THE RUSSIANS ARE LEAVING, PART I

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

3rd of December 1941

The islands of Stor-Krokan and Hermansö were completely devastated by our artillery. In any case it could be noted that both of the islands had been strongly fortified. Especially the Hermansö looked strongly fortified. From here an AA-gun was found, with the lock removed. The enemy didn’t seem to have had any problems with food, as all kind of food supplies were found in all of the islands. Bread, flour, hulled grain, macaroni and rice storages were left behind. All of these were however spoiled by pouring heavy fuel or kerosene to them, as ordered by Stalin in his destruction order.

Corporal H. Hartella and Major L. Henriksson.

- So this is not a well...

- ...but a structure 439 which is very interesting looking and unique. There is no other similar structure in the Harparskog-line.

- View inside the structure. According to the map symbols this would have been a machine gun bunker/dugout, but the end result seems more like a machine gun nest.

- The depression from the base of the machine gun is still visible in the position. The firing direction is the same as shown in the fortification map.

- View towards the firing direction. Houses and trees now block the view to the sea and to the channel, towards which the machine gun has been aimed at.

- The whole structure in the picture. It was a rather surprising to find the above structure from an area, which otherwise has quite few fortifications. It has been quite fast to build the above structure.

- View towards the island of Danskog.

- Luckily the structure is located right next to a summer cottages. This hopefully will guarantee that the position will remain in one piece, because it would seem that the structure has been taken care of in the past years.