Options of Danish Voluntary Finland-Battalion by April 9th 1940

Alternative re-entry of the Winter War volunteers .------

Counterfactual discourse or WHAT IF-study. .Historian Max Jacobsen wrote: "Many a modern day Byron on skies voluntarily appeared on the battleground, and though only a few* were at the frontline, in most western countries there are men, who with a little drop of sadness think of Finland as the one country they nearly did die for." Trotter, da. ed. p. 338.

Danes of the Winter War: 1018 danes volunteered for active duty in the Finnish Army, mostly army officers and men and a dozen military pilots. The Danish Finland-Volunteers Battalion was formed in Oulu, neighbourghing the American Volunteers Battalion**. The force was partly finances by the Danish Finland Volunteers Society: Per-man equipment sums to Finland and travel. Prime contributors and negotiator facing a most reluctant danish government: The Copenhagen businessman H.P.Daehl (Daehls Varehus) and the shipowner, A.P.Møller (Now Mærsk). When after three month of hard fighting, 25.000 finns killed, 200.000 russsian, and finnish army reserves zero, by March 1. and 2., the colonel commanding the danish force was asked to commit two rifle coys (the Americans were asked for one coy) - he said no: The force still needed weapons... This turning down caused anger in all levels of the force. The finns had to sign a grim peace-treaty by March 12. 1940. Expecting fighting to break out again, they asked the danes to stay and moved the force south.

Some 300 left during the week after the peace-treaty, among them the first CO (Battalion strengh by March 13th note 3 bottom). And some returned, when Denmark hersef was attacked by the Nazi-Germany on April 9. 1940. Cabinet"") Decision not to fight except for a symbolic couple of hours became a rough turn to the force (note 4). - Our source fifty years later left it to his listeners to do the experimental thinking by themselves: - 600 danes under arms and ready but 500 nautical miles away: What if you had been there yourself?

This idea (source, see top front) of the early hours of Apr. 10th 1940 orbited among officers of the battalion. (This website do not discuss the history of individuals in any way of which some had nazi-sympaties, others certainly not) The scope of this "wargame" is to point out, that even this small force fighting the nazi-german invasion had served as an "eye-opener".

"Why not retake Bornholm! - The finns recon our rigth to go. This force is capable of taking out the one german regiment there."

I. NOW, WHAT IF... OUTLINE... WHAT-IF" games are fiction.

STORY: Instant allied co-operation meant TWO FRENCH destroyers visiting Helsinki got a SIGNAL D'ACTION from Amiral d'Escadre Skagerrak (Quai d'Orsay consent) to take Our Corps Danois 440 nautical miles to Bornholm, Denmark, and land it. FACT: April 1940 french PM Paul Renaud was one prime-mover combating Nazi-Germany.

The picture below of april 1945, somewhere in Sweden, shows a coy. of danish resistance fighters doing Ground Battle Training to be ready for battles in Denmark against nazi troops, together with allied forces in Denmark. The men wearing the outfit used by the "DANFORCE" by 1944-45. Danish Army Brigade in Sweden formed after agreement with Sweden, legally an army unit in exile allowed a number of 4.800, danish officers, resistance fighters and other young men and women fugitives, As a unit of Allied Forces Europe and part of 21. ARMY (Brit. gen., B.L. Montgomery). Brigade HQ plus five battalions, a small air-group and naval squadron in Karlskona of units escaped on Aug. 29 1943. - The picture makes a good impression of WWII scandinavian light-infantry.

A WEB-SEARCH found the BELOW PICTURE used WITHOUT permission by a site of .de TLD. Main problem to users being a negligent .de textwriter's messing about with concepts as Danish Finland Volunteers of 1939-1940 active in Finland - returning to Denmark after the Winter War, after the German occupation of Denmark. And the Danish Brigade, DANFORCE establ. Nov.1943, part of Allied Forces, members shown below.

