We knew that we had to press forward. Sometimes we would not even make it to build shelters, when a "forward" order would come. What I remember best? I remember the best that war is just war. We never stayed in a house overnight - just in forests. Three months in a forest. Try to hide and survive there. Only few survived.
I come from Toksova area, Veikkala
village. I was born in 1917, the kolkhoz appeared in our village in 1930
and we worked in the kolkhoz until 1936. Then they told us to move out,
as the border was near. They forced everyone to move out from 30 kilometers
patch, up to Gruzino. WE had a cow, equipment, all crops had been sown, rye
had been high already, and we had to leave. We do not know who's idea it was,
who was guilty of this. Our entire family, with horses and all equipment, had
to move out and go to Vologda region. I worked there until 1937, and in 1937
I went to Lenenergo (Leningrad utility company) to work as a digger. After that
I was promoted to rank of mechanic and later cable-layer. I worked there from
1937 till 1942. In 1942 they again could not leave the Finns alone, and deported
us from Toksova, Kavgolovo and all other places. They only gave us 24 hours
for packing. I was here in Leningrad and I was also sent away. I went to my
sister's place in Vologda region, while the rest were all transported to Siberia.
They were sent far away, Ugryum River and other places. They also told me -
where are you going? I answered: you do not have my papers, I am not going to
give my papers to you and I am going to the place that I came from. I went there
by train. I worked there in Vologda region as a telephone operator, there was
a phone station in the village's Soviet. In 1942 we were drafted, went through
a medical commission and were sent to Chelyabinsk area. I thought it was a draft
in the army, but it was labor army draft. It was like army, but even stricter.
We were kept behind barbed wire fence. There were German POWs, and we were stationed
next to them. They were taken to their work under guard, guards had rifles and
dogs, we were also escorted by guards with rifles. It was just like a prison.
We were working there and building
coke-oven batteries, the batteries are still there. There was a lot of work
with those batteries. They brought us into a forest, we started cutting down
trees and building the batteries. Then, when we had to start them, it was a
very hot weather. There were five stoves, and temperature had to be 1000 degrees,
otherwise the stoves would not start. So we were starting them, throwing coal
in the stoves on command. The weather was so hot that we were collapsing, we
could not take it, as sun was scorching us and there was also heat coming from
stoves. There was a line system - we were leaving and the other shift was coming.
Then, after some time, we started to build houses and factories there after
the coke-oven batteries. In 1945 I came back here. The war was over, and I came
back home to Leningrad and started my work at a heat station, but I was only
able to work for a little while. They started to call on us Finns again, and
again did not permit us to stay in the city. They told me that I had to leave
and go anywhere I wanted. Some Komsomol guys came and told me to leave.
I went to my native village, but was also kicked out of there. I went to Pitkaranta
area, around Jannisjarvi, it is not far from Finland. I worked there as a blacksmith.
I did not work there for long, just for a couple of months, although they gave
me a two-storey house there. I wrote to my wife that I would come and pick her
up, but she replied that she would not go. So I went back. Later, when Stalin
died, we could go back to Leningrad, and I came back and started working at
a plant. These are my long journeys. I have been living here for a long time,
from 1959. I worked at LTM factory, retired at age of 55, then I had to do a
surgery and I did not work anywhere. Then I went to work at Svetlana factory
and worked there for 20 years. Now I am again retired, from 1993.
In 1939, when the war broke out,
they gave us a 120-hour training and sent us to the front. They trained us to
fire, hide and camouflage. There was no time for marching and ceremony drills.
I was with the 99th Ski Battalion, a machine gunner and submachine gunner. I
had been skiing from childhood, that was normal with our family. The Russians
in the battalion were quite OK in skiing, but still not too well in the beginning.
They gave us a small training in skiing during our training session. The volunteers
in the battalion were mostly college and university students. There were no
volunteers that could not ski at all - why should they be there. Most of the
volunteers were members of Komsomol, including me. They asked: "who wants to
volunteer for the war with Finland?" I said: "I am going, put down my name."
So, I was drafted in Dzerzhinski military district of the city. I do not remember
how the announcement for volunteers came. Everyone in our battalion was Russian,
I was the only Finn. The attitude towards me was good, no one got on me that
I was a Finn. There was no special attention to my person from NKVD or the
politruk of the battalion. The politruk was nice and the battalion
commander as well.
We were three brothers, and my
older brother Semen was drafted during the Finnish war, he did not go voluntarily
like I did. He was drafted into the Finnish People's Army, that was stationed
in Zelenogorsk (Terijoki). He was trained to go behind enemy lines and be spies.
