Victories and losses of Soviet submarines during WWII

[Harri]

Hmm...did I count the other figure wrong too...
According to the SIH 15
RI-131, RI-133, RI-139, RI-154 and RI-158 we lost before the war.
RI-143 , RI-141 , RI-155 and RI-130 were lost during the war[/quote]

Then it is RI-130 which is missing from my records.

On "fatal" aerial accidents in Finland Wikipedia knows these ones (in Finnish):
http://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luettelo_S ... omuuksista

Only RI-158 is mentioned to be destroyed with a pilot in an accident in this list which means in other accidents the pilots survived with injuries. My (old) Internet page mentions only this plane which was destroyed before the Winter War in February 1939. I have completely re-checked my aircraft pages some time ago but not yet published them. They will be more accurate in such details but I had not these with me right now.

When I made my Internet pages I used a book "Kohtalokkaat lennot" by Jaakko Hyvönen as my core source but it lists only those cases with "killed, missed, POWs and saved bailed out" pilots and crew members. Additional information I have taken from Atso Haapanen, Keskinen - Stenman and Timo Heinonen (reseacher in Central Finland Aviation Museum). For some reason especially "Thulinista Hornettiin" [1992] contains a notable number of different and conflicting information to Keskinen - Stenman. Have you noticed that?

[BIGpanzer]

Only quick notes, sorry, never had such amount of work before :roll: :roll: :roll:

BP wrote:
I've checked all Baltic submarines which were in service in 1940 (timetables of their careers) - no any mentions that Soviet submarine collided with Finnish steamer in October 1940.

Juha wrote:
The ship was of wood, and perhaps the sub wasn't even damaged.

Sorry, Juha, I can't help you in this case [tried to find the info for you last night from 00:00 till 05:00 :roll: ] - absolutely no mentions about that accident in the sources I have a chance to use.

BP wrote:
Small submarine M-79 was attacked by Finnish battleship of coastal defence "Väinämöinen" [which tried to ram the Soviet submarine in neutral waters] in September 1938. M-79 just could dive. That accident almost became the international conflict between two countries more than one year before Winter war started. As Morozov mentioned - "that case was put into the box of back-to-back insults between two countries".

Juha wrote:
During September 1938 there was a naval PR-tour at the Finnish coastal cities and a (?) Naval exercise. As I dont believe in any deliberate attempt of ramming, perhaps (if such "close call" ever acually happened) the Soviet sub was spying the Finnish exercise and got in the middle of action where it reported as "escaped from ramming".
Who was the M-79 commander who reported about that?

This accident was described only by several sources and many others don't mention it. Yes, there was a Finnish naval exercise in September 1938 and naval PR-tour [thank for the interesting link] and, probably, you are right in your assumption. In principle, I can dispute a little bit should we belive to deliberate attempt of ramming or not because political situation in Finland started to become more anti-Soviet in 1938 and war spirits became quite popular among Finnish politicians that time [nevertheless, absolutely no direct accidents happened in 1930s till the Winter war started AFAIK]. But I found an interesting detail - the commander of M-79 in September 1938 was senior lieutenant F. Ivantsov [if you remember - he sank Estonian "Kassari" as the commander of Shch-324 during the Winter war and he wrote quite wrong report to Baltic Navy HQ to avoid strict punishment after the accident], so I can assume that his report from September 1938 could contain some incorrectnesses also and, probably, Soviets were very right that they didn't increase that fact into international conflict. I couldn't find any additional details [in my sources about "Väinämöinen" as well as about small submarines of "M"-type] except those I've already posted but, probably, M-79 got in the middle of action indeed as Juha assumed or something like this could happen in reality [lets say - most probably].

PS. About M-79 - performed several short combat missions in summer 1941 [didn't meet with enemy ships, 14.07.1941 it was unsuccessfully shelled by enemy field battery from Virtsu peninsula]. 15.12.1941 - significantly damaged by German shell fragments during repair at Leningrad workshops No.196, 04.04.1942 - lightly damaged by close explosion of German air bomb during stay in Leningrad. Since 15.07.1943 - one of two submarines of Lake Ladoga flotilla [transported from Baltic Sea to Lake Ladoga by railway]. 29.09.-02.10.1943 - recon mission to ports Sortanlahti and Keksgolm [didn't meet with enemy ships], 09.10.-11.10.1943 - recon mission to Lahdenpohja [detected one ship but didn't attack], 21.10.-25.10.1943 - recon mission to the area Andrusovo-Vidlitsa [didn't meet with enemy ships], 18.11.-24.11.1943 - recon mission to the area Vidlitsa-Tuloksa [landed recon group 20.11. which didn't return back], made additional mission 26.11.-01.12.1943 to Vidlitsa [recon group wasn't found still]. 20-21.08.1943 - moved from Novaya Ladoga to Kronshtadt [accepted by Baltic Sea Navy again]. Removed from service 22.02.1949.

Juha wrote:
AFAIK it was so severly damaged, that the sortie remained it's only war time mission at it's career.
The S-1 was scuttled at Libau, while still under repairs from the damage received at Winter War?