II. AN OUTCOME WORTH CONSIDERING

FIGHTING this fight had probably ensured that British PM Winston Churchill, who a few days after the Liberation 1945 of "western" Denmark - but not Bornholm - in a letter to the new US president Harry Thumann put into words his strong image of the Cold War Europe, quote: "From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an iron curtain has descended" unquote:

1) had pointed out the sharp eastern bend to that Curtain right south of BORNHOLM - and 2) WOULD NOT May 7 or 8 have accepted the delay produced by Allied CO Europe Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower when the British General "Dick" Dewing asked London for permission to fly to Bornholm to accept the german surrender after the russian bombings of Rønne and Nexø. GEN D. D. Eisenhower whatever his cause, see below, allowed for the russians - who didn´t answer telegrams for two days - to go there before Dewing and his men in Copenhagen.

Dewing via FO´s Owen Sargent got Churchill´s GO, states Bent Jensen [Now head of Danish Center of Cold War Studies], in his book, Den lange Befrielse, 1996 pag. 72. [Eng. summary: A New Type Of Occupation 1945-1946]. - The source mentioned below might not have been trackable by the mid-nineties. But BJ in pag. 317 does show that the american view on the matter island bases by 1946-1948 certainly was not an improvisation.

This is what US State Deparment recommended in a Potsdam Briefing Paper, Spring 1945*:
Litterature online: *Elliott W Converse: Circling the earth, orig 1984. Dissertion 1984, Princeton, USA

State Department anticipated that The Sovjet Occupation on Bornholm would lead to them requesting Base-Rights - precisely as with the finnish island of Hangö - in the negotiations of March 1940. If that should happend at Potsdam, State Department adviced that US negotiators NOT OPPOSE Sovjet demands. State wouldn't endanger the US Case for Greenland Base-Rights. That is: Don´t quarrel with Mr. Stalin over this baltic island. - Bornholm's the Danes' case - not a US one, unlike Narsarsuaq AB or Sondre Stroemfjord AB in Greenland on the western hemisphere.

The Game we let loose is what the professionals TODAY call "Amphibian Warfare": Rule No. one: You must control the sea to come and go. In the early part of WWII we didn´t have the elaborated conceptions and experience. This is our SEA-C bid: Two warships, two disguised merchant vessels. First to land 1) to grap control of local telephone lines and 2) take out enemy patrol vessels to ensure our force be free to disengage in six days, were: Two Fast Reconnaissance Units, a Motorized Heavy Mortar Unit and a Demolition Engineers Unit. Enemy navy at Bornholm reduced to patrol boats because of ships lost at Norway sec. week of April. German forces on Bornholm est. 1.100 infantry.

Neither side in our Game has enough troops for full area control. Bornholm measures 35 kilometres from Rønne in the west to Gudhjem in the east. - Succes demands reconnaissaince, timely deployment and local overweight. (In France during the retreat to Dunkirk May 21 First Battalion/Royal Irish Fusiliers was assigned 10 km of The La Basses Canal Perimeter.)
source: Guy F. Gough: Thirty Days To Dunkirk. 1990

Storyboard

When I asked Mr. Tom Nielsen, harbourmaster in Tejn, in JanuarY 2010, he actually agreed that a small destroyer anno 1940 might sneak in, most vigilant of course, place the foreship across the entrance of the inner basin - in 1940 the only harbour basin - debark their troops and then back out using both propellers to steady the move; easy on the revolutions not to get propellers "dig down" the heck, and draught not exceeding 4 meters. That´s a vessel at roughly 700 tons deplacement like the french ships, or two by April '40 uncompleted at Copenhagen Navy Yard, the Nymfen and Najaden, at 710 tons, 200 tons less than the swedish "Ehrenskiölds" (sv. skibe scroll to image). Years ago his former college who also performed as a pilot told me that even bigger ships go in, if the skippers got the nerves:

- In bad weather all you see from the sea will be the waves hammering the stones, you can´t hesitate, he said: - "Make some revolutions. Now ready to turn port and go reverse the moment you see the angle to the entrance open up!" By 1940 the outer pier and western basin were not built. Maps above show the old navigation marks, churches and windmills.

