THE BEGINNING, PART II

(Hanko Cape in the Second World War, Niilo Lappalainen & History of the Hanko Group, T-22005, Military Archives of Finland)

March 1940 to June 1941

- The borderline was frequently violated from the Soviet side and the Russian diplomats even spied quite openly the fortifications, which the Finnish had build. One time the ambassador of Soviet Union and his military attaché stopped the car while driving to Hanko and started to photograph the fortifications. They refused to stop this until they were threatened with rifles.

- In the spring of 1941, there was a certain kind of nervousness in the air and new construction groups had arrived to the Hanko Base, which were building field fortifications to the area of Lappohja. The construction was going on 24 hours a day. Soviet airplanes were flying above the borderline and large transport ships were unloading troops and supplies to the base. At the same time, the Finnish military authorities were negotiating with the Germans, about the coming Operation Barbarossa. In June 1941, German General Lieutenant Erwin Engelbrecht appeared to the Finnish headquarters in Mikkeli and announced, that he was the General who was suppose to capture Hanko. During the 18th of June to 19th of June 1941, he negotiated with the Finnish military authorities, about the attack to Hanko. The German 163rd Division was planned to be use in the attack, but in the end no units from the German land forces fought in the Hanko front.

- On 24th of June 1941 German planes which had been refueled and armed in Malmi, bombed Hanko. In the morning of 25th of June 1941, the Russian artillery opened fire towards Morgonlandet, Prästö and Jussarö to which the Finnish artillery responded at nine o'clock in the evening. Russian planes also bombed the area of Hanko Cape during that same day. The war had started.

- There it is what we came looking here, position 401. The tactical map symbol indicates a machine gun nest to this exact area and of course that modest position would have offered some protection for the crew of machine gun or light machine gun when camouflaged correctly.

- The same position as in the previous picture.

- View from the position towards the tip of Vestervik peninsula. Machine gun located here, could have fired the area between the mainland and the island of Porsö, which can be dimly seen in the left side of the picture, behind the trees.

- Behind of the position, which is shown in the first pictures, is another quite large position, which has been constructed from stones. This perhaps could have contained a position for a direct firing gun, but it has been filled to such a degree that there is no certainty anymore.

- Near of the previous positions is a wall of stones. Perhaps ad-hoc anti-tank obstacles or just a protection for the rifle men as...

- ... when the stone wall ends it continues as a trench line which finally...

- ...ends to this position right in the shoreline. So there clearly is a defensive positions in the place where structure 401 was suppose to be constructed, it is just that it differs a lot from the tactical map symbols.

- The same positions as shown in the previous picture seen just from a different angle.

- The actual construction looks just a pile of rocks when looked from the front side.