The Finnish-German Lapland War (15) Sep 1944 - 27 Apr 1945

Discussions on the Winter War and Continuation War, the wars between Finland and the USSR.
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baldviking
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#181

Post by baldviking » 06 Jun 2004, 16:22

Very good link, thank you from both me and Andrysha at VGD - Historie, in Norway and Moscow! :D

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Topspeed
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Castle of Oulu

#182

Post by Topspeed » 16 Jun 2004, 23:45

Tom wrote:Kiitos! I thought that it looked pretty cool! I knew it was an older construction. For the period, it looks like a pretty defendable position!

BTW, Juha, I forgot to say Kiitos to you too, for the link. There are some very interesting shots there.
I live in Oulu...1% left of that castle.

Englishmen also attacked Oulu with a big fleet ....long time ago...North-Finland was a very crucial for the tar that was world famous and produced from the forests east of Oulu. No harm done actually..Admiral negotiated and left...actually only thing damaged was the harbour where they own tar waited to be shipped to England. :D

Soviets did more damage in the air raids during Continuation War..whole street with houses near the railwaysattion was demolished.

I also did live in Rovaniemi..funny that one of the railways station buildings is still in tact..serves as a child daycare centre.

It was interesting to read this topic.


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Topspeed
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#183

Post by Topspeed » 20 Jun 2004, 17:02

Tom,

The rovan4.jpg on the previous page. When you look down at the Valtakatu ( Main street ) south..you see a white wooden building. It has now been totally renovated and used for rental party occasions.
I was there once and we had a good dinner and drinks. Of course the city around it has changed alot. You can get all sorta traditional food..and let me tell ya it ain't bad..it is DELICIOUS ! Salmon, Rieska ( bread ) remoulage, potatoes, reindeer stew with red berries, deserts with hilla berries ( cloudberries ? ) and the best leipäjuusto ( cheesebread ). Finnish vodka ( Koskenkorva ) and good wines to go with it. Sounds okay ?

Anyway..you are most welcome..and so are all the rest of the Axis History Forum visitors. Maybe we'll have a get together there..with Oleg and all.


Regards,


Jukka T / Oulu / Finland

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Tom Houlihan
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#184

Post by Tom Houlihan » 03 Feb 2005, 12:47

Way back in October '02, Juha H. posted that Captain Jöhnk ordered the train to be pulled out of the station at Rovaniemi by 2 tanks. Somehow, the conventional wisdom is that the train rolled back to into the station. Obviously, this doesn't make sense. So, I'd like to present this thought.

What is the order was never actually carried out? Is it possible that with everything going on, that the order never actually got to the people it applied to, like the two tank commanders?

Perhaps, while they were trying to get everything together to accomplish the task, but it took too long? The fire approached the train before they could get it moved?

I find it hard to believe that a train requiring two panzers to move was able to roll itself back into the station. It makes more sense to me that for whatever reason, the order was never actually carried out.

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#185

Post by Hanski » 05 Feb 2005, 20:19

Hi Tom,

It is interesting to return to the mystery of how did the German ammo train blow up in the centre of Rovaniemi on 14th October 1944.
Tom wrote:Way back in October '02, Juha H. posted that Captain Jöhnk ordered the train to be pulled out of the station at Rovaniemi by 2 tanks. Somehow, the conventional wisdom is that the train rolled back to into the station. Obviously, this doesn't make sense. So, I'd like to present this thought.

What is the order was never actually carried out? Is it possible that with everything going on, that the order never actually got to the people it applied to, like the two tank commanders?

Perhaps, while they were trying to get everything together to accomplish the task, but it took too long? The fire approached the train before they could get it moved?

I find it hard to believe that a train requiring two panzers to move was able to roll itself back into the station. It makes more sense to me that for whatever reason, the order was never actually carried out.

Firstly, the claim of "the train rolling back into the station" defies all the laws of Newtonian physics.
If you browse back to page 11 of this thread, you will find the scanned aerial photo of burned-down Rovaniemi, plus the topographic maps that you provided for our discussion. From the photo you can see the borough centre being flat country, and the altitude curves on the topographic maps prove the same, when you look at the railyard area. So at least gravity cannot have been the physical force that moves back a train that requires two tanks to get it in motion -- they did certainly not move the train uphill, since there is no slope in any direction on level ground.