CLAP THREE 00:22 MAY 3 - the morning after Christ's Ascencion which in Denmark is a public holiday

The two Torpilleurs (700 tons depl) each embarked one reinforced jaeger compagny, six Nimbus motorcycles and three Morris C8 Quads#. HQ, B-coy and Support with six Ford 1937 buses, ten Morris C8 Quads (with 26 two-wheel ex-artillery 1-ton trailers, ready-loaded), two 1936 Ford Radio (ex-police) cars, one Pontiac and a GMC ambulance, six Triangel wood
log trucks, two heavy mortars, 14 tons of rifle ammunition (40.000 7.62 rounds), 4 tons of mortar bombs and anti vehicle mines, 4 field radios of 52 pounds each, signal- and medical stores, 4.000 field rations, 18 tons of fuel and 40.000 cigarettes reached Gudhjem South Harbour with a 1.262 TDW ice-steamer on loan from war locked Aalborg Atlantic Shipping Co.

(Jaeger coy.: fi. army vocabulary: Fast-moving rifle-coy. with bikes or skies)

The two Torpilleurs left the north east corner of Bornholm with first light. Since 01:45 AM they had disembarked troope. LOUP BLANC (illustration above) in Tejn/ Lynx Blanc in Allinge. Proceding together at 35 knots, north around the island to Rønne, bombarding for twenty minutes air strip and enemy base camp then through the Sound to Allied Skagerrak Force: 3 large french destroyers (autentic fact) only allied ships fast enough to meet german air power.

The Danish Battalion moving uphill Bornholm numbers 662 off. and men.
Local resistance top activated by messengers from bouy tender HDMS ARGUS unloading surplus chains in Nexø Harbour.

III. THE GROUND BATTLE

FACTS (HIST.) - By March 1940 Sovjet "Vojt", Josef Stalin, had enough of the diehard finnish army, as Jowlett & Snodgrass state. (Source: Osprey booklet: Finland at war, 1939-1945. 2006).

Northern Europe 1940 or where the Hell is Bornholm?

THE WHAT-IF GAME (FICTION)

By April 9 the danes in Louisa had 3 weeks to shape The Volunteer BTN for a new war on wheels, gasoline and firepower; the CO(KIA) and EO(KIA) were both cavalry officers. BTN OO Capt. William (Røde) Troost served in the Foreign Legion under Lieutenant-Colonel Prins Aage af Rosenborg. BTN G2 Capt. T.(Ted) Jorgensen returned after a year with The Royal Can. Mounted Police. None doubted the Copenhagen government would come out in extreme outrage, as with the danish minister Henrik Kauffmann in America. And declare "us" privateers.

Infantry operating in southern scandinavian landscapes, even in the spring cannot be caught in motti like road-dependant russian units in snowcovered Mid-Finland. By May garden-owners finished digging. - This force prepare the battle ground: Minefields, meadow-swampings, wood cuts to redirect enemy troops, fire angels and evac air strips or havens. Right flank driving fast inland from Allinge, while left flank concentrate forces west and south west of Røø.

Plan of attack: Left Flank with B- and P-coys (with sappers & marksmen's units), mortar platoon (2 ex-russ 120 mm/38 mortars) prepare The Final Debunking from positions between Almindingen (south), Rø (north) and Østerlars Church (east) - as enemy shift focus after two days, from The Early Diversion Attack by Right (Allinge-Tejn) Flank: A- and C-Coys with recce units TO-4, TO-3, 1 mortar (ex-russ 120 mm/38) and engineers demolition team.

Samples Day 1 Danish vol. bn's combat diary

Extract 0020 of Battalion War Diary of May 1940
Fr. Torpilleur T-124 May 3 GMT 01:35 east of Allinge [A-coy st.by on deck] - reacts to fire from house north of harbour. Fire 7 rounds from fore gun mount - A-coy landed unopposed: 2. platoon took 21 prisoners most of whom wounded by splinters. Made expected contact to lokal resistence. Platoons 1. & 3. both mounted (bikes) reconnoitre Hammer-Lake-walley then south at west coast. TO-4 escorted signals to Telephone-House, briefing with resistance representative [image above] at road-Y behind Cafe Hut-Li-Hut. ORDERS: Motorized advance, best speed. Recce coastal area through Jons Kapel. If no enemy contact, halt at Runic Stone east of Hasle, awaiting téte of C-coy, keeping visual contact to mortar's three observation teams advancing from Klem´sker.