Not very correct.
S-1 performed 3 combat missions during the Winter war [30.11.-03.12.1939 - patrol in the mouth of Gulf of Finland; 03.11.-16.11.1939 - patrol in Gulf of Bothnia, port Rauma: sank German transport "Bolheim"/3324 brt; 22.12.1939-20.01.1940 - famous ice mission: ran aground and successfully avoided ramming from Finnish gun boat at South Kvarken/Is. Merket, repulsed two Finnish hydroplanes]. As I've already mentioned S-1 was quite significantly damaged by ice and strong storm during the last mission: 7 steel pieces of the hull cover were lost as well as all antennas and hand-rails.
S-1 was repaired in Libau soon and served there [1st division of submarines of 1st submarine brigade]. The division was relocated from Libau to Ust-Dvinsk 07.05.1941 but that time S-1 was under medium scheduled repair [workshops "Tasmare", the repair should be finished 15.06.1941 but delayed]. 23.06.1941 S-1 was moved out from the dock and exploded by its crew to prevent its capture by coming Germans.
http://www.town.ural.ru/ship/photo/s1_3.jpg [exploded S-1 in Libau, German photo]

Crewmembers of S-1 as well as several tens of workers from workshops "Tasmare" were taken by submarine S-3 which tried to reach Ust-Dvinsk. S-3 was under repair also that time [overhaul by Libau workshops "Tasmare"] but could move at maximal speed 5 knots only [and couldn't dive]. Commander of S-3 didn't want to explode his submarine and hoped to reach Ust-Dvinsk on surface with ~100 men on board [mission started 00:00, 24.06.1941]. At 02:32 S-3 was attacked by two German torpedo boats S-60 and S-35 from 3rd boat flotilla. German torpedo boats missed their torpedos and opened fire from 20mm guns. S-3 also opened fire from its 1x100mm + 1x45mm guns but two German rapid-fire 20mm guns killed all artillerymen and officers on the command bridge [both patrol boats were lightly damaged only, 4 German sailors were wounded by Soviet reply fire]. German sailors threw hand grenades against S-3 and at 03:39 S-60 dropped depth charge in the front of S-3 which broke the submarine. S-3 sank at 04:40 and Nazis fired from submachine-guns against Soviet sailors and Latvian workers in the water, only 3 [or 20?] men were captured. The dead body of captain of S-3 captain-lieutenant N. Kostromichev was found near Is. Saaremaa and buried there. AFAIK German divers tried to find secret documents of S-3 in the point of catastrophe in July 1941.

PS. S-3 performed 2 combat missions during Winter war [30.11.1939-08.12.1939 and 11.12.1939-22.12.1939]. During its 2nd mission it detected Finnish ships and aircraft several times, and attacked by artillery fire German transports "Gilhausen" [lightly damaged by 45mm shell fragments] and "Pinnas" [all 48 45mm shells missed target].

Regards, BP

[BIGpanzer]

About single Soviet submarine lost during the Winter war - submarine S-2.

BP wrote::
The possible loss point of S-2 [probably, exploded on Swedish sea mine] near Aland Islands [Sodra Kvarken strait]: http://karelkurs.narod.ru/files/welcome ... lodka7.jpg
Juha wrote: The place is about correct, but the sub hit a Finnish mine at Finnish side of the border.

S-2 during tests [photo from Finnish ship] - http://www.town.ural.ru/ship/photo/s2.jpg
captain-lieutenant Ivan Sokolov [commander of S-2] - http://www.town.ural.ru/ship/photo/sokolov_s2.jpg

Official [most common] version of loss of S-2 - explosion on mines installed by Finnish mine-layer "Louhi" off Is. Market [Sedra Kvarken strait]. The last radiomessage was received 03.01.1940 [S-2 confirmed the order to cross South Kvarken], 50 men on board were lost. No more radiomessages were received despite of many different attempts to communicate with S-2.
But it is also possible to some degree that submarine was lost on the way back [because of mine explosion or ice pressing] - as depot ship "Smolny" and destroyer "Minsk" received unclear radiomessages [S-2 call-signs] 14.01.1940 and 21.01.1940, correspondingly.

Very detailed article from Karelian Isthmus site [Russian and Finnish archive/research materials about Winter war, on Russian] about S-2 loss - http://karelkurs.narod.ru/files/podlodka.en.html [photos are just about WWII submarines]
It is mentioned that Soviet submariners didn't have very detailed maps of Sedra Kvarken that time, also Swedes turned all lighthouses off to make orientation more hard during the war time. AFAIK German historian J. Rohwer mentioned that observation posts on Aland Islands noticed mine explosion of submarine at Sodra Kvarken 03.01.1940 and that was Finnish mines. Author of the article thinks that S-2 exploded on Swedish mine [Swedes installed mines in Sedra Kvarken also].

Regards, BP

[Janne]

Re: S-2 - AFAIK the Swedes mined their side, i.e. west of Märket and the mine explosion on Jan 3rd was observed to the east of the island.

Re: Hyytiäinen, the Finnish sub crewman - his observations of what he did and what he saw can be quite accurate and intact in his memory, even if the sunken enemy sub was somehow (at some later point, possibly decades later) misidentified as a S-class sub, and his comments on its size are based on that error.

Re: "Astrid" - according to the book "Vaarallisilla vesillä", the three survivors were immediately saved by the crew of a Soviet sub (which possibly had been involved in the collision or, perhaps, following another sub which had collided with "Astrid") and taken aboard and to Kronstadt and released about a month later.

Re: the role of radio intelligence in the successes of Finnish sub-hunting subs - radio messages from and to Soviet subs were occasionally intercepted, but FWIW neither the books on Finnish navy nor on radio intelligence mention that this played any part; the Finnish subs patrolled areas where Soviet subs were known to have operated and where they, based on tactical analysis, could be expected to turn up. (I'm not sure where the insistence on another, more significant factor comes from.)


