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Finnish map of the defense area, scale 1:20000
This is probably the most famous sector of the entire Mannerheim line. This is where the Line was breached after more than 2 months of bloody fighting. Click on the bunker icons to learn about individual fortifications of the sector.
The monument is off map, so its description is included below.
On February 13, 1940, when battles were raging at the Support line (see Finnish map) the 112th Tank Battalion from the 35th Light Tank Brigade and 90th Tank Battalion from the 20th Heavy Tank Brigade broke through the Finnish defenses and suddenly drove into positions of Finnish 2nd Heavy Artillery Battalion, which was taken completely by surprise. Its heavy howitzers were not at all fit for firing at tanks over the open sight, and the Finnish crews ran for their lives. A group of men and officers ran into their bunker and were blocked there. A Russian tank drove on its roof and tried to crush it, but failed to do so. Finally, Red Army engineers brought explosives and destroyed the bunker together with all men who were inside it. After the event the bunker received a name "the death bunker". 10 heavy 150 mm howitzers of the artillery battalion fell in hands of the Red Army. Below is the description of the battle by both Soviet and Finnish officers and historians.
Fragment
from the book "Time of tank assaults" by Captain Arkhipov, 112th Tank
Battalion, 35th Light Tank Brigade (gratitude to Dmitry ID from VIF2
Forum for providing the fragment from the book):
We entered the clearing in the forest and moved off to north-east. After a couple of kilometers we turned to yet another trail in the forest and saw a dozen thick logs. They were tied to the trees right across the trail at the height of a tank turret. It was a new type of obstacle for us - an anti-turret barrier. In poor visibility conditions - in mist, in darkness of a night - a tank driving at high speed would at least damage its main gun and the turret machine gun and in the worst case lose its turret.
It was an old wood with thick trees around us - we could not knock the trees down or bypass them. But soldiers' wisdom helped us out again. The enemy thought that we would at least spend several hours in front of the obstacle, before we can untie the logs from the trees. But our guys walked out of the tanks with saws and destroyed the obstacle in fifteen minutes.
Finnish AT log barrier
Picture from the book Frontovaya Illustratsiya 3-2001, "Tanks in the Winter War 1939-1940", by Maxim Kolomiets, page 7
While we were cutting the logs, we heard sounds of artillery fire. Their firing positions were not far away. It seemed to be at least a battalion, some ten to twelve howitzers. I spoke toKlevtsov and Kulabohov on the radio - we coordinated the time of assault and signals. On the same trail we advanced towards the firing positions.
In several minutes we were at our destination. The forest grew thinner and among snow-covered fur trees I saw gun trenches in a clearing. Howitzers were positioned in those trenches, firing on some targets behind the forest - their barrels were at really high angle of elevation. Next to the gun positions we saw well-built dugouts. A soldier in white apron and a spoon in his hand walked out of one of the dugouts and froze with his eyes wide open, when he saw our tanks.
Just like we had agreed, I transferred the signal about assault on the radio, repeated the signal with flares and tanks drove into the firing positions from three sides. Apparently, the artillery crews were not trained to fire at tanks. Or, probably, they just panicked - they ran in all directions from the guns. As there were three batteries, located at significant distances from each other, the fleeing Finns, both officers and men, covered the whole field. WE captured 12 guns intact, three wearhouses of ammo, equipment and food. The only thing we did not find was transportation means - there were neither horses, nor trucks nor tractors. We did not even find track marks on the ground. This fact, as well as well-built firing position of the battalion and dugouts meant that we were still in the main defensive area of the Mannerheim Line, but already in the rear, in the last positions.
It was indeed true. By the end of February 13, on the third day of the offensive, the 123rd Rifle Division with attached armour units - 112nd Tank Battalion of the 35th Light Tank Brigade and the 90th Battalion of the 20th Heavy Tank Brigade broke through the main defensive line at all its depth (6-7 km) and widened the breakthrough to 6 kilometers. Summa fortified area, with its 12 concrete bunkers and 39 wood and soil bunkers was completely destroyed. On February 14 the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of USSR awarded the 123rd Rifle Division on Colonel F. F. Alyabushev with Order of Lenin.
Red Army men studying the captured Finnish howitzers of 2nd Heavy Artillery Battalion.
Picture source: Fighting in Finland Volume I, page 313
For more information about the howitzers, visit pages of Finnish Artillery Museum.
Description
of the same battle from book "Winter of Honor", by Hokan Moerne, 1940:
...When the second line of defenses was broken through, remains of the infantry battalion passed by the positions of the artillery battalion. Finally, a lonely Junior Lieutenant skied pass the guns and informed them that he was the last one. The next moment Russian tanks broke into the positions. Heavy howitzers were helpless against the tanks, which drove between the guns and fired on the entrances to the dugouts from their main guns and MGs. Most of the crews ran into the dugouts, seeking cover. There was not a slightest possibility for a counterattack in this situation. One tank drove on the roof of the dugout and tried to crush it, while a group of Red Army infantry, that swarmed the positions, blocked entrances to another dugout and tried to throw hand grenades into the chimney, but the first grenade exploded too high in the chime ny and blocked the way to the others.
All those who stayed outside, eventually managed to break through to the besieged comrades in the dugouts. However, one dugout, blocked by a heavy tank, could not be rescued. This dugout became the dugout of death, just one heavily wounded Sergeant made it alive out of it, crawling across the terrain with help of his bayonet. He had been hit nine times. An officer and thirty men remained in the dugout and there they met their last hour.
"Summa's
men", by Eki Oksanen (during the Winter War Eki Oksanen was Captain, Commander
of the I/8 JR):
Artillerymen told us that tank that broke through the second line of defenses, drove into the positions of the 2nd Heavy Battalion absolutely unexpectedly, without any prior warning from our infantry. 6 inch howitzers from the times of the Russo-Japanese war had to be abandoned. Fire over the open sight at the tanks was impossible from them. The tanks made an awful slaughter there before the artillery crews could retreat.
"Winter
War through my eyes", Harald Okvist, Commander of the 2nd Army Corps, diary
entry of February 13, around 23.30:
...Soon after that I learnt that when enemy's tanks drove into the positions, the entire battalion of Major Lucander abandoned their guns and ran for their lives. Such messages give no ground for optimism. This message was factually correct, but there was nothing shameful for the artillery crews in it. In general confusion of the battle, after the enemy's tanks broke through, our infantry forgot to warn the artillerymen about the coming danger, and the tank assault caught them completely by surprise. When 28 ton tanks appeared between the artillery pieces, there was absolutely no possibility to save the guns from capture by the enemy. It would have been a pure suicide to stay at the guns. As the result of this, enemy captured ten Japanese howitzers - two howitzers were under repairs at the moment of assault.
150 mm howitzer set as a monument by the Finns in Petrozavodsk in 1941-1944.
This is one of the 2 guns of the 2nd Heavy Artillery Battalion that were under repairs on February 13, 1940, when the battalion was scattered by the Soviet tanks. Picture from Bair Irincheev collection.
All men inside the bunker were from Swedish-speaking Vaasa region of Finland. Relatives and the commune of those who died in the bunker erected the monument on the spot of the destroyed bunker in 1993. The sign reads: List of those who died in the Larsmo-oja bunker on February 13, 1940. Among those who died in the bunker were 6 unidentified men. Rest in peace, thankful and remembering relatives and Larsmo commune. The hill right behind the monument is the remains of the dugout.
Dug-in positions of howitzers of the 2nd Heavy Artillery Battalion and the communication trenches are still quite visible in the field.
© Bair Irincheev 2001 - 2003