A) May 3 GMT 2:20 A coy 4. platoon advanced inland along the stream to the Tileworks where two Volvo 38 TLV were taken. Cought up with 2.plt 47 off. & men carried, (bikes left as expendable). Motorized advance, best speed. A-coy HQ section [2 off. 1 nco radiooprator & 3 riflemen, messengers] found as planned two local taxies, a Buick 1931 soft top and a Fiat Convertìbile, once Cardinal Camillo´s, and caught up with the TLVs, GMT 3:52 1 kilometer (1 km = 0.6213 mile) south of Hammer Haven.

Extract 0038 of Battalion War Diary of May 1940A) May 3 GMT 4:20: TO-4 pos. hill 069 near deserted stable, 600 meters east of Jons Kapel park area ops and engage enemy with 2 Lathi, 2 MG and 10 rifles: A coy platoon 1 pos. 500 meters south og hill 069 engage with 3 MG, 3 Lathi. Enemy infantery unit, reinforced coy-strenght mounted advance in four busses. Two busses hit, enemy though several casulties quickly deployed at both sides of road. All buses shot up GMT 4:55. A-coy plt 1 took 5 casulties. Called Bn ambulance, which reached pos. at GMT 5:25. TO-4 and 1 plt rounded up 17 ememy inf. 11 wounded by bus explosions. All sent back on ambulance support lorry. Force proceeded south. Artillery Observer Quad (1 off. 3 riflemen) met by SGT TO-4 at GMT 6:30.

Extract 0046 of Battalion War Diary of May 1940M) May 3 GMT 5.11: Mortar platoon in pos. north of hill 142 and 10 km stone. 3 Tampella 120 mm mortars operational. 5:34: First enemy engagement, 26 shots on radioed direction from Forward Field Artillery Observer No.3 pos. 2.2 km west of Mortar plt. According to FFAO, 200 m road unusable, 2 enemy motorcycle units hit. No visible movements. - Notice to Transport off in charge: Mortar platoon aquired one Triangel with 1.5 m sided semitrailer taking all 18 crew, weapons and 256 rd of ammunition.

Extract 0091 of Battalion War Diary of May 1940S) May 3 GMT 10:30: PLT (First Lieutenant) Signals/Telephone-unit II announce command of still existing telephone-lines in triangel Hammeren/Hasle/Gudhjem North. Battalion signal units able to make field connection to net as needed. Two colloquial-stations manned. All civilian traffic terminated.

... until objects secured May 7 2000.

KIA (killed in action) plus other casualties = 10.6 % (70). Wounded or injured evacuated prior to rearguard lift off. The comparatiely high losses among officers and NCOS were overcome by the four remaining CAPTAINS, Troost, Jorgensen, Mommsen and de Lamar Piffholm i.e. 3d, 4th, 5th and 6th in line of command, when the CO and the XO were killed during LUFTWAFFE air raids on Day 2.

AT ONE TIME 40 nautical miles east of Bornholm at 18.000 feet. The Juno motors quickly cut not make noice while gliding over the wake lines.

*) Autentisk information, der tilgik svensk efterretningstjeneste og ses af kildesamlingen "Transiteringsfrågan och därmed sammenhängande spörsmål, bind I, april - juni 1940", trykt 1947.
Illust. JU-88 er tegnet efter et foto af en Airfix model venligst udlånt redaktionen: En FINSK JU-88 A-4, se LINK page down (common wikipedia).
I 1940 var de tysk-producerede Junkers 88 (A1 og senere serier) blandt de hurtigste i Europa. JU-88 A4 tophast. 254 knob i 17.000 feet, sercice cieling 17.070 feet. aktionsradius 2.717 km.
efter:
Combat Aircraft, Taylor. "Fuel capacity" (A-4) 3.850 liter i flg. Manfried Griel, Junkers 88, s. 28.

IV. THE ART of getting out the men

.DESPITE SET-BACKS mainly by the Luftwaffe, on May 6 this AWWV attack secured success. Strategically the Battle of Norway drained the Kriegsmarine.
.The battlecruiser Gneisenau was damaged. Sistership Scharnhorst developed defects. One heavy cruiser, Blücher, was sunk. Two, Hipper and Lutzow damaged.
.Light cruisers, Königsberg & Karlsruhe and ten destroyers were sunk. - TOO LITTLE WAS LEFT to stop The AWWV evacuate into exile in Sweden. Map + notes

.None of the ships evacuating The AWWV were part of the attack: Two 500 TDW tugs changed hands waiting for a refit at the Wärtsila Shipyard when former .owners meet negotiators connected to danish-american shipping. Three schooners and a petrolcarrier too, two ex-swedish fast patrol boats as ambulances.

