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- Feb 9, 2005
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A Finnish writer Antti Tuuri has compiled stories or more like accounts of events of a soldiers of Finnish 14th Division in a Rukajärvi trilogy. I have translated some of those and you can read them here. If language does not "flow" like it should, blame me.
AT FOUR O'CLOCK WE LEFT to NEIGHBORING STATE
There were 5 of us from Hukkavuori guard, and we went to look buildings and places to sleep behind the border, which we could see from our post. We went but there was "vanja" (russian) waiting for us and "vanja" opened fire right away. There was a swamp, and i was just walkin on trunk which was fallen to the swamp when fire came from the hill. There was no need to order me down from that trunk, i came down voluntarily. I had one old borderguard there with me and i watched what he was doing, as he was more experienced. He threw himself down too at first, then peeked over the trunk and fired a few rounds to that hill with SMG. I was looking at the hill too, and i did see some movement there and i shot few rounds too. Then Penttilä yelled at us, that now boys we go back. Penttilä was our patrol leader. We ran back, about 100 meters. We ran quite fast on a swamp where only small pines grew. I heard kind of buzzing sounds, when "vanja" were shooting after us. Fact was that war wasn't even started yet, so this our curiosity was a bit illegal. We got to the Finnish side of the border and begun to eat. Sun was rising. We walked to tents in Hukkavaara. On the road we could see, that lot of troops were coming towards border. It shooked me when i realised that games had begun. We met Jussi Kekkonen on the road, who told us to go across the border and go to end of Elmusjärvi. There was Russian guardpost, which we were supposed to destroy.
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Major Partinen was standing on the other end of borderboom and said to us, that let's turn this boom to the side and 3 men will go for recon; we will take some land for boys here and it's not going to take more than 2 weeks and then Soviet Union is done. I was a bit joking and said that i wonder if we get only place to lay down in here. We started moving. In our team was Kokkonen from Lieksa, who stepped into mine. We had came 500 meters from the border, Kokkonen stepped into mine and his intestines fell down. There were no medics, we tried to bring him back. Kokkonen was concieus, but we could see that his not going forward anymore. Medic came, and we left Kokkonen for him to take care of. We left forward, but didn't go far.
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We made first patrol in that war. We had orders, that we can't start a fight, but we had so good opportunity, that we couldn't resist it. Russians were standing in line for soup somewhere there near Kolvasjärvi and we decided to see what happens if we shoot them just a little bit and we did and then we ran. We had run for awhile when one of us said "Dam they begun blabbing". It stayed as a saying through whole war, that wherever we heard neighbors talking we said "Dam they begun blabbing"
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We went cross the border in Kivivaara, Lieksa. I had a rapid fire rifle. We were first to go cross the border in there, no troops had gone cross from there before us. We were laying on a borderline in 4th of July and waiting for the attack moment, 4 o'clock in the morning. I have to admit that my heart was pounding. It was warm summer morning and sun was rising. It was very quiet, only birds were singing beautifully. We had gone forward 200 meters when horsemen drove into minefield. Couple of riflemen were shooting us from the flank somewhere. We stayed there. We didn't go further, because bullets begun to buzz over head.
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We went across the border in Hukkajärvi, neighbor had a small guardpost there, but they were gone. We were marching like first-timers. Then there was a plankbridge and behind it a swamp and we got disagreement if we should go there standing up and in line if there's enemy. And there were enemy, bullets begun to fly. We barely got away from there.
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We thought, that we go where we are told to go. When we were crossing the border, i felt bad, there were already one dead Sergeant on borderline.
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We came to the border 5th of July and they were alredy carrying away first fallen. Very fist fallen i saw was my old schoolmate, Second Lieutenant Kalevi Pousi from Kuopio. I never did forget that.
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Just after we crossed the border i had to go to the front, i was delivering messages there and back, i was Hännilä's messenger. When i came back there were some very nervous man asking me, what's in front, so i said "bloody hell, roads full of ruskies". I really hadn't seen anything, i just had to show off.
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Light Section 2 was Divisions reserve then, when border was crossed and we had to pass infantry on that bad road towards Repola, artillery and trucks were stuck in mud and horses up to their ears in swamp. We tried to help them, horses neigh and yelled. All that stuff that night when we were going, was like a very bad play because of that road.
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Medical warrant officers were well trained, they had got good enough training. Bearers were not trained ofcourse, but they were just bringing wounded by carrying or with horse; especially if there were heavy fight going on, they carried wounded directly to the grouptreatmentareas and there we took their clothes off and started to bandage them.
