INSPECTING THE 19th AND 21st FIELD BATTERIES, PART I

(History of the Hanko Group, T-22005, Military Archives of Finland)

17th of June 1941

- If the picture I got from 18th Battery was promising, here all optimism disappeared completely from my mind. The men of the 18th Battery were all accommodated into a barrack, but here men slept in barns and in the attics.

- I met 2nd Lieutenant Markola, who was the commander of this battery. He was in one sauna, which was his command post. I asked from him, that what actions he had taken to train and organize his battery. At this point I discovered, that no training had been arranged, because there wasn’t any gunners in the battery. Also all the men were reservists. There was not a single gunner in the group, but more than enough seaman, cavalrymen and infantrymen.

Captain T. Louhivuori

- A pit in the rock on a highest point marks the construction site for the structure 405, which would have turned into a machine gun bunker, if the Russians had stayed longer in the Hanko Cape.

- The pit in the rock seems to be ready, which would have contained the embrasure for the machine gun.

- The same pit from a different angle. A fir has found a good place to grow.

- The planned firing direction for the structure 405. The plan has been obviously to cover the narrow area between the island of Storholmen and the mainland. The location of this structure differs again from the fortification map. The actual location is a bit more to the south, than what is indicated in the fortification map.

- The entrance to the machine gun bunker isn't finished and the mining job was never completed.

- The entrance from another direction. Despite of the fact that the mining job wasn't finished, there is a lot of stones around the unfinished structure.

- On the opposite side of the bay is the structure 422, which was an accommodation bunker or dugout. The piles of stones around structure 405 are visible from there.