.AWWV-Intelligence scored by CORNER KICK when the screwschooner ALMA IV May 4 0.20 docked in NEXØ and reported Nazi concentration of troop transports
.steering west in three groups observed 2 and 3 May south of Öland thus confirming The Makkinens. Later 10 May we knew it preceded the attack on France.

.But wise IOs look both ways - The Boston Gazetteer and Casablanca-based La Vigie Marocaine - recognized the Campaign as proof the Wehrmacht was mortal.

.*RED, WE FIGURE by The Foreign Legion´s 13. Demi-Brigade. When earmarked for Finland it ran "Sahara-Narvik-Brest", Svend R Christensen wrote in 1942.
..Casablanca-Dernierre Heure EXTRACT ten days before Outbreak of The Winter War deleted here 1.02.2022

The drawing below shows our Fictive Reference Group 1: The Volunteers' Rearguard first part: TO-platoons with 61 officers and men and small civilian party awaiting evacuation by the ALMA diesel engined three mast schooner. (TO: the Finnish Army 1940 code for Light Reconnaisance Unit).

To fetch our Fictive Reference Group2, second and last part of the Volunteers' Rearguard (22 officers and men, 3 women + 1 she marten) one schooner-rigged former gasolin steam tanker, the DUNDAS, steering slowly west below a fluffy horison northeast of Hammeren, ready to become a surprisingly fast in-exile-smugler's-ferry for Our End Game.

V. Cognitions of war

ONE COGNITION, this "IF" campaign of Bornholm PREFIGURES is the necessity of Air Superiority - and CHEAPER this early in the war than Crete 1941 - where The British Mediterranean Fleet nearly succumbed to Luftwaffe medium bombers. The Game predicates Day 3 german JU-88 [quite robust] medium bombers hit The Volunteer´s heavy morters. They thus lost the edge this "batterie-demi" provided. But the fighting got tougher: More men shot to kill: German soldiers frustrated by the cleft between experience and propaganda that danes were friendly; while the danish soldiers developed a drive to end with honour what they came for... get "the grand idea" in maps Campaign.html

One TITLE of a dissertation on individual motives of Danish Finland Volunteers, 1998, by Henrik Højlund Olsen was: "They stole our honour and the right to fight back". They the PM & the FS.

The number of troops in this study are ONE to FOURTY of Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower´s thump-rule "on the edge of too little", against the german army, autumn 1944.
Crusade in Europe, 1948 pag. 352 or... Some 1.000 troops pr kilometer /webmasters estim. (See above: Amphibian, LC Guy Gough´s II/RIF SW of Dunkirk 5.1940)

The Game disentangles our two destroyers to join the Allied Skagerrak Patrol, DCT 8, of the 40 knots destroyers Le Triomphant, Le Malin & L'Indomptable. Their operations of April 23 1940 is history. Four (200 - 300 tons) typical scandinavian three-mast schooners serve, sniffing through darkness and haze, as infantry evac-vessel. In the text, Alternative re-entry, we use a french mot, eskadron-demi, to give a french connection of our Volenteer Battalion, inspired by Svend R. Christensen, author of Sahara-Narvik-Brest, who with the French Foreign Legion took
part in The Battle of Narvik and The Fight for France.

Disengagement .as the one above with nearly no bloodshed would be an uncommon event of World War Two. Realities being for example The Evacuation of Boulogne ten to fourteen days later by 4.368 Welsh and Irish Guard and some civilians after a fierce fight against advancing german armour. RN destroyers engaging enemy tanks at point blank.

Vigilance re-destilled - May 5 1945 the germans surrendered in Holland, Northwestern Germany and Denmark. Bornholm got but an extra 11 months of occupation! The Red Army left April 5 '46. The British adviced da. policymakers showed readyness to take military responsibility. Then the russians pulled out. To Copenhagen the new bipolarity was still veiled.

