KAMSHOLMEN ON FIRE, PART I

(Teasing the encirclement of Hanko, Adolf Molnár) 

3rd of August 1941 

- Artillery is again firing and the mainland in Hanko Cape in under constant artillery fire. Suddenly Windmüller yells that Kamsholmen is on fire! A thick gray cloud is covering the whole island. We start to run to the island using the bridge. More grenades are landing to the island constantly. Our forest is on fire. On the road we meet Edh who tells that another volunteer has fallen, Söderholm has lost his life on this bombardment. The swimming season is over and war has started in Kamsholmen. 

- We finally arrive to the area where the forest is burning most heavily. The flames are reaching high but fortunately the wind is forcing those towards the sea and not towards inland. Sundquist runs to the forest and me and Moustgaard follow him. Even more grenades are landing all around us. 

- Sundquist cuts a large branch and starts to beat the flames with it. Moustgaard follows his example and finally I also follow the example. We look ridiculous, three dwarfs trying to fight against the huge flames with their branches. Finally we give up. The island is still shaking under the Russian grenades. I do not want to die with a shovel in my hand and covered only with swimming trunks, trying to save a forest which is doomed. We cannot stop the flames from consuming the whole forest.

- The remains from the construction to the position 235. According to the description from 1955, this position has been partly mined into the rock.

- The structure is now full of water. On top of the hill is a brand new summer cottage, so please behave accordingly if you visit this construction.

- If you walk to the other side of the hill, from where the mined structure can be found, you will find this rather large pit. According to the fortification map, it was planned that there would be a machine gun nest with observation cupola and a shelter for the anti-tank gun, which clearly is the construction which is shown in the two previous pictures. Additionally an accommodation bunker/dugout was planned and this large pit probably is all that remain from that construction. Looking at the previous pictures, I have a hard time of imagining that the structure when completed, could have hold a twenty men inside.

- The edges of the construction are still fully visible.

- The entrance to the position can still be quite clearly pointed out, if you follow the edges of the pit. In the foreground of the picture, there's a quite clear place for the entrance. The construction as such would make a sense, as this entrance would not have been located directly towards the enemy.