ARTILLERY IN BATTLE, PART II

(Hanko Cape in the Second World War, Niilo Lappalainen) 

June 1941 to December 1941

- How many casualties this heavy artillery fire in the area of Hanko Cape resulted is unknown, but the fact that it consumed nerves on both sides is a fact. The Finnish artillery men usually after firing, run quickly to their shelters, as the Russian artillery would be firing to their positions really quickly. On the Russian side, the constant pounding from the Finnish artillery, which was very different from Winter War, was a real nuisance. Usually the Finns were also firing between twelve o'clock to five o'clock, which was the standard sleeping time in the Red Army. 

- In total, the Finnish artillery shot 258 000 shells in the area of Hanko Cape. This is 13% from the whole ammunition consumption in the Finnish artillery during the 1941. It is estimated that the Russian side shot some 500 000 shells to the Finnish positions. As a result of this huge amount of artillery shells fired into a small area and the fact that the Russians mined the whole area effectively when evacuating their base, the war in that sense is not over even today. Ammunitions are still being found from the area. The following is a link to a article in Finnish, which describes how 305mm mine grenades were found from the area of Hanko in 2001: Toisen maailmansodan muistoja nousee maasta Hankoniemellä.

- One of the two mined structures in the area.

- This structure is much more covered by vegetation than the other one.

- Communication trench line towards the second structure starts here.

- The communication trench has been mined to the rock.

- At the bottom of a rather wide construction.

- The second structure, which is more visible than the other one due to a much less vegetation inside the unfinished construction.

- The steep edge of the construction. As there seems to be no sector mined, it is safe to assume that both of these would have been accommodation bunkers when finished.

- View towards the other unfinished structure. Some sections of the communication trench is covered with stones. At first this was rather strange, but it might be that some short sections of it was partly filled during the construction to make it easier to carry supplies and equipment across the deep communication trench.

- One of the structures seen from a front side.

- Near of those two mined structures is ruins from some other structures, most likely remains from observation and fire control nests.

- The size of these structures has been quite huge, when comparing to the other similar structures. One explanation for this is, that the area has been heavily fortified. Also the gun positions are behind of these structures.

- More stones...

- Quite nearby to the previous structures, is this rather peculiar "hole" of some sort. It forms a very small hole inside, not big enough for a grown man to get inside, but large enough to store some supplies inside. The stones have not been arranged like that by accident, but whether or not this has been constructed by the troops located here in 1941 is a different question.

- View from the huge rock hill, where the mined structures are located. The gun positions are straight ahead.