Re: the numbers of Finnish aircraft (and the reliablity there of) in Winter War - on Nov 30th the FAF had 114 operational aircraft and 31 aircraft of operational type in various stages of repair. (Operational here means fit to fly in any kind of operational capacity and includes the Bristol Bulldogs.) During the war (i.e. before "the peace broke out") the FAF received 134 operational aircraft. (Including the Brewsters and the Hurricanes which hadn't yet flown a combat mission). This makes it 279 aircraft in total (which is in a different ballpark from BP's ~380).

The numbers are reasonably accurate, which is hardly surprising given the small number of aircraft and the existence of maintenance records. There is sometimes small variation caused by damaged aircraft being written off at a later date or some aircraft flying in two different squadrons or just some stupid collating errors. IMHO there is no evidence of "creative bookkeeping", i.e. aircraft losses due to combat damage being covered up as accidents or total losses being kept in books as damaged aircraft.

[Harri]

In principle, I can dispute a little bit should we belive to deliberate attempt of ramming or not because political situation in Finland started to become more anti-Soviet in 1938 and war spirits became quite popular among Finnish politicians that time [nevertheless, absolutely no direct accidents happened in 1930s till the Winter war started AFAIK].

Well, I think you are again "quoting" some Soviet source? Finland was not the country which attacked, it was USSR (the peaceful workers' paradise and the source of prosperity and truth). Also I have never heard that Finland would have started to became more anti-Soviet since 1938. That is someone else's (twisted) interpretation and it is not true.

But I found an interesting detail - the commander of M-79 in September 1938 was senior lieutenant F. Ivantsov [if you remember - he sank Estonian "Kassari" as the commander of Shch-324 during the Winter war and he wrote quite wrong report to Baltic Navy HQ to avoid strict punishment after the accident], so I can assume that his report from September 1938 could contain some incorrectnesses also and, probably, Soviets were very right that they didn't increase that fact into international conflict.

May I ask how can you be so sure about the other such reports if some are known twisted or full bull? Why do you think we Finns don't take these reports too seriously? :roll:

[Harri]

IMHO there is no evidence of "creative bookkeeping", i.e. aircraft losses due to combat damage being covered up as accidents or total losses being kept in books as damaged aircraft.

Absolutely not. If there are some mistakes they are intentionally made by those who have worked the statistics. How did the ancient Romans say it? "Errare humanum est"

[BIGpanzer]

Hi, Harri!

Harri wrote:
May I ask how can you be so sure about the other such reports if some are known twisted or full bull? Why do you think we Finns don't take these reports too seriously?

Many reports are known [of course, I don't have any possibility to find the info in Russian archives, do only quotes from literature/online sources I can find].
Hmm...from the posts I've already see here I came into conclusion that Finns don't like to believe for 100% to Russian sources [even the best ones]. When I tried to translate Russian sources I also found alot of mentions that many Russian historians don't like to believe to Finnish historians [think that Finns make a lot of mistakes/hide the correct info and value them much less than German historians - funny, that many times I realize that the info between Finnish and Russian sources are quite similar]. As for me - I like modern Russian sources [not all] as they are very detailed and very well researched [the same words I can say about Finnish sources which I value very high - I don't read originals on Finnish with only few exceptions, but I read many quotes from them on English/German/Polish/Russian].
As for reports - I mentioned that Ivantsov once wrote incorrect report about accident with "Kassari" so that person could write some incorrect report about possible ramming of its submarine by Finnish battleship of coastal defense. As the supposition. Do you know any additional details about that accident to find the correct info?

Harri wrote:
Well, I think you are again "quoting" some Soviet source? Finland was not the country which attacked, it was USSR (the peaceful workers' paradise and the source of prosperity and truth). Also I have never heard that Finland would have started to became more anti-Soviet since 1938. That is someone else's (twisted) interpretation and it is not true.

Well, dear Harri, I never use Soviet sources here [do you know, for example, that in 1950s-1970s Finland was always described as friend of USSR and it was not allowed to write negative things about relations between two countries - for example enemies on Karelian Fronts were described as Germans] but Russian do indeed [for example, Shirokorad's book "Three wars of Great Finland", 2007 - quite good and interesting, but with a lot of critics against Finnish and other Russian historians of the subject as only historian Shirokorad knows the truth and nobody else ]. Quite many German historians researched this subject also [very different opinions I need to say]. Finland wasn't the country which attacked [and it couldn't attack with its relatively small army] but ideas of "Great Finland" which includes the whole Karelia were quite popular indeed. USSR was also not an assaulter until WWII began after invasion of Germany to Poland to protect its western borders. The relations between two countries were very complicated in 1920s [after Russian Revolution, support of White Russians by Finland and accidents in Red Karelia in 1920-1921 [in principle those were local invasions of Finnish and White Russian units to Soviet Russia which is never [AFAIK] described by Finnish historians that way, of course, as those facts a little bit destroy the image of 'small peaceful country']. In the end of 1920s-mid1930s the situation became better but since mid1930s the relations between Finland and USSR became more complicated again [just read the high-level political documents of that time]. The questions why USSR started Soviet-Finnish war, could both countries arrange the political [mainly border near Leningrad/Hango naval base] problems in peaceful way that time, and which of both countries started the war in June 1941 were very complicated and there are a lot of Russian and Finnish "traditional stereotypes" till now which don't represent the very correct interpretation of situation. This is the perfect situation when every nation has '"its own true" and don't like to recognise their own mistakes [which were a lot from both sides]. I have a very big experience to listen such discussions from my Finnish and Russian colleagues during long sea expeditions, I need to say :roll: :roll: :roll: What we can do here - please, don't discuss this in this thread [not the subject and I don't have time for such discussions], but when we finish the thread about victories and losses of Soviet submarines, I can open the thread about political relations between USSR and Finland in 1920s-1930s. As seems to be that Russian members seldom try to participate in discussions, I can briefly translate chapters from, for example, Shirokorad's book I mentioned above [nothing completelly new but interesting and alternative interpretations of events differ from "traditional" Finnish and Russian history] and see the opinions. Is it OK? In such way we can analyze the situation in a very knowledgable and friendly way as we always did on AHF

