#6
Post
by Harri » 08 Dec 2009, 17:42
These are definately interesting! The quality of the war diaries although varies between unreadable to excellent. There are also lots of diaries written in Swedish (or both Swedish and Finnish sic.!). Some of them contain only nearly unuseful information like "Air raid warning given" and "Air raid warning over" but on the other hand there are some excellent war diaries. Read for example the one of the "I Armeijakunnan esikunta. Tykistökomentaja 1939 - 1940." [I Army Corps HQ, Artillery Commander]. It seems like the battles wouldn't have been very extensive at all. Or then the "papa mentality" of the Maj.Gen. Laatikainen "contaminated" the Artillery Commander as well! Note how the handwriting of the keeper of the war diary (I think he's the same all the time) changes towards the end of the war. Could be a sign of the exhaustion?
Don't let the unit size mislead because some of the smaller unit diaries can contain excellent, accurate and interesting piece of information. For example the war diary of 1./LLv.24 written Deputy Flight Leader by Lt J. Sarvanto gives detailed information on the whole Flying Squadron 24, not just on 1st Flight. He also lists pilots ordered to his Flight from other Flights and the return of the Capt. Carlsson after his wounding. An interesting piece of information is mentioned in the war diary: Carlsson's finger (just one?) had been injured! Note especially how Sarvanto tells on the disaster of 29.2.1940. It is very interesting that he tells that Luukkanen's Flight returned to Ruokolahti in the evening for a night. It is usually told that all planes left Ruokolahti base during that day but the case seems not to have been so. Also Ristiina base was differently used than it is usually told: planes visited there many times.
Flying Squadron 10 has a totally different. It is like a very official task / order / flying diary. It although contains lots of addendums, even some aerial photographs, and a complete (later rewritten?) personnel list! It is clear that some of these diaries have been "cleared up", or written or rewritten after the war (at least partly) and some are more like reports. These are usually written with a type-writer although most diaries are hand-written.
Anyway these war diaries give a lot of boost to my research although some are like told very unclear and there are conflicts between the diaries. I'm interested in commanders, chiefs and leaders of even the smaller independent units and I have already managed to find out numerous battery and company chiefs and other officers. One of my first interests applies to "Ahvenanmaan puolustusjoukot" [Åland Islands Defence Forces] and how it was born, what were the exact phases of its predecessors and who were their commanders and chiefs of staff. Interestingly I found that Major N. Simonen was active in organizing defences there but I have not yet found what was his position: was he in L-SMe.PE or at Ahvenanmaa? Was he chief of staff of some unit? The war diary of Ålands Hemvärn is also available and it too contains certain unknown information to me.
Also the Vaasan Lohko [Vaasa Sector] is interesting. It seems that almost all of its troops were moved away during the war and the Sector was later led by the Commander of PMe.PE although also other kinds of information is available. To me this was very clearly told in the war diary. These cases would certainly need a thread of their own.
They are having little bit of difficulties due of the huge amount of users. In search the name must be almost spot on so best is to search by general words, "divisioona" and so on.