They were dressed differently from us, we were dressed lightly, just like ski
troops should be. My brother was just drafted. The third brother stayed at home,
not all of us went into the army. In 1941 I was first exempt from draft due
to my work, then this exemption was abolished. It was horrible to live here
until 1942, it was cold, also around -40-45 degrees, a horrible frost. People
would go to Neva river to get water and would die on the way. My brother Matvei
died during the siege of Leningrad, I buried him myself in 1942.
Semen was drafted just like Russians, then he fought the war, and he was sent for the last time as a spy behind Finnish lines. This was already during the second war. As far as I understood, they sent him as a spy. They saw him even during the war, his comrade saw him. That means, that he was still alive for some time, and then he was killed, and he is buried in Turku. There were rumors that he was in Turku. The rumor was that Russian prisoners of war saw him there. They saw him passing by in a Finnish officer uniform. He was just passing by, while the prisoners of war were working, and he did not say hi to them. They recognized him, as they were from the same village and studied together. After that his cousin, who now lives in Finland, said that they found his grave and her son even took a picture of it. So now we know that he was killed and the Finns killed him. However, no one knows, how this happened, how Finns found out that he was a Soviet spy. A spy can only make one mistake in his life. We were looking for him through the Red Cross, but could not find him, and only now we know what happened to him. We do not know who buried him. We do not know whether he had a family there, how he was buried, and who buried him - all these things remain unclear. Pavel was wounded during the war at Pskov and when we were sent out to Chelyabinsk area, he died of his wounds there.
So they brought us to the frontline
on train, and told us not to smoke and quietly move forward. We got on skis
and quietly advanced in the forest. Then we went through Raivola. Then we were
at Mustajoki, and then we went to Mannerheim Line, it was heavy fighting there.
Then we were also in Metsakyla, it is now called Molodezhnoe. Then we were on
the coastline of the Gulf of Finland and advanced along it.
During the Finnish War we would cut pine tree branches and make some kind of shelter for ourselves and start a fire in the middle - this is how we lived. Temperature was around -50, snow was around one meter high. I carried skis and a machine gun, which weighted 16.5 kilos with the ammo drum. Plus I had a bagpack.
I had a DP machinegun, the rest
of the guys had mostly rifles, we received submachine guns later and we actually
did no make it to use them. We also had mortars, I do not remember a caliber,
they were quite small and they could be carried on one's back. Maxim machine
guns were transported on skis, we had few Maxims. I was in the first machine
gun company, and only seven men from our company survived. A machine gun company
is smaller that a regular company, it is just called a company. I do not know
anything about losses in other companies. The assistant machine gunner carried
two ammo drums, while the second assistant machine gunner carried three. They
carried the ammo in special boxes, with a handle. My assistant crewmembers also
caught hell, we all machine gunners caught hell there. We carried all our ammo
with us. We did not have shortage of ammo. Of course, we had to save ammo, I
was firing in short bursts, and one could empty the drum in one burst. I never
had problems with my machine gun; it was very reliable. It worked fine even
with water or snow in it. This MG was my best friend in that war. There were
also semi-automatic rifles for 25 rounds, I guess, and they jammed all the time.
As soon as snow got into the bolt, that was it. We did not even carry them,
immediately getting rid of them - the Mosint mother-rifle was better. My assistant
machine gunner also took a Mosint rifle. Hand grenades were of pineapple type,
as well as grenades with a long handle. Pineapple grenades were the best, easy
to carry, and quite deadly, one had to be careful in order not to be hit by
its splinters when throwing it. This is how we fought the war, till its end.
One time we captured two two-storey buildings on a hill, I do not remember anymore,
where it was, northwards from Metsakyla or somewhere else, it's been a long
time already. We wanted to stay in the houses overnight, but the commander told
us not to stay there. It was good, otherwise I would not be talking to you today.
The houses were hit by mortar fire, and fully burnt down - this is what would
have happened to us. Still, we had a lot of killed and wounded.
From Metsakyla we went to Koivokyla,
then some other kylas (villages), I do not remember the names anyome, and reached
Vyborg. We were in some three kilometers from Vyborg. On March 12 the war was
still in full swing, artillery was firing and everyone was shooting. Then March
13 came, the war was over and we were sent back. There was a meeting held, we
were all happy, we all fired our weapons in the air. Artillery was also firing.
Then on the second day after the end of the war they told us to gather weapons
in boxes, greasing weapons well, and so we did. In some two or three weeks,
I think it was March 25, we came back home. As volunteers, we were allowed to
go home. It's like that.
Our mission was to cleanse the
forest. Cleanse the forest so that there are no enemy troops there. Our uniform
was warm underwear shirt, a shirt, a sweater, and a white jacket made of tarpaulin.