Best regards, BP

[Juha Tompuri]

Re: S-2 - AFAIK the Swedes mined their side, i.e. west of Märket and the mine explosion on Jan 3rd was observed to the east of the island.

Yes.

Janne & BP: thanks for the efforts spent at the Astrid case. Maybe some new info will pop up in the future.

because political situation in Finland started to become more anti-Soviet in 1938 and war spirits became quite popular among Finnish politicians that time

As Harri pointed out: neither topic, nor truth related.

Thanks for the S-1 info.

For some reason especially "Thulinista Hornettiin" [1992] contains a notable number of different and conflicting information to Keskinen - Stenman. Have you noticed that?

Actually not..I'll compare them someday.

Regards, Juha

[BIGpanzer]

ust finish online translation of book by Shirokorad "Three wars of "Great Finland", 2007.
As I've already mentioned in my opinion Shirokorad is quite good historian and compiler of historical literature, famous for the huge amount of very detailed books. Nevertheless, his monographs contain annoying incorrectnesses sometimes. In his book "Three wars of "Great Finland" Shirokorad abused modern Finnish and Russian historians that they wrote and still write a lot of falseness.

So [according to Shirokorad]: about action of Soviet submarines during Winter war - chapter 11 ["Actions along communications"] from part II of the book. I mention only very shortly the cases in doubt we've already discussed here.

Note - cable in Russian/Soviet navy was/is 185.2 m [identical to British].

* Shch-311 and Finnish tanker "Sigrid": tanker was not sank but was hit many times.

* Shch-311 and Swedish transport "Fenris" - detected 05.01.1939 [14:12, strong snowfall], captain of Shch-311 noticed Swedish white lines on board and name of the ship but there was no Swedish flag. Transport was detected outside the blockade zone so Soviet captain decided to wait and continued observation. When "Fenris" passed floating lighthouse Südostborotten, it changed course to the north unexpectedly [probably, its captain noted Soviet submarine] and increased speed, trying to disappear in snow. Shch-311 moved at it and fired warning shot [14:40], also submarine raised signal "Captain of the ship, came to us with the ship documents". "Fenris" didn't react and moved at full speed. Shch-311 fired the 2nd warning shot and raised signal "Stop immediately". "Fenris" raised Swedish flag but didn't decrease its speed. Shch-311 opened artillery fire again and "Fenris" stopped, but when submarine went closer Swedes gave the full speed again. Captain of Shch-311 ordered to open direct fire against transport from two 45mm guns. At 15:00 Swedes began to launch life-boats and Shch-311 ceased fire. Life-boats moved towards floating lighthouse and Shch-311 launched torpedo against abandoned ship from 4 cables [torpedo missed because of control device defect - unexpectedly changed course to the right]. At 15:29 artillery fire was opened again [1-1.5 cables], transport caught fire, capsized and sank at 16:34; 127 45mm shells were used during that accident.

* Shch-317 detected 3 Swedish transports and 2 Swedish destroyers 05.01.1939 from 70 cabels. Soviet captain decided to attack but at 11:10 Shch-317 hit the sea bottom because of small depth and surfaced. Distance to convoy - 25 cabels. In 8 min Swedish destroyer detected submarine and moved towards it at full speed but didn't open fire. Shch-317 dived, reached periscope depth at 11:30 bur Swedes disappeared already.

*Shch-324 attacked Finnish convoy 13.01.1940. Submarine did surface partially during the torpedo [one] launching, and patrol boat "Aura" detected it and began to drop depth charges. One of the depth charge exploded in the launcher and "Aura" sank [26 men were killed, 15 were rescued].

*S-1 was attacked by 2 Finnish hydroplanes flew at 200-250 m [19.12.1939, Aland archipelago, 17:39]. S-1 opened fire from 45mm gun with tracer shells. One hydroplane was shot down and made emergency landing on ice later, the second one flew towards Is. Oland.

*No any mentions that Finnish battleship of coastal defence tried to ram Soviet submarine in September 1938.

About the amount of Finnish aircraft. From chapter 13 ["Aviation of Finland in Winter war"] of part II: 30.11.1939 - Finland had 145 aircraft [including 115 combat-ready]. There is a list of aircraft models and units - for example, LLv-16 had 9 Blackburn "Ripon IIF" and 5 Junkers K-43. LLv-39 had 2 Junkers K-43 from LLv-16 - those Junkers operated from Aland archipelago [S-1 was there also - BP] which represent the violation of the treaty about demilitarization of archipelago.
225 aircraft were sent to Finland during the Winter war [but I counred much less amount from the book - 24+30+12+11 from UK, 22 from South Africa, 35 from Italy, 36 from France, 3+2+3+2+1 from Sweden]. Finns confirmed the loss of 67 aircraft during the war [21 in air combats], and 69 aircraft were heavily damaged. Shirokorad believes that Finnish losses were more significant. When the Winter war came to the end, Finland had 196 combat aircraft [112 combat-ready].