BORNHOLM 1658. This way of fighting for yourself has one special Bornholm-derivative (Fully webmasters expression): "Fighting For Your Right To Stay A Member Of The Kingdom Of Denmark!" - With proud humour the islanders tell their 1658 story of Captain Jens Pedersen Kofoed, Vikar Poul Anker and Sheriff Peder Olsen Bornholm, the three of them caught the Swedish colonel, Johan Printzensköld, in Rønne and shot him. Others lured the swedish soldiers into surrender. Later, islander envoys gave back the island to The King of Denmark.

Thank you for playing along

St. Siebken

NOTION: counterfactual: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/causation-counterfactual/

VI. NOTES...

* One of them later left his white panted finnish army skies for my farther-in-law to use for the sport of it. - The Finland Volunteers, mr. Folmer Rasmussen, my bookdealer in the eightees once said: as a rule were older than us... By "us" he ment the Danish Resistance... Want of adventure and foreign experience were typical motives for danish officers. Wages symbolic, one must be economic independent. One example being Prince Aage of Rosenborg, who served as an officer of the French Foreign Legion. - Max Jacobsen quotation [top]: W. Trotter: Den finske Vinterkrig. 2004, page 338.

** Strengh (americans with finnish roots) differs between writers. But some did see action in the last days of the war.

TOP if you want to...

'3 Strenght of force March 13, commanding officer now LC J.H. Skjoldager, 944 = 35 officers 96 ncos and 813 men. 412 left before orders deployed the battalion as frontier guard at the Hangø Peninsula opposite to the island base now on russian hands. Strength of force March 18: 532 all ranks. Later some of those who left returned. (Source: I orkanens øje, Jan Ahtola Nielsen, 2006)

"") and '4: Decision-makers at Amalienborg Castle, during the german attack, studying the ultimatum recieved in the early hours of April 9: Danish Prime, Th. Stauning, Foreign Minister, P. Munch and Adm. Hjalmar Rechnitzer (shortly after forced to resign by four other senior naval officers, because of his appeaser-attitude) - wanted to give in, against opinion of Gen. William W. Prior, Army C-in-C, and short questions of King Christian X. - Since November 1939 Cabinet obstructed support to Finland. When by 1941 6.000 (Hist. Bo Lidegaard 2003) - incl 225-235 former Finland-volunteers (Henrik Højllund Olsen, RUC unpublished 1998) - joined the Nazi-forces against Russia they did it with the later redrawn blessing of government. Danish Finland-Volunteers Society broke up June 25 1941 on the question of participation in Finlands second war against Russia, the so-called Continuation War.

# Finland purched modern war-materiel from Britain, Sweden, USA, Italy and others, but sure made changes to their own need: Fi.1940 Bus-truck wiki

#The Morris Quad C8s - In this game, are honouring the tales by my first math-teacher on his personal experience with the C8s in [postwar dan.service]

^The Ford Bus 1937s front engined model.

^Triangel Bus "refurbished" for rail service, picture from North Jutland

µFINSK JU-88 A4 eng. FINNISH JU-88 A-1 aircraft wwii photo, common wiki public domain in Finland

Distance Turku - Bornholm approx. 440 nautical miles, 20 hours at 22 knots. The torpilleurs arrive 3 hours before first light: Astron. twilight medio Apr 05:00 AM/ latitude N 55 30'.

Distance Turku - Dübendorf (Swiss Mil. Air Base south of Zürich) approx. 1.000 nautical miles, (notice Capt. Makkinen and CO Hvide Jensen use the nautical term knot, 1.852 km/h).

New York Times Aug. 30 2003 notes: .

At the 60 anniversary of the end of WWII, on the collaborationist government April 9 1940 to August 29 1943, danish prime, Anders Fogh Rasmussen marked War Era Collabotration with Nazi occupation force as "morally unjustificable".thus being the first danish prime to do so publicly.. source en.wiki

"DanTO Vangdialog..." (Off. Vol. BN & resist. man) 9. Oct. 2022 udgår

"Dernierre Heure of 20 Oct. 1939" fra Casablanca dagblad udgår

30 Nov. 1939 -13 March 1940 The Winter War between Finland and Sovjet-Russia