinguished
his enthusiasm. The sun was close to the horizon. The Russians drove a second
tank behind their immobilized tank and, under cover, managed to attach a wire
to the broken tank. A hundred meters away from us they were banging and
rattling on their tank. It would have been a great target for artillery or
mortars, but we had neither.

A messenger brought an order that the company would leave Pilppula and take the
forest road to Lyykylä. And the company went. But I had to stay with my
platoon for at least an hour to make sure the enemy couldn't interfere with
the march. A patrol from the light detachment would then stay behind to keep
an eye on the enemy's activities.

An officer-led patrol came, as was supposed to. We listened together for a
while to the enemy's repair efforts, and then, in the light of the rising
moon, I set off with my platoon after the company. At first we tried to carry
the body of Jäger Savolainen in a sledge with us. But the sledge also
contained ammunition and hand grenades, and the heavy sledge slowed us down.
The tired men grumbled against pulling the sledge. So we lifted the body under
the fir trees beside the road and folded the branches to cover him.

Early in the morning we arrived in Lyykylä. The village was full of troops, and
we had to ask at several houses before we found our company. Everyone was
asleep, and so we also got down on the floor with the others.

It was already afternoon when we woke up to the sound of an officer shouting
from the door of the house:
-"Wake the hell up! The Russkies will be here soon. All the other troops have
already gone and you are lying there like in an inn."
He was the commander of the burning detachment and was going around getting
the houses ready for burning.

The horses were put in harness and we moved a couple of kilometres towards
Karisalmi, where we stopped for lunch. We got to Karisalmi and were put in
reserve in our brigade.