About the political situation in Finland [according to Shirokorad, introduction of the book]. Finland of 1920s-1940s was very differ from quiet and patriarchal Finnish Principality of Russian Empire times as well as from peaceful democratic Finnish Republic of 1960s-2000s with excellent economy indexes and skillful administration. The differences between Finland of 1930s from the modern Finland were almost the same as the differences between 3rd Reich and modern Germany.
Finland of 1930s was not a small peaceful state but represented a small extremelly agressive country, which established concentrational camps and security troops earlier than Stalin's USSR and Hitler's Germany did. Military Finnish administration under the leadership of K. Mannerheim targeted the foundation of "Great Finland" in 1918 already - and Russian Murmansk, Arkhangelsk and Petrozavodsk should become local towns of that state.

[Harri]

May I ask how can you be so sure about the other such reports if some are known twisted or full bull? Why do you think we Finns don't take these reports too seriously?

Many reports are known [of course, I don't have any possibility to find the info in Russian archives, do only quotes from literature/online sources I can find].
Hmm...from the posts I've already see here I came into conclusion that Finns don't like to believe for 100% to Russian sources [even the best ones]. When I tried to translate Russian sources I also found alot of mentions that many Russian historians don't like to believe to Finnish historians [think that Finns make a lot of mistakes/hide the correct info and value them much less than German historians - funny, that many times I realize that the info between Finnish and Russian sources are quite similar]. As for me - I like modern Russian sources [not all] as they are very detailed and very well researched [the same words I can say about Finnish sources which I value very high - I don't read originals on Finnish with only few exceptions, but I read many quotes from them on English/German/Polish/Russian].

The point is: who knows which reports are quite correct and which ones are more or less twisted? It's a vital question on reliability. Historians are in a bit difficult situation when some part of information (but which part?) is unreliable.

Of course Soviet/Russian historians don't like to believe in Finnish sources because they are used not to trust on their own sources either.

As for reports - I mentioned that Ivantsov once wrote incorrect report about accident with "Kassari" so that person could write some incorrect report about possible ramming of its submarine by Finnish battleship of coastal defense. As the supposition. Do you know any additional details about that accident to find the correct info?

Nothing else already mentioned in this thread, sorry.

Well, I think you are again "quoting" some Soviet source? Finland was not the country which attacked, it was USSR (the peaceful workers' paradise and the source of prosperity and truth). Also I have never heard that Finland would have started to became more anti-Soviet since 1938. That is someone else's (twisted) interpretation and it is not true.

Well, dear Harri, I never use Soviet sources here

Some of the basic ideas simply describe the Soviet era thinking and history writing, like in this case.

[do you know, for example, that in 1950s-1970s Finland was always described as friend of USSR and it was not allowed to write negative things about relations between two countries - for example enemies on Karelian Fronts were described as Germans]

Of course. Except in official Soviet history books. AFAIK Finns were not called as Germans but "Fascists" or something like that.

but Russian do indeed [for example, Shirokorad's book "Three wars of Great Finland", 2007 - quite good and interesting, but with a lot of critics against Finnish and other Russian historians of the subject as only historian Shirokorad knows the truth and nobody else ].

Well, even the book name speaks for itself.

Quite many German historians researched this subject also [very different opinions I need to say]. Finland wasn't the country which attacked [and it couldn't attack with its relatively small army] but ideas of "Great Finland" which includes the whole Karelia were quite popular indeed. USSR was also not an assaulter until WWII began after invasion of Germany to Poland to protect its western borders.

The idea of "Greater Finland" seems to be one of the most popular "excuses" to accuse others of own doings and to cover own imperialistic plans.

USSR supported all the time revolutionary and anarchistic activities in Finland and most other European countries in the 1920's and 1930's which was actually the main reason for the not so good relationships between USSR and its neighbouring countries.

The relations between two countries were very complicated in 1920s [after Russian Revolution, support of White Russians by Finland and accidents in Red Karelia in 1920-1921 [in principle those were local invasions of Finnish and White Russian units to Soviet Russia which is never [AFAIK] described by Finnish historians that way, of course, as those facts a little bit destroy the image of 'small peaceful country'].

Finns never operated alone. There were also other partners including the white Russian forces. We have to remember that Bolsheviks were basically an "illegal gang" which had took power by force in Russian and its status was not confirmed by the international community until after the Russian Civil War ended.

I think all essential is already well known in Finland concerning these happenings.

In the end of 1920s-mid1930s the situation became better but since mid1930s the relations between Finland and USSR became more complicated again [just read the high-level political documents of that time]. The questions why USSR started Soviet-Finnish war, could both countries arrange the political [mainly border near Leningrad/Hango naval base] problems in peaceful way that time, and which of both countries started the war in June 1941 were very complicated and there are a lot of Russian and Finnish "traditional stereotypes" till now which don't represent the very correct interpretation of situation. This is the perfect situation when every nation has '"its own true" and don't like to recognise their own mistakes [which were a lot from both sides].

These countries which took the first steps towards the war were guilty of it alone. USSR was among them.

