Vintage Military - Part 6

Finland, 1941

All of today's images are from SA-kuva, the amazing Finnish archive of photos from World War II.  Some have been cropped to show detail. 

Minnesota is called the "land of ten thousand lakes."  Well, Finland has 188,000 lakes, and Finns love playing in and on their lakes.  Swimsuits were an unnecessary luxury for soldiers in wartime, and SA-kuva has hundreds of photos of men (presumably soldiers) in the water, always naked.

See the swastika on the boat?  Finland's position in World War II was peculiar.  Shortly after World War II began in Europe, the Soviet Union invaded Finland, attempting to add it to their empire.  For the rest of the war, the Finns fought the Russians.  But the Soviet Union, fighting Germany, was considered an ally of Britain, France, and the U.S.  So these Western countries refused to help Finland against Russia, even though Russia was clearly the aggressor.  Finland turned to Nazi Germany for help and received it.  However, Finland never officially joined the Axis (Germany, Italy, and Japan), it remained a democracy, and it never persecuted its Jews, who remained safe.

These soldiers are working on something in the water.

Going swimming in a lake.

Swimmers on a rocky shore.

Probably a cavalryman with his horse and friends.

Doing the laundry in a lake.

I think this is a river, not a lake, because of the logs being floated to their destination.

We close with an officer sunbathing on a stony beach, but we have lots more photos from SA-kuva, so stay tuned.