FINLAND AT WAR GNM.Finland At War.vol1 layout.v11.indd 1 01/06/2015 15:30 FINLAND AT WAR The Winter War 1939–40 VESA NENYE WITH PETER MUNTER AND TONI WIRTANEN GNM.Finland At War.vol1 layout.v11.indd 2 01/06/2015 15:30 FINLAND AT WAR The Winter War 1939–40 VESA NENYE WITH PETER MUNTER AND TONI WIRTANEN GNM.Finland At War.vol1 layout.v11.indd 3 01/06/2015 15:30 First published in Great Britain in 2015 by Osprey Publishing, PO Box 883, Oxford, OX1 9PL, UK PO Box 3985, New York, NY 10185-3985, USA E-mail: [email protected] Osprey Publishing, part of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc © 2015 Vesa Nenye, Peter Munter and Toni Wirtanen All rights reserved. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, electrical, chemical, mechanical, optical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner. Enquiries should be addressed to the Publishers. Every attempt has been made by the Publisher to secure the appropriate permissions for material reproduced in this book. If there has been any oversight we will be happy to rectify the situation and written submission should be made to the Publishers. A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Vesa Nenye, Peter Munter and Toni Wirtanen have asserted their rights under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the Authors of this Work. ISBN: 978 1 4728 0631 4 ePub ISBN: 978 1 4728 1358 9 PDF ISBN: 978 1 4728 1359 6 Index by Mark Swift Cartography by Peter Bull Map Studio Typeset in Trade Gothic and Adobe Garamond Pro Originated by PDQ Media Printed in China through Worldprint Ltd 15  16  17  18  19   10  9  8  7  6  5  4  3  2  1 Front and back cover: all images Sa-kuva Osprey Publishing supports the Woodland Trust, the UK’s leading woodland conservation charity.  Between 2014 and 2018 our donations will be spent on their Centenary Woods project in the UK. www.ospreypublishing.com GNM.Finland At War.vol1 layout.v11.indd 4 01/06/2015 15:30 CONTENTS PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 7 CHRONOLOGY 11  CHAPTER 1: THE RISE OF FINLAND 23  CHAPTER 2: THE ROAD TO WAR 43  CHAPTER 3: THE KARELIAN ISTHMUS, DECEMBER 1939 63  CHAPTER 4: LADOGA KARELIA, DECEMBER 1939 87  CHAPTER 5: GROUP TALVELA 107  CHAPTER 6: NORTH FINLAND GROUP 127  CHAPTER 7: LAPLAND GROUP, 1939–40 171  CHAPTER 8: A WATCHING WORLD 187  CHAPTER 9: THE BATTLE FOR LADOGA KARELIA, 1940 199  CHAPTER 10: THE KARELIAN ISTHMUS, 1940 231  CHAPTER 11: AN INTERIM PEACE 283  BIBLIOGRAPHY 289  APPENDIX 292 INDEX 301   GNM.Finland At War.vol1 layout.v11.indd 5 01/06/2015 15:30 GNM.Finland At War.vol1 layout.v11.indd 6 01/06/2015 15:30 PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS We entered into this project with the goal of writing the kind of book about Finland’s wars that we have always wanted to read ourselves, one that describes the most important battles, accompanied by plenty of contemporary pictures and clarifying maps. In the end the project grew and grew until Osprey, our publishers, made the wise decision to split the project into two parts. This first book describes Finland’s struggles from its fledgling independence, through the Civil War and the Kinship Wars that followed. It shows how the approaching conflict with the Soviet Union was practically unavoidable, and how this small nation stood against the mightiest army in the world. The 105-day-long conflict that the world came to know as the Winter War saw Finland bravely resist, until the war-weary Soviet Union finally relented and sought peace – albeit on Stalin’s non-negotiable terms. This first book finishes with the signing of the peace treaty and looks at the A Finnish cavalryman at Huumola on 14 December 1939. At this time, immediate socio-economic problems that followed. each Finnish division still fielded a The second volume begins with the short period known as the Interim separate cavalry squadron. Many of the senior officers, including Peace, and explores once more how conflict became inevitable. The battles Mannerheim who was a former cavalry of both the Continuation War and the Lapland War are examined in detail. general, seemed averse to the use of modern armoured forces. Had the Most of the names in the book are given in their Finnish forms. At the Finns had even 20 or 30 tanks in their end of the book the reader may find an appendix with the most common reserves on the Karelian Isthmus, things might have gone altogether translations in English and Russian. The Soviet ranks in this volume follow differently. Even this small number would have been able to provide the positional system in place during the Winter War era; with the start of rapid, concentrated fire support where the Continuation War, general officer ranks are once again used. it was most needed. (SA-kuva) GNM.Finland