----------
When my fire control team was marching across the border, vehicles came back and there were wounded and dead. It made me quiet; why were we going to the area which had never belong to Finland
AT FOUR O'CLOCK WE LEFT to NEIGHBORING STATE
There were 5 of us from Hukkavuori guard, and we went to look buildings and places to sleep behind the border, which we could see from our post. We went but there was "vanja" (russian) waiting for us and "vanja" opened fire right away. There was a swamp, and i was just walkin on trunk which was fallen to the swamp when fire came from the hill. There was no need to order me down from that trunk, i came down voluntarily. I had one old borderguard there with me and i watched what he was doing, as he was more experienced. He threw himself down too at first, then peeked over the trunk and fired a few rounds to that hill with SMG. I was looking at the hill too, and i did see some movement there and i shot few rounds too. Then Penttilä yelled at us, that now boys we go back. Penttilä was our patrol leader. We ran back, about 100 meters. We ran quite fast on a swamp where only small pines grew. I heard kind of buzzing sounds, when "vanja" were shooting after us. Fact was that war wasn't even started yet, so this our curiosity was a bit illegal. We got to the Finnish side of the border and begun to eat. Sun was rising. We walked to tents in Hukkavaara. On the road we could see, that lot of troops were coming towards border. It shooked me when i realised that games had begun. We met Jussi Kekkonen on the road, who told us to go across the border and go to end of Elmusjärvi. There was Russian guardpost, which we were supposed to destroy.
----------
Major Partinen was standing on the other end of borderboom and said to us, that let's turn this boom to the side and 3 men will go for recon; we will take some land for boys here and it's not going to take more than 2 weeks and then Soviet Union is done. I was a bit joking and said that i wonder if we get only place to lay down in here. We started moving. In our team was Kokkonen from Lieksa, who stepped into mine. We had came 500 meters from the border, Kokkonen stepped into mine and his intestines fell down. There were no medics, we tried to bring him back. Kokkonen was concieus, but we could see that his not going forward anymore. Medic came, and we left Kokkonen for him to take care of. We left forward, but didn't go far.
----------
We made first patrol in that war. We had orders, that we can't start a fight, but we had so good opportunity, that we couldn't resist it. Russians were standing in line for soup somewhere there near Kolvasjärvi and we decided to see what happens if we shoot them just a little bit and we did and then we ran. We had run for awhile when one of us said "Dam they begun blabbing". It stayed as a saying through whole war, that wherever we heard neighbors talking we said "Dam they begun blabbing"
----------
We went cross the border in Kivivaara, Lieksa. I had a rapid fire rifle. We were first to go cross the border in there, no troops had gone cross from there before us. We were laying on a borderline in 4th of July and waiting for the attack moment, 4 o'clock in the morning. I have to admit that my heart was pounding. It was warm summer morning and sun was rising. It was very quiet, only birds were singing beautifully. We had gone forward 200 meters when horsemen drove into minefield. Couple of riflemen were shooting us from the flank somewhere. We stayed there. We didn't go further, because bullets begun to buzz over head.
----------
We went across the border in Hukkajärvi, neighbor had a small guardpost there, but they were gone. We were marching like first-timers. Then there was a plankbridge and behind it a swamp and we got disagreement if we should go there standing up and in line if there's enemy. And there were enemy, bullets begun to fly. We barely got away from there.
----------
We thought, that we go where we are told to go. When we were crossing the border, i felt bad, there were already one dead Sergeant on borderline.
----------
We came to the border 5th of July and they were alredy carrying away first fallen. Very fist fallen i saw was my old schoolmate, Second Lieutenant Kalevi Pousi from Kuopio. I never did forget that.
----------
Just after we crossed the border i had to go to the front, i was delivering messages there and back, i was Hännilä's messenger. When i came back there were some very nervous man asking me, what's in front, so i said "bloody hell, roads full of ruskies". I really hadn't seen anything, i just had to show off.
----------
Light Section 2 was Divisions reserve then, when border was crossed and we had to pass infantry on that bad road towards Repola, artillery and trucks were stuck in mud and horses up to their ears in swamp. We tried to help them, horses neigh and yelled. All that stuff that night when we were going, was like a very bad play because of that road.
----------
Medical warrant officers were well trained, they had got good enough training. Bearers were not trained ofcourse, but they were just bringing wounded by carrying or with horse; especially if there were heavy fight going on, they carried wounded directly to the grouptreatmentareas and there we took their clothes off and started to bandage them.
----------
When my fire control team was marching across the border, vehicles came back and there were wounded and dead. It made me quiet; why were we going to the area which had never belong to Finland