Secondly, how does fire spread into an ammo train in the damp sub-arctic October weather, where most of us would have to struggle even to light up a campfire under those conditions? Especially when you think of a wide open space like a railyard, where everything around the railway tracks is leveled, not to obstruct the traffic, and loading and unloading of the trains? Suppose there was an open fire in the vicinity of the station -- so what could be the flammable dry medium to connect flames to a train across lengths of open ground, covered only by sand, stones, and wet grass? There were Germans around the train to attach the chains or wires to haul the train with the tanks -- so were all of them blind to see how open fire approached their ammo train, loaded with tons of HE, or they just stood idle to watch what was going to happen when the flames reach the train? Suppose the ammo in the train was not in closed cattle-wagons (to protect and allow time for fire-fighting), but in open railway cars -- what are then the basic safety measures to load HE shells in a railway car, to prevent any smoker from blasting the cargo in a split second? Could all the rules of normal life have failed in this particular case?

I would much prefer to use Occam's razor to cut all those paranormal assumptions, and simply conclude that the Germans deliberately 1) burned down Rovaniemi house by house with petrol and matches 2) blew up their ammo train with normal sapper methods.

They had both the means and good military reasons to do these, but what escapes me are these post-war explanations which appear out of this world.

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Harri
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#186

Post by Harri » 06 Feb 2005, 00:03

I agree. But what kind of ammo this train was loaded of? Artillery shells, bombs and mines are not especially easy to explode without detonators and they most likely were not there. In photos there are pieces of bombs and perhaps artillery rockets. What kind of ammo or explosives are easy to explode just like that? I think something was exploded next to the ammo train or there was a fire next to or in the train.

About the "flatness" in railways. Railway yard is always flat if it is possible (maximum allowed slope 0.2% in the design directive used since 1920's). The Rovaniemi railway yard was renewed in the 1930's when the railway from Rovaniemi to Kemijärvi was constructed. In the official history "Finnish State Railways 1912 - 1937" there is a plan map on the railway between Rovaniemi and Kemijärvi.

From the Rovaniemi station (towards Kemijärvi) railway directs almost towards east and there is soon a railway bridge accross the river Kemi. Then the railway turns almost towards north along the Ounasvaara hills and after that there is another railway bridge accross the same river. When the explosion(s) in the train took place I think Finnish troops were somewhere between these two bridges? The map shops that between the Rovaniemi railway station and the first bridge railway comes downwards about one meter or perhaps more. So that direction is at least out of question (unless the tanks didn't try to pull the train down towards the bridge where it should have exploded?). Unfortunately I don't know the situation on the other end of the railway yard because that railway was finished before 1912 and it is not handled in the book mentioned.

One more point: pneumatic brake system was not in every wagons in the 1940's. More than 50% of the goods wagons were equipped with them but not all. There is a chance that the train really rolled back to the station (from the west). Actually there is need for steep hills to start a stopped train rolling along the rails.

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#187

Post by Tom Houlihan » 06 Feb 2005, 06:40

They had both the means and good military reasons to do these, but what escapes me are these post-war explanations which appear out of this world.
Hanski, I'm not trying to 'cover' anybody, or shift blame, honest. I was just posting a thought that occurred to me while reading back over some material. It makes a certain amount of sense that someone gave an order, but for whatever reason, it wasn't properly executed. Merely one possible explanation for the train being back where it was.

There are so many inconsistencies in this mystery that clearing one or two up won't really make a difference. It just an annoying challenge now! :? :D

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#188

Post by Hanski » 06 Feb 2005, 23:30

Tom, don't get me wrong: I wasn't suspecting any shifting of blame (or credit). But as indeed finding an explanation is a challenge, wouldn't the simplest assumption be a German order to blow up the whole damn train with its cargo, to give some headache to the pursuing Finns, and to prevent them from using the captured ammo against Germans?