At War.vol1 layout.v11.indd 7 01/06/2015 15:30 8 It is worth noting that we owe a special debt to the plethora of writers who have already covered this topic. They are frequently referenced in the text. We would like to point out that much of what has been written before is conflicting or contradictory; thus in order to chart the actual course of events we have tried to use contemporary sources and unit war diaries as widely as possible. Thanks to the extensive and vigorous research of recent years, many documents in the former Soviet archives have now seen the light of day. Unfortunately, it is also clear that many of these source materials were considerably manipulated either during or after the war. For instance, accurate casualty figures or portrait photographs of disgraced Red Army front-line commanders are hard to obtain. Ultimately, we hope we have created an accurate yet entertaining recount of those demanding times. As writers we would welcome any feedback or constructive criticism directly, and we can be reached at [email protected] A project of this magnitude, covering Finland’s 20th-century wars in just two books and featuring extensive illustrations and maps, would never have been possible without the help of many people. We are especially grateful to our beloved and supportive families – Sarah & Ronja, Folke, Nora & Niklas and Jannika, who together with our hounds patiently tagged along on the many research trips, and graciously let us continue writing into the small hours of many a morning. Marcus Cowper and Kate Moore of Osprey Publishing have been instrumental in keeping us on track and on time and getting these books published. Thanks to John Stellard of Warlord Games for his introductions and recommendations that started all of this in the first place. Our enduring gratitude and most heartfelt thanks go to Chris Birks, who undertook the heroic task of reading through all the different versions of the manuscripts, and without whose help this book would have never been completed. Further editing and feedback were provided by Steve Morgan and Steve Yates as well as Lauri Priha, Jouni Soininen and Captain Mick Poussa. Additional thanks must be given to the people who provided us with access and materials: Jari Saurio, the museum curator of the Armour Museum at Parola, for his encouragement and feedback throughout the editing process, and his infallible ability to recognise which tank was depicted by the smallest part jutting out in an otherwise uniformly snowy image; Engineer Major Reserves Esa Muikku, who gave us access to his valuable, previously unpublished private collections and helped to identify names and places needed for many of the image captions; Tanker Jerry Riipinen, for his photography and for all his help; the Chairman of the GNM.Finland At War.vol1 layout.v11.indd 8 01/06/2015 15:30 PREFAcE AND AckNOWLEDgEMENTS 9 Armoured Museum Trust, Jari Lemmetyinen; Armi Häkkinen, who pored over and made legible hundreds of pages of old handwritten war diaries and unit logs; and Sakari and Kirsti Nenye, who undertook the massive task of preparing all the chosen photographs (only a few more books, and then we are sure you two can actually, finally retire…). We are grateful to a number of libraries and archives in Finland which all provided friendly and helpful aid. In particular, we would like to mention: the whole team at the Armour Museum at Parola; the Photographic Centre of the Finnish Defence Forces; the Finnish Museum of Photography; the Finnish Military Museum; the Lotta-Svärd Museum; the museum wing of the National Defence University in Tuusula; Jukka Kukkonen, for his overall, profound expertise on the historical photo archives; Colonel Pekka Järvi of the Armoured Brigade, who supported us throughout this process and helped gain access to largely unpublished material; Captain Ari Viitala, who provided us with the personal papers of his grandfather and access to the Sissi war diaries; and Senior Lieutenant Jari Markkula, also of the Armoured Brigade, for his photography and liaison work. Further thanks are due to the following: Juhani Talvela, who gave us permission to access his grandfather’s diaries stored at the National Archives; Heikki Talvela, who further enlivened the events with his stories and collections from the wars; the Sotiemme Veteraanit organisation, for the use of their images; and finally, the tank ace Reino Lehväslaiho, for his interview and inspirational repertoire of war stories and books. Ultimately, a big thank you goes to everybody who is interested in this period and takes the time to learn more about how a few stood against the many, and about a lone fight against oppression in a darkening Europe.   GNM.Finland At War.vol1 layout.v11.indd 9 01/06/2015 15:30