26.02.1940. 12 hour march to the own lines

On 26 Feb 1940 incident happened to the crew: pilot Sgt. Oksala, observer res.Lt. Platan, gunner Res.1st Lt. Hyttinen. They carried an extra, a passenger really, apprentice mechanic Jaatinen who had begged to join a mission.

BL-119 took off at 06.10 hrs to the route Joroinen - Tuulos - Viirukkalampi (E of Syskyjarvi). Mission: visual recce of incoming traffic from Olonez and bombing.

Because the temperature was belos -30deg C Oksala had test run the engines with more attention than usually - as if he had had an premonition. Yet he did not mention anything to the observer, the pilot usually did his job independently and without talking.

The BL headed for Tuulos at 5000m N of Valamo. The gunner reported that there was no contrail, which was good news Everyone knew that leaving a contrail would result in enemy fighter attack. Some airmen called the contrail the death trail.

They approached Tuulos in a slight descent toward the recce objective. The target altitude was 1500m which was requested by the observer for his visual observations.

BL-119 arrived at their objective quietly, the enemy air surveillance had not alerted the AAA. This was a benefit, the recce could be done without evasive manouvering. Platan was busy, every road had lively traffic of trucks and horse carts. The columns seemed to be heading mostly for Salmi after a night's marching. At the center of the village there seemed to be a small traffic jam.

Lt. Platan decided to bomb the village center of Salmi because it seemed to be the fattest target. There was no wind and Oksala flew the bombing run over the main road through the village. The observer released the bombs, the first ones hit a group of trucks, the middle ones a supply center where vehicles were being loaded and the rest of the salvo smashed some buildings next to the road.

At those days the return over Ladoga had become risky due to Soviet fighters. The airmen decided to do a ruse and return by the forest route.

BL-119 took altitude N of Salmi and soon the altimeter reading was 3800 m. Everything was OK as odd rattling noise was heard from the rear of the a/c. The pilot and the observer looked at each other: maybe the gunner was testing his MG. Sometimes the gunner had fired at the enemy ground troops, but now they had far too much altitude for that.

Then more rattling: a salvo from below ripped through the fuselage and scattered pieces of aluminium sheet and radio equipment around.

The observer yelled: "fighters, down" but Oksala had already pushed the yoke and they dived vertically down. Usually this was enough to shake the enemy off but not now. Probably there were groups of fighters in various altitudes. Another salvo hit the diving bomber and specially the right engine. It caught fire as did the right fuel tank in the wing!

Oksala saw how small blue flames turned into a huge flame reaching behind the tail of the BL. Calmly the pilot told his observer:

- Now also our controls have taken hits - the rudder and the ailerons do not respond.

Hardly had he uttered the words as another salvo smashed the instrument board into smithereens. It was the final salvo, obviously the enemy pilots considered that the bomber was doomed.

The soil approached frighteningly fast. Oksala found that the horizontal rudder was jammed, too, because the a/c at first did not appear to recover at all. The observer tried to open the exit hatch for bailout but due to the diving speed he couldn't. When the hatch was finally opened, Platan found that bailing out from a diving BL could not be done.

The pilot pulled the wheel back, struggling hard. He succeeded, the a/c recovered from the dive, but excruciatingly slowly. The terminal dive was interrupted but there was not enough altitude for using parachutes.

Oksala managed to belly land on a small swamp covered by small pines and thick snow. The slide of the a/c had scarcely stopped as four men rushed out of the burning wreck.

As luck would have it none of the men were hit by bullets. Behind the enemy lines it would have been impossible to evacuate a wounded man.

BL-119 was burning on the swamp, producing a huge black smoke column. The airmen had to hurry up to avoid enemy patrols. Their progress was hindered by snow which in the forest reached up to the waist of a man. They had to change the "trailblazer" every 10 meters, because that was the most a man could do at a stretch.

By chance they found an abandoned forester's hut and found two pairs of old skis under the warehouse. By using the skis in relay the airmen increased their marching speed considerably.

Upon hearing sounds of battle the airmen turned away to avoid being seen by the enemy. They had to stay undetected to be able to slip through the front line.

After yet another detour they stumbled upon a little used supply road. They followed it and saw a group of dugouts, near which they hid themselves and began to reconnoitre: the positions were found to be occupied by Finnish troops. Again Antti Platan had problems in proving himself as a Finnish airman. It is a tribute to the Army communications that a phone call could be made from that front line dugout to the a/b in Joroinen. A joy broke out at the base because the BL-119 aircrew had already been written off.

When enquired what was the most difficult part of belly-landing his burning BL, Oksala told that the biggest problem was how to steer the disabled, burning a/c into belly landing so that the flames would not scorch the fuselage but would be directed toward the right wing tip. If the a/c should have banked or slid to the left, the flames would have scorched the aircrew in mid-air. This is what Oksala accomplished. Yet 2nd Lt. Hyttinen was as if in an oven even though the flames missed the fuselage.

- I could add to my story that when we were back at Joroinen the Apprentice Mechanic Jaatinen enquired in a subdued mood, whether the missions were like that always. I tried to be a humourist and said that normally they are a little less complicated, but this was your custom order for a war souvenir, wasn't it?

Officially this incident was later referred to as follows:

"As to the achievements of W/O Oksala in the Winter War let be mentioned a bombing raid on 26 Feb 1940 whereby an enemy fighter by surprise fired one engine of Oksala's a/c in flames and also damaged the controls. Due to his cold-bloodedness Oksala managed to emergency land his burning and partly uncontrollable a/c in the enemy rear. In his command the crew was saved after a 12 hour march to the own lines."

© Written by: Ossi Juntunen

Sources:

Joppe Karhunen (in several books)