I was watching a new documentary about the Finland's decisive defensive battle of Tali-Ilahtala (1944) and something there triggered my memory. It's rather amusing incident and I thought to share it with you right away.
This is one little bit from the Finnish Air Force Brewster/109 pilot Väinö Pokela's lecture that he had in the Virtual Pilots Finland society easter gathering.
Mr. Pokela was telling how one flight of their squadron, Fighter Squadron 24, was transferred to eastern Karealia, as the Soviet Air Force had been very active there lately, and the other squadrons hadn't been enough to counter them.
But in the old base a certain girl was left behind. This girl was member of the Finnish volunteer female auxiliary corps, Lotta Svärd. These lottas worked in non combat roles, in about any job one could imagine. Naturally they also operated the small shops, cafeterias etc for the combat troops. I don't know a correct word what these places should be called in english, but I'm calling them cafeteria - you could buy coffee, snacks, read magazines etc there, and the palces were for the combat troops only. The cafeterias operated even right behind the front lines if needed. As you can imagine, a weary soldier gets lots of happy feelings when he can buy cup of coffee from a pretty girl, and gets a nice smile as extra.
So, their flight had this certain girl in the Lottas, and they were all very disappointed because they couldn't bring the girl with them to Tiiksjärvi. The girl however started looking for a chance to transfer back to "his boys". This wasn't possible, but there was an army cafeteria some 10-20 kilometers east of their field. And the girl managed to get transfer there!
It wasn't very safe area though. There was a full division of Soviet partisans operating in the area. More or less 8000-10000 soldiers and the Finns had just couple hundreds of soldiers to protect the roads and convoys etc. So the pilots and the Lotta lady still couldn't meet very often.
But the pilots greeted the girl every time they flew a sortie. Somehow their route always seemed to fly over this cafeteria and they made a diving run, pulling up over the little house.
And so the legend started, among the forces in the whole sector, how the Brewster pilots have some really beautiful lady there in the cafeteria.
And once the pilots organized a convoy (don't remember if they had many cars or just one truck but anyway) just to get the girl to their airfield, visiting them.
But - you remember - there was thousands of Soviet partisans in the woods attacking cars and convoys. For example partisans had killed his chief mechanic, and stabbing another Lotta woman to death by bayonets.
So they wanted to be REALLY sure their lady will get safely to the base and back.
So - the guys had two Brewster fighters escorting the convoy all the way - two fighters flying zigzag reconning the area, keeping sharp eye that nobody gets to harm their flight's beloved Lotta.
And Väinö laughed at that. "Not even the Commander of the Air Force got such protection. When he visited us there, we didn't fly any air cover for him. Fighters weren't used for that kind of thing. Except this girl was given fighter protection, we made sure that she will be completely safe."
I wonder, did the girl back then understand what VIP protection she got ;-) Yup, fighter pilots are girl's best friend :-) Mr. Pokela has still regular contact to this particular lady, both are still alive today.
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