I have a very big experience to listen such discussions from my Finnish and Russian colleagues during long sea expeditions, I need to say :roll: :roll: :roll: What we can do here - please, don't discuss this in this thread [not the subject and I don't have time for such discussions], but when we finish the thread about victories and losses of Soviet submarines, I can open the thread about political relations between USSR and Finland in 1920s-1930s. As seems to be that Russian members seldom try to participate in discussions, I can briefly translate chapters from, for example, Shirokorad's book I mentioned above [nothing completelly new but interesting and alternative interpretations of events differ from "traditional" Finnish and Russian history] and see the opinions. Is it OK? In such way we can analyze the situation in a very knowledgable and friendly way as we always did on AHF

OK. I think there are already many such threads in this forum which could be continued.

[Harri]

About the amount of Finnish aircraft. From chapter 13 ["Aviation of Finland in Winter war"] of part II: 30.11.1939 - Finland had 145 aircraft [including 115 combat-ready].

I have already earlier told the correct figures (on 1.12.1939, IIRC there is a one plane difference between the days 114/115) for the start and end of the Winter War.

It seems there is partly full bull (again).

There is a list of aircraft models and units - for example, LLv-16 had 9 Blackburn "Ripon IIF" and 5 Junkers K-43.

On 30.11.1939 LLv.16 had eight Blackburn Ripon IIF (RI) planes and 1 + 3 Junkers W 34 & K 43 (JU) planes (in 3./LLv.16) in working order.

On 30.11.1939 LLv.36 / Naval Forces had six Blackburn Ripon IIF planes, two Junkers F 13fe (LK-2, LK-3 -> later code also JU) planes and one civilian Waco YKS-7 (OH-AFA) plane in working order.

LLv-39 had 2 Junkers K-43 from LLv-16 - those Junkers operated from Aland archipelago [S-1 was there also - BP] which represent the violation of the treaty about demilitarization of archipelago.

Junkers F 13fe planes served in 1st Flight / Supplement Flying Squadron 39 (1./T-LLv.39) which was subordinated to the squadron. This flight was located to Fjärrsund (Åland Islands) but operated occasionally also from Ruissalo (Turku). It was formed from the planes and personnel of Coast Guard. Between 1.12. - 4.12.1939 flight acted as 2nd Flight / Detachment Helenius. At the end of January 1940 floats were replaced with skis for the rest of the Winter War. Two Ripons were subordinated to flight on 20.1.1940 and in February three more but in March 1941 only one of them was in working order.

It was T-LLv. 39 which on 28.2.1940 received Junkers K 43 planes. I have to check my latest information on the exact locations of these planes. IIRC planes were mostly out of order.

In case of war or threat of it Finland had and has a resposibility to defend the demilitarized zone of Åland Islands. That is clearly said in the international treaty. That's why planes which operated from Åland Islands were unarmed Coast Guard planes in observing duties only. Coast Guard has right to operate on the waters of Åland Islands. So, if someone violated something it was not Finland.

225 aircraft were sent to Finland during the Winter war [but I counred much less amount from the book - 24+30+12+11 from UK, 22 from South Africa, 35 from Italy, 36 from France, 3+2+3+2+1 from Sweden]. Finns confirmed the loss of 67 aircraft during the war [21 in air combats], and 69 aircraft were heavily damaged. Shirokorad believes that Finnish losses were more significant. When the Winter war came to the end, Finland had 196 combat aircraft [112 combat-ready].

Finland received also 44 Brewster B-239 fighters from USA.

The planes Finland received "from South Africa", actually from UK, financed by South-Africa then donated to Finland, were old Gloster Gauntlet II (GT) bi-planes which were used only in trainer duties. Only two (GT- 395, 396) were used during the Winter War since 10.3.1940.

About half of the planes were received or were fully combat ready after the Winter War, the last ones in the summer 1940. Only 30 Morane-Saulniers received from France were combat ready planes. They arrived between 4. - 29.2.1940.

Finnish total combat losses were 49 and non-combat losses 18 = 67 planes including the ones of the Swedish unit. 35 planes were heavily damaged (only six of them in combat), others suffered from less serious or minor damages. One can believe what he likes but these are the figures we have known since 1940.

You can't count "number of planes on 13.3.1940" - "number of planes on 30.11.1939" - "new planes obtained between 30.11.1939 - 13.3.1940" = "total number of losses" because planes are repaired, overhauled and produced all the time. There were planes which were repaired several times during the war and there are even planes which are twice in the statistics (during the Winter War alone). In this we have to rely on wartime statistics and records which are public for all researchers. There is no reasons for "guessing" and never has been.

About the political situation in Finland [according to Shirokorad, introduction of the book]. Finland of 1920s-1940s was very differ from quiet and patriarchal Finnish Principality of Russian Empire times as well as from peaceful democratic Finnish Republic of 1960s-2000s with excellent economy indexes and skillful administration. The differences between Finland of 1930s from the modern Finland were almost the same as the differences between 3rd Reich and modern Germany.
Finland of 1930s was not a small peaceful state but represented a small extremelly agressive country, which established concentrational camps and security troops earlier than Stalin's USSR and Hitler's Germany did. Military Finnish administration under the leadership of K. Mannerheim targeted the foundation of "Great Finland" in 1918 already - and Russian Murmansk, Arkhangelsk and Petrozavodsk should become local towns of that state.