11-20-21, 09:32 AM	#33
Dowly Lucky Jack Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: Finland Posts: 25,054 Downloads: 32 Uploads: 0	Extracts from a sergeant's war diary 4/5 Written by then sergeant H. Kolehmainen, translated using machine translation (w/corrections) from "Kansa Taisteli"-journal issue 1/1958. 4 March 1940, in Lyykylä After leaving the intermediate position, we skied along the road leading to the village of Kämärä. During the twelve days we had been in the intermediate position, the scenery had become unfamiliar. All that was left of the forest were ragged, jutting stumps. Grenades had ploughed the road into a lumpy field. It is remarkable how your eyes adapt to "night life". When the moon was behind a thin veil of clouds, it was hard to tell whether it was night or day. All objects were clearly visible, even plain text was easy to read. From Kämärä road we turned to the horse road leading to Pilppula and stopped approximately in the midpoint of Kämärä lake. There we had to establish delaying positions. The last of our own troops passed us. The day dawned, and it was the first warm day of winter. It was very quiet at the front. It was only in the afternoon that the first artillery shots rang in our ears. The second platoon stayed in position by the road, the third platoon near Kämärä lake and my platoon between them about 300 meters from the road. Each platoon was reinforced with a machine gun. We prepared the positions from packing snow. The terrain was hilly grassland where there had been a forest fire a few years ago. There was a sand pit in my team's area. We chose it as a fallback position, where we placed our skis and backpacks. Our actual position was 70-80 meters away on a small hill. It would have been a great day to rest, but according to battalion orders we were not allowed to pitch tents, and sleeping on snow even in warm weather is no rest. This order was grimly cursed. The messengers told us that the battalion headquarters slept in peace and quiet 7 or 8 kilometres to the rear of our positions in some house. But we couldn't sleep. We walked, shuffled and wrestled to stay warm. And so evening came and night came. Still the same shuffling. We changed sentries and shuffled. At night it became cold. Our wet clothes and boots froze. We stayed awake and shuffled in our armour-clad clothes. Finally, the tops of the trees began to turn red, a sign that the sun was rising. At the same time, a swarm of fighter planes flew over us, and from the direction of the road the sound of tanks could be heard in the distance. We drank the soup sent by the sergeant-major to refresh our weary limbs and then walked along the path to the position and began to wait. There was gunfire and the sound of fighting from the direction of the road. A tank had been set on fire as a tall column of smoke rose above the forest. We waited and froze in our snow holes. Then it appeared in front of us. A hundred and fifty metres away, a line of men came towards us in two columns. Two large men in snow suits were in front, side by side, knees high, trampling a path for those behind them. Our gunfire erupted and the queues disappeared into the snow. But the approach did not stop, but continued -- inside the snow. The Russians had learned the art of "swimming" and "diving" forward in the snow. Occasionally one of them would rise slightly and several guns would pop out at once to catch the unwary. We were so engrossed in the stalking that we were not paying attention to what was happening elsewhere. I happened to glance behind us and -- the blood almost froze in my veins. Along the path leading to our fallback position and very close to us, two tanks roared in succession. The woodland in front of the one in front swept like hay under a mower. That's the end of it -- flashed in my mind. They're sure to run us over and crush us under their treads. In a metre deep snow we can't outrun them. But maybe they don't know about us -- hope whispered in my ear. "Take cover in your holes!", I managed to yelp as the foremost tank was already roaring on our positions and so close to one of the men that a piece of his overcoat was chipped off under the track. The tank that followed stopped twenty meters behind us. What the hell am I supposed to do now -- I thought. Less than a hundred meters ahead of us were Russians, swimming in the snow, getting closer by the minute, behind us on our only path was a tank, and all around us was more than a meter of snow. I already had time to order the group on the extreme left to start trampling the path diagonally backwards to the third platoon's position. It was at least 300 metres. When the first man stood up he was immediately shot in the chest. I guess some instinct led me to the right decision. I shouted to the boys "Follow me!", got up and headed straight down the path towards the tank -- and there was no shooting. I passed the tank a meter away, came up behind it on the path and the boys followed. At the edge of our fallback position, we set up another fighting position. The Russians in the tank had mistaken us for their own men. I realised that I had made an unforgivable mistake by leaving our skis in the fallback position. It had actually been done without thinking, -- out of old habit. I had been taught, and I in turn would teach, that when going to fighting positions you leave your skis behind. Only luck had saved us from the unfortunate consequences of that teaching. Then a messenger of the company commander crawled towards us along the track left by the tank. He had a rucksack on his back and it was visible above the snow. Somewhere a machine gun cracked and the messenger's backpack jerked as bullets hit it. And the boy laughed. Laughed truly as death scratched his back. In the past, this boy had shown a downright contempt for death. There hadn't been much of a shellstorm that he'd bothered to take cover unless a superior told him to. And yet bullets and shrapnel seemed to skirt him. If he had a normal self-preservation instinct, he kept it in check in an abnormal way. The word 'fearless' can be used with perfect justification. Otherwise, he was a man of silence, and no one ever heard him bite his tongue against even his heaviest duties. He brought orders from the company commander that these positions be abandoned and the company move to a new delaying position one kilometre further back. Through the forest we skied straight north for half an hour and then turned sharply left. By chance we came to the spot where the company's roadside element had taken up position. We were told that there had been some heavy fighting on the road. The brigade's anti-tank platoon had been involved and had destroyed four tanks. A corporal in the platoon had jumped on the rear armour of a moving tank, placed a satchel charge at the base of the turret and then jumped into the snow. The explosion had left him with minor scratches. The Russians started attacking again, and the company commander sent me and my platoon to occupy the positions near the Pilppula stop. It was already afternoon. There were large rocks in the terrain, and we each prepared a position for ourselves behind the rocks. The elements of the company in front began to retreat to our level, and the engineers hurriedly laid their mines. A few tanks could already be seen across the clearing. One of the tanks broke away from the group and started to drive along the road towards us. The engineers threw snow on their mines and jumped behind the nearby rocks. The tank approached and -- explosion -- seemed to leap into the air. It was out of action, but only one track was broken. The gun lowered and a dozen rounds of rapid fire boomed out of the tank. The tanks behind them approached in jerks. They moved in for a moment, paused to fire, and then moved in again. The infantry tried to follow, but our fire forced them to resort to swimming in the snow. The men left in the stalled tank were tired of waiting. They opened the hatch and one after the other tried to jump behind the tank. The first to try succeeded. He even managed to take the light machine gun with him. But the next two got caught halfway outside the hatch. In the course of this, Jäger Savolainen got too excited and raised himself too high from his rock, and a bullet in the middle of his forehead extinguished his enthusiasm. The sun was close to the horizon. The Russians drove a second tank behind their immobilized tank and, under cover, managed to attach a wire to the broken tank. A hundred meters away from us they were banging and rattling on their tank. It would have been a great target for artillery or mortars, but we had neither. A messenger brought an order that the company would leave Pilppula and take the forest road to Lyykylä. And the company went. But I had to stay with my platoon for at least an hour to make sure the enemy couldn't interfere with the march. A patrol from the light detachment would then stay behind to keep an eye on the enemy's activities. An officer-led patrol came, as was supposed to. We listened together for a while to the enemy's repair efforts, and then, in the light of the rising moon, I set off with my platoon after the company. At first we tried to carry the body of Jäger Savolainen in a sledge with us. But the sledge also contained ammunition and hand grenades, and the heavy sledge slowed us down. The tired men grumbled against pulling the sledge. So we lifted the body under the fir trees beside the road and folded the branches to cover him. Early in the morning we arrived in Lyykylä. The village was full of troops, and we had to ask at several houses before we found our company. Everyone was asleep, and so we also got down on the floor with the others. It was already afternoon when we woke up to the sound of an officer shouting from the door of the house: -"Wake the hell up! The Russkies will be here soon. All the other troops have already gone and you are lying there like in an inn." He was the commander of the burning detachment and was going around getting the houses ready for burning. The horses were put in harness and we moved a couple of kilometres towards Karisalmi, where we stopped for lunch. We got to Karisalmi and were put in reserve in our brigade.