17.07.1942. Drop supplies to the long distance patrols

On the 17th July 1942 BL-111 (nicknamed "True Believer" that had been shot down in Winter War but repaired) had been loaded with four drop "torpedoes". There was proviant, ammunition, medicaments, radio batteries and other material needed by a long range reconnaissance patrol observing the Murmansk railway. The crew comprised pilot, W/O Oksala, observer 1st Lt. Vuorela and gunner/radioman Staff Sgt. Laukas. The mission had to be aborted due to fog en route, and Oksala landed at Hirvas to wait for better weather and to refuel.

An intercepted enemy weather report predicted that the fog in the area S of the White Sea would disappear at midnight on the 17th. Oksala decided to take off at 02.40 hours, in the Northern latitudes at that time of the year visual flying is possible 24hrs a day, weather permitting.

Fighter escort would have been available but Oksala declined, to avoid attracting the attention of the enemy. He also refused to tell where he was to drop his "packages". After a 15 min engine test BL-111 took off. The cloudbase was at 500 m and horizontal visibility was fair.

The bomber crossed Lake Segezha, which was behind the front lines. The cloudbase kept getting lower, first 300, then 200m and at destination 100 m with patches of fog here and there. This made navigation trickier, but not impossible.

Near destination a Soviet Hurricane bounced the BL and Oksala had to pull up in the cloud to escape. After a few evasive turns he pushed the BL out of the cloud and found that the enemy fighter had disappeared. The observer found they had been disoriented while in the cloud: the monotonous landscape of bogs and forests did not provide any recognizable landmarks. Oksala had to fly for a few minutes to North toward the White Sea to find a fixed point where to restart the approach.

Having found their place in the map the observer gave the pilot a compass bearing and fairly soon the BL was circling the drop spot, a swamp. A landmark, a small lake nearby confirmed that it was the right place. Then a large campfire was lit on the ground, it was the signal. But wasn't the fire unusulally large?

Oksala decided to check before dropping. Passing the fire at an altitude of 50m the aircrew saw nothing, but when passing again at 10m some men emerged, confident that the airdrop was going to happen. They were wearing green uniforms: Red Army soldiers.

Obviously the Finnish patrol had been forced to dodge pursuers. Oksala deduced that the Finns had to be somewhere near. He began to fly in a search spiral. He had orders to return if the patrol was not found but he decided to try.

Twenty minutes had passed and the aircrew was losing their optimism as Oksala spotted a man flagging with his shirt on the northern edge of a large swamp. He turned and flew over, there the patrol was!

They dropped the "torpedoes" accurately and at such a low altitude that it was unlikely that the enemy could have observed it. But before Oksala had had time to take the course to the base, gunner Laukas reported having seen a hundred of enemies advancing on the open swamp - they were about 10 km from the patrol.

Observer Vuorela started to write a note that was to be dropped to the patrol but a Hurricane attacked the BL and Oksala had to pull up in the cloud. He decided to warn the patrol about the enemy by the noise of shooting.

The pilot pushed the bomber out of the cloud and soon strafed the enemy soldiers with his fixed machine gun, then he flew another pass and the gunner fired with his turret gun, but now more fighters approached and Oksala had to hide in the cloud and start the return leg of the mission in instrument flight.

Near the Leningrand branch of the Murmansk Railway the BL emerged from the cloud to check for landmarks, unfortunately enemy fighters were just patrolling the railway line and one of them managed to take a shot at the bomber, giving her three holes in one wing before Oksala could hide in the cloud again.

BL-111 landed at Hirvas at 05.30 hours. Capt. Karhunen, Oksala's friend and leader of 3/LeLv24 based in the a/b at the time, enquired about the success of the mission. Oksala replied:

- They did fall in the right address.

He did not give any other comments.

Months later Oksala received a letter with thanks from the leader of the patrol. They had understood what the machine gun fire implied and the patrol had slipped away undetected.

© Written by: Ossi Juntunen

Sources:

Joppe Karhunen (in several books)