That exactly is the old Soviet interpretation: in other words faults are seek from the others while all own doings were always friendly and correct and the hostile acts are ignored of course. For the situation in 1939 the happening of 1918 are totally insignificant, even absurd.

Well, friendship can't be one-sided. Like I told earlier USSR financed and supported techically and by giving advisors and training revolutionary activities around the world. This kind of illegal revolutionary activity had not very positive effect on the relationships between USSR and other countries, especially its neutral neighbours. I although have to say that this activity continued also after the war until mid 1980's but it was not wise to talk about it then not to disturb the mighty neighbour. That was part of the so called "Finnlandizierung" but it does not mean that everything would have been OK all the time.

Perhaps we can say that the ideology on Greater Finland was initially based on "Karelianism" which rose in Finland during the 19th Century. Karelia was seen the
ancient "home" of Finnish people a bit about in the same way Serbians consider Kosovo being an integral part of their country. That was not a hostile "movement" at all but followed the universal ideas of national states. Actually it was popular among humanists like authors, poets, composers etc. Greater Finland idea was based on Karelianism and other such "isms" of the early 20th Centrury and was supported by less few people. In Soviet interpretation these all are usually combined together and coloured by the Soviet propaganda.

There were never such "concentration camps" in Finland we better know them. There although were prison and internment camps which are totally different. There was neither any systematic "chasing" of certain polical (well, certain extremists excluded but that is done also toady) or ethnical groups. If the conditions in these camps were worse than acceptable (today) it is another thing but have to be seen in the context of their era. In this sence both USSR and Germany were light years ahead of Finland.

[BIGpanzer]

Hi, Harri!
Thanks for detailed reply. As this is off-topic I will not answer in details, OK? But I read your post carefully as always. As for amount of Finnish aircraft which were given to Finland from other countries - Shirokorad's info is in quite good correspondence with yours sometimes, I just save my time and didn't post details about models [for example, about South Africa Gloster Gauntlet II].
But I understand your position and partially [most part ] I agree with you.

Except this one:
Finns never operated alone. There were also other partners including the white Russian forces. We have to remember that Bolsheviks were basically an "illegal gang" which had took power by force in Russian and its status was not confirmed by the international community until after the Russian Civil War ended.

Never operated alone - and what? Law considers bands as more bad thing as single criminal, by the way.. Yes, Finland tried to find allies which could help in Finnish politics - Germans, Swedes, White Russians, Estonians [secret treaty from 1930 which allowed to mine Gulf of Finland], Germans again.....
About "illegal gang" - what about Tartu peaceful Treaty between Russian Soviet Socialist Republic and Finland, signed on 14.10.1920? The invasions to Soviet Karelia in 1921-1922 were performed by Finnish forces alone mainly [they were repulsed by Red Finns sometimes - for example by ski battalion of Petrograd international military school under command of A. Inno]. IIRC the "White North-Karelian State" was recognized by Finland only if we are talking about international community during Russian civil war.

And this:

Harri wrote:
Coast Guard has right to operate on the waters of Åland Islands. So, if someone violated something it was not Finland.

Aha...Were Alands fully demilitarized as it should be done according to the Treaty from 1921? And what about the Finnish invasion to Aland Islands 21.06.1941 [transports with ~5000 soldiers and ~70 guns, both Finnish coastal battleships guarded transports] when 31 Soviet men [staff of Soviet consulate] were arrested in Maarianhamina?

And this:
That was not a hostile "movement" at all but followed the universal ideas of national states. Actually it was popular among humanists like authors, poets, composers etc.

In additional to poets the ideas of "Great Finland" were popular among members of Finnish centrist parties [Finland should include Karelia, Kola peninsula, some areas of Leningrad, Vologda and Arkhangels districts]. Some Finnish right extremist parties dreamed about Finnish borders along Yenisei river [are the right party charters from 1930s published in Finnish historical literature?].

But one note about Shirokorad - AFAIK he considered in Russia as very anti-Soviet historian as he often criticizes the organisation of Soviet military operations as well as the "genius" of Soviet strategists, for exampe the widely use of light uniform by RKKA during the strong winter of 1939-1940 [which was the main reason of significant losses despite the fact that warm and convenient winter uniform was already developed in USSR several years before the war], very bad organization of engineer and army road units which needed to support army units [nobody thought to built new railroad and roads along the border before the war started], strange unwillingness to use heavy 305mm mortars from Byelorussian military district to quick destruction of Mannerheim line without any significant problems, the poor planning of tactical operations, complete unwillingness to form skillful ski units by nationality [Siberian, Karelian, Finnish, Komi, etc.] to successful use them during the war, later use of Hango base as absolutely absurd idea because the small area could be fired by enemy artillery through and so on.