We had both mittens and gloves. We threw away the mittens and took the gloves
so that we could fire easier. My hands never froze, I did not get frostbites
once, although many guys in the unit had their hands or feet frostbitten, and
many died. I do not remember, how many died. I had long boots, size 44, pair
of socks and pair of foot wrappings. My feet were quite warm. I wore valenki
felt boots only once, they arrived quite late in the war. The whole battalion
was dressed in long boots. When we were in our training at Moscow Station, we
had ankle boots with leg wrappings, a commander came and said: who are these
guys in ankle boots, volunteers? Get them all long boots! So we all got long
boots made for us, everyone could choose the size that he wanted. I came back
home in these boots, I did not burn them in the war or did not damage them.
I wore greatcoat only once, when I was on my way home, the rest of the time
I had vatnik padded jacket and the tarpaulin white camouflage jacket on it.
It was a bit cold, but what can you do? Our headgear was budennovka winter hat,
woolen helmet liner, which covered the whole face and neck, only the eyes were
open. So, we had a helmet liner, then we put on budennovka, and then a helmet.
First we did not wear helmets, and then we started wearing them. If I did not
wear one, I would not be here today. Helmets were green, covered with while
tarpaulin on top, the same tarpaulin tat our camouflage suites were made of.
They told all of us to sew in the dog tags into collars of our jackets. The
dog tags were flat and rectangular in shape. The commanders first had white
sheepskin coats. Then Finns started hunting for the white sheepskin coats, aiming
at the officers, and they started to wear other uniforms.
They say that DP had a problem
with the bipod sinking in the snow. Everything happened. Sometimes I would place
the bipod on the body of a dead Finn or a Russian and fire. I did not always
have my DP on a shoulder belt. We could not stay in houses, everything was booby-trapped.
Mines were everywhere. One time our comrade had to get himself new skis - his
old ones were broken or he lost them. It was around Koivokyla or somewhere else,
I do not remember. There were some nice skis standing against a tree, so he
said that he had to take them. He went to get the skis and forever stayed there.
The tree blew up together with the skies. "Nice skis," I said.
We
mostly ate hard tack, as there was no place to boil or cook food. We had a field
kitchen with a horse in the beginning, but it was destroyed - hit a mine on
the road. We mostly ate biscuits and then melt snow in canteens and drink it.
We would also get 100 grams of vodka every day.
One time we were advancing, and I spotted a Finnish cuckoo shooter, and prepared to fire on him, but he was faster, just as I was preparing to fire, he fired on me "shhhhhh", and I ducked in the snow for cover. It was great that I had a helmet on, otherwise he would have killed me. I just put my head in the snow, and the hit was as if someone hit me on the head with a hammer, I was slightly deafened. This disappeared after several days, and I was never wounded after that.
My native language is Finnish,
several times they asked me to assist in translation during an interrogation,
but there was also a translator, who was controlling my translation - just to
make sure that I was not lying. The commander had a Finnish phrase book, and
he was checking whether I knew Finnish. He was amazed that I said all phrases
correctly. Everyone was amazed that I was fighting the war on the Red Army side.
The commander asked me: "Why don't you go over to the Finnish side?" I said:
"Yeah, right, so that you shoot me in the head right away." I did not have a
slightest thought about defecting to the Finns, they would have killed me right
away Also, my father was still alive back then and I did not have any relatives
in Finland.
We were all the time in a forest,
there was no unit on our left flank, on our right there was the 100th Ski battalion,
I have a friend from that unit. They were almost completely wiped out. We were
900 men, four companies. Now I am the only person from the battalion who is
still alive. Last year we were five, now it is just I. You would not find another
person from the 99th battalion in Leningrad. There were several volunteer ski
battalions from Leningrad, our battalion, them the 100th battalion, then I think
there was also the 101st battalion, but they were further away, somewhere in
Priozersk area. We were right here, on the Mannerheim Line, there were concrete
bunkers and wood and soil bunkers. The concrete bunkers had three floors and
were large, the cupolas were made of rubber, so bullets flew back if you fired
on the bunkers - a great design. I saw a three-storey bunker myself, after it
was captured. It was impossible to capture, so it was flooded with water, probably
by a Finnish engineer who had built it. There was water inside the bunker when I walked
in.
Their trenches were also very
dangerous, a machine gun would fire on us and we could not see where the bullets
were coming from. They were camouflaged with snow, we could not see a damn thing.
When they would open fire, we woud as a rule lie down and open fire, and if
we could not see where their fire was coming from, we would just hide, and bullets
would miss us. If we were under fire, we would not lie on the ground for a long
time, we would stand up and assault. We would drop the ski poles on the ground,
move forward and fire on the move. Finns did not have ski poles at all. I do
not know why we needed those poles. First we were afraid of Finnish artillery,
we thought we would be hit, and then we got used to it. We were under mortar
fire quite often, but somehow we survived anyway. Those two houses in Metsakyla
or elsewhere, the ones that were hit by mortar fire - there mortar fire was
quite intensive. The two houses were burning the whole day, so we could warm
ourselves at the fire. We would have all burnt there if we stayed there overnight.