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#189

Post by Tom Houlihan » 07 Feb 2005, 06:52

Actually, that's a valid question. But, if they were using scorched earth, justifiably, why not just admit it if they blew it intentionally? Why try to hide the fact?

"We're going to burn your town down, but we're not going to admit to blowing up a munitions train. We'll take the blame for burning the town, but not levelling it!"

That just doesn't make sense! Destroying the train would have been legitimate, but all this prevarication?

Damn, and here we were trying to make sense of this!

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#190

Post by Simon Orchard » 23 Apr 2005, 10:59

The subject of 'Who burnt Rovaniemi?' is quite a puzzle, there's some great points put forward in this thread.

It would make a great programme along the lines of those forensic analysis of episodes in history that we see on Discovery channel.

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#191

Post by Tom Houlihan » 23 Apr 2005, 11:40

Simon Orchard wrote:It would make a great programme along the lines of those forensic analysis of episodes in history that we see on Discovery channel.
That's not a bad idea! Do you know anybody???

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Juha Hujanen
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#192

Post by Juha Hujanen » 23 Apr 2005, 18:54

Mythbusters ;)

/Juha

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#193

Post by Topspeed » 25 Apr 2005, 08:45

Simon Orchard wrote:The subject of 'Who burnt Rovaniemi?' is quite a puzzle, there's some great points put forward in this thread.

It would make a great programme along the lines of those forensic analysis of episodes in history that we see on Discovery channel.
There is absolutely no myth about it. Germans burned it deliberately. Possibly tought Finland was going to be occupied by VSS and tought they did a favour for finns.

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#194

Post by Roi » 18 Jan 2006, 11:59

Hello,

fine and interesting thread. I moved to Rovaniemi in 1960 as a 12 year schoolboy, and left the town about 1970.
I roamed much at the sites of former german barracks an was happy enough not to blow myself up with any left behind mines or ammunition.
In the 1960ies there where no such accidents any more, i think.

My contribution to the discussion on the ammunition train:

If the train, standing somwhere on the old raildroad station area of Rovaniemi not only burned and maybe threw some burning material and/or ammunition around, but also exploded in one huge explosion, how come that there is still some wooden houses standing near the old station area. These houses, which are today preserved and protected by law, have been the old railway stations of Rovaniemi, and are built in typical "railway style", ase beeing probably planned on the drawing bhoard of the central railway autohorities in Helsinki. Ole of the houses stands on the east side of the former railway line (now there is a sunken road) near the central sport stadion Keskuskenttä, which can also be seen on the map of old Rovaniemi at page 11, near the red-brick school of our days. The other stands on the same side of the former railway line, more to the north, near the place where the relatively new concrete bridge takes the road to Ivalo over the Ounasjoki river.

I do not know out of which readsons this houses where spared – either byu the explosion, or by the german troops, or by both, but spared they were. There must also bee some kind of knowledge of in what condition the houses were immediately after the destroying of the town – maybe in a damage assessment report to the railway authorities.

So where exactly did that famous ammo train stand? In what direction was it towed or pushed by tanks? Where exactly did the big bang take place?

When it comes to newtonian laws I would not be so cock sure: railroad station areas (Rangierbahnhof auf deutsch) are built deliberately with small slants so that you can push the cars with a small Rangierlokomotive and the will then by theri weight (here Newton comes in right) roll slowly quite a long way. You would not see these slight slants on a normal map or aerial photograph. But in the railroad archives in helsinki one could maybe find a special railroad construction plan or map of the old Rovaniemi Bahnhof, with this small slants indicated.
Last edited by Roi on 19 Jan 2006, 09:36, edited 1 time in total.

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#195

Post by Topspeed » 18 Jan 2006, 14:55

Eh hello Roi,

I think this Rovaniemi issue is exaggerated. Germans burned it because they tought USSR is going to take over Finland. Furthermore Oulu was partially bombed to the ground ( germans were stationed there too ) by the soviet AF. This certainly assured that Finland will be occupied by USSR. I agree 100 % there are several wooden houses near the old railway station that should have been burned down had the cause of the fire in Rovaniemi been inflicted by the exploding train car alone.

rgds,

Juke

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