Harri wrote:
There was neither any systematic "chasing" of certain polical (well, certain extremists excluded but that is done also toady) or ethnical groups

About systematic I don't know indeed. But IIRC many Finnish communist leaders as well as not agreeing with state policy were arrested in Finland in 1930s. Ethic concentration camps for Russians [the idea of "ethnic cleaning of Karelia"] were established by Finns during the occupation of Karelia in 1941-1944 [6 big camps were known near Petrozavodsk, for example], and there were many small others [13 according to Wikipedia]. And according to the memoires of ex-prisoners [including children] of Finnish camps in Karelia - extremelly bad food, slave labour and often beatings/tortures [markings by hot metal, for example] were very common things there. AFAIK NOBODY of Finnish officers responsible for those crimes during occupation of Karelia were convicted in Finland after WWII [including Finnish officer Solovaara - commandant of camp No. 2, unofficial "camp of death" for the most disloyal persons] - that was a great additional shame on Finnish government.
http://www.mannerheim-line.com/photogal ... ians02.jpg
http://www.mannerheim-line.com/photogal ... ians01.jpg
Photos were made by Finnish corporal Tauno Kjahonen in spring-autumn 1942 in Finnish-occupied Karelia.
Sources:
http://pobeda.gov.karelia.ru/Veteran/memory.html [memoires of Soviet children, imprisoned in Finnish camps; with photos]
http://around.spb.ru/finnish/pietola/pietola1.php [Russian translation of E. Pietola detailed article "POW in Finland, 1941-1944"]
http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A4%D0% ... _1941-1944 [from Wikipedia - Finnish occupation of Karelia]

Janne wrote:
Lisin later knew that the Soviets knew he had talked and he tried to correct this by behaving in a very aggressive anti-firendly manner in the officer POW camp in Köyliö.

Should Lisin talk with Finnish officer with great respect in your opinion?

No, I like technics much more than politics, so good news for Juha [a dozen of beer bottles from him for my night searches and one additional bottle for my posting the info ]:
What I could find last night. The collision between Soviet submarine and Finnish ship "Astrid" [built in Bergen in 1901] took place 21.10.1940 [08:00] to the south off Gogland/Suursaari. That was S-102 submarine.
Wooden "Astrid" [performed voyage Leningrad-Mäntyluoto with salt on board] sank, 10 Finns were lost and 3 were rescued by Soviet submarine [they were taken to Kronshtadt and returned back in ~1 month]. The guilty was Finnish ship as there were no any navigational lights on its board and S-102 [newest just finished submarine performed its first trials, S-102 was accepted by Baltic Sea Navy 27.10.1940 only] couldn't notice the ship on a very dark night. Only 1 min before collision Soviet signalmen noticed black silhouette of small ship and light from the opened door of its superstructure, Soviet captain ordered to turn the rudder immediately but it was impossible to prevent collision already.

Regards, BP

[Seppo Koivisto]

http://www.mannerheim-line.com/photogal ... ians02.jpg
http://www.mannerheim-line.com/photogal ... ians01.jpg
Photos were made by Finnish corporal Tauno Kjahonen in spring-autumn 1942 in Finnish-occupied Karelia.

These photos are most likely not from "death camps", but combat casualties. Photo caption of the second photo says "Russians KIA at Aunus Isthmus. One of the killed is a woman. 1942", see http://www.mannerheim-line.com/kahonen/gallery.htm
Shame you!

[BIGpanzer]

No, Seppo, shame you! If you translate the sources above you will see the analyses of the photos and analysis of incorrect photo captions [those were not combat casualties as the second one was made in several months after last combat took place there, and the first one in the place where front line located several tens kilometres far away]. That was not concetration camp photos just Finnish-occupied Karelia.
I especially checked the info about 2nd photo as several times I saw the identical photo as "Soviet soldiers, killed during the Winter war" in my Russian sources.
From Wikipedia [if you want - try to shame this source and correct it]:
1st photo [with the woman]: taken near Olonets, summer 1942 [comment from Wikipedia - combat line was several tens kilometres from this area, along Svir' river; the action of Finnish soldier - no comments].
2nd photo - [comment from Wikipedia: Russian soldiers "officially" KIA. No comments]
Additional photo: http://www.mannerheim-line.com/photogal ... melted.jpg [comment from Wikipedia: taken near Medvezhegorsk in spring 1942, the last combats there were finished in the beginning of December 1941]

Anyway, "babel fished" the links above [especially memoires of children, but article of Finnish historian is also very useful] as they describe situation in Finnish concentrational camps even without any photos.
Here are "neutral" - http://www.gov.karelia.ru/cgi-bin/photo ... d=4362&s=b
http://pobeda.gov.karelia.ru/cgi-bin/ph ... d=5560&s=b

The memoires of one prisoner of war in Finland [he describes negative things happened at Finnish camps as well as good mentiones about several Finnish soldiers there]:
http://www.sakharov-center.ru/asfcd/aut ... 6&page=175
http://www.sakharov-center.ru/asfcd/aut ... 7&page=188

[Juha Tompuri]

good news for Juha [a dozen of beer bottles from him for my night searches and one additional bottle for my posting the info ]:
What I could find last night. The collision between Soviet submarine and Finnish ship "Astrid" [built in Bergen in 1901] took place 21.10.1940 [08:00] to the south off Gogland/Suursaari. That was S-102 submarine.

Thanks for the info about the sub that sank Astrid.
The time of collision was 2150.
0800 you mentioned (source?) wasn't dark anymore.
Not beer, but Salmiakki Koskenkorva http://www.metroactive.com/papers/metro ... -0229.html you will receive.

The guilty was Finnish ship as there were no any navigational lights on its board

According to "Vaarallisilla Vesillä" the Finnish vessel had "all navigational lights on". Perhaps it was the Soviet one travelling without lights?

Only 1 min before collision Soviet signalmen noticed black silhouette of small ship and light from the opened door of its superstructure, Soviet captain ordered to turn the rudder immediately but it was impossible to prevent collision already.

Observed and ordered to turn 1 min before hitting, at parallel course, ~10 knots speed difference (in favor to the Soviet sub) and couldn't avoid the collision???.
Siff fingers...jammed rudder???

Regards, Juha