I do not remember a single night when we stayed indoors for the night. Only
one time we stayed in a dugout that we captured from Finns, but the rest of
the time we slept in the snow, in the shelters that we made.
A hand-to-hand fight? What would
I do with my machine gun in hand-to-hand fight? We did not have hand-to-hand
fights, we did not shout "Hurrah". We were never surrounded, as we were always
pressing forward, forward all the time.
The thing that I remember the
best is probably how we almost drowned once on the ice of the Gulf of Finland.
We were walking on the ice and a shell or a mine hit the ice and made a hole
in it. There were tanks in front of us, we jumped on those tanks and thus we
survived, otherwise we would have drowned. Tank crews gave us some food. I still
do not know what unit that was and who the commander was. That time artillery
fire was very strong in the beginning. I do not remember the name of the island
that we were assaulting. We took some prisoners, but in general there were very
few prisoners. All Finnish prisoners that we captured were horribly angry, they
were ready to eat us raw. I was talking to one of them, and then all of a sudden
he just jumped into the hole in the ice, into the Gulf of Finland, right on
the spot where we almost drowned. We still were able to grab him and pull him
out of water. He did not care that the water was freezing cold, he just did
not want to surrender. Finns had few men, but they were well camouflaged, they
had bunkers and strongpoints. They also had food and everything there. They
could see us very well, being camouflaged by snow, we could not see a damn thing.
We heard a shot, but only devil knew, where the shot came from. There were also
cuckoo snipers on trees. Finnish ski troops did not have ski pole. We first
used poles, but they were quite frustrating. They also had those boots with
noses sticking up, they could just jump from a tree, jump into skis and disappear.
They also had reindeer hide on the bottom of the skis, to minimize friction.
We did not have such skis. They were real warriors, and fought very well. There
were few of them, but they killed a lot of our men. I think also we had high
casualties from frostbites - frostbites of feet and hands. Our men were dressed
in ankle boots and leg wrappings, and try to survive in -50 degrees cold in
leg wrappings.
One time my commanders were travelling
on the ice of the Gulf of Finland, while I was on guard duty, lying in ambush
with my machine gun. We ha a password that would change once a day - a password
was normally "rifle" or "machine gun" word or something like that. They were
travelling after midnight and did not know the new password. I was just lying
there in the forest with my machine gun and I heard them coming and talking.
I shouted: "Stop! Password!" They said: "Machine gun", and I said: "no, it is
not. Lie down on the ground immediately or I fire." I jerked the bolt and prepared
to fire. "OK, we are lying down," they said. Then my sentry came and released
them. They got up and I saw that both guys had white sheepskin coats, one was
a Colonel and the second was a Lieutenant-Colonel. So, I thought, now I am in
trouble. It is just that they were travelling after midnight and did not know
the new password. If they knew it I would let them through, even if a Finn knew
the password, I would have let him through, how would I know that it were a
Finn? These are the little secrets that we had. The next morning I received
a gratitude for excellent service in front of my unit.
I do not remember that Finns shouted
anything at us - I understand Finnish very well. I do not remember any leaflets
either. I remember that one time we captured a cuckoo sniper, got him down and
started interrogation. He said that he ha killed 9 Russians, and he had to kill
ten. I told him, hell no, "et sina osaat minun tappaa" (You would not be able
to kill me - in Finnish). He looked at me, realized that I was a Finn and got
even angrier. Then I started asking him, why did he have to climb a tree and
kill us. He said that he had to kill us, he said that he had killed nine and
had to kill the tenth, but he never made it. He had a bullet ready for me, though.
After the war there was a parade,
they issued us gray trousers, white shirts, ties, white caps with red stars
and in such uniform I went to the military office and reported that I had returned.
I was not awarded for that war. I do not think anyone from our battalion was
awarded. I guess we did not deserve it. War is just war. First Russians did
not even want to call it a war. I mean… how did they call it? A campaign, the
Finnish campaign, that's how they called it. I think then Yeltsin said something
about it and they finally started to call it a real war. It was a hard business.
War is a hard business in general, and then, to add more to our misery, it was
one meter of snow and freezing cold -45 to -50 degrees. Just try to survive
in the forest in such conditions.
We did not have any replacements or reinforcements, it was
just us. When we came back home to Finland station in Leningrad, girls were
there to meet their boyfriends who had volunteered. We had to tell quite many
of them that there boyfriends were not coming back. The killed men were carried
to Ohta cemetery, there are 700 men buried there, I do not know if they are
from my battalion or not. There is a church in Zelenogorsk (Terijoki) and there
is both Russian and Finnish grave there.
Copyright 2002 Bair Irincheev. This page belongs to Mannerhein Line Page