Peacetime spy photos handed over to Germans
Armas Eskola: Lentäminen oli välttämätöntä
Published by Karisto 1969
Different phases of Finnish military aviation from the 20s forwards.
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Author: Juhana Lepoluoto
Originally published in the daily newspaper "Keskisuomalainen" on May 3,
2002.
Details of 1939 photography missions directed by Armas Eskola revealed
only now
The big, still unanswered question: were the Soviets aware of the
intelligence cooperation?
On the May Day eve of 1939, when peace still reigned in Europe, Armas
Eskola's twin engine Bristol Blenheim took off from the Immola airbase on
a secret mission to the Soviet airspace. The aircraft was of the same
"short nosed" type that Eskola had delivered from Filton, England, since
1936. Eskola's detailed description of those peacetime recon flights is
published only now, in the book "Jatkosodan kaukopartiolennot", collected
and partly written by Kavo Laurila. (Published by Koala Kustannus, 2002)
"The first flight was probably done by German request," Eskola pondered.
According to him, the General Headquarters had German experts teaching the
Finns the interpretation of stereo photographs. As a reward the Finns seem
to have received intelligence-gathering equipment, including excellent
aerial cameras. The British Eagle cameras used earlier had proven to be
untrustworthy, especially at high altitudes.
After the break of the Winter War, many military personnel heard of the
peacetime flights. The secret came out three years ago, revealed by the
retired Colonel Jyri Paulaharju who collected an exhibit depicting wartime
aerial recon.
Until today, the cooperation with Germans had remained in the dark.
Somersaults over Aunus
The first flight was done to the main base of the Red Navy in Kronstadt,
over the Estonian coast, to Leningrad, at the altitude of 7,300 meters
(24,300 ft). The camera took photos all the way and captured the Soviet
Navy's preparations for the May Day parade on film.
Over 20 recon flights were done by August 1939, 13 of which were
productive. The targets were the airbases east of Lake Ladoga, the shores
of Lake Onega (Äänisjärvi) and the region of Petroskoy.
One of these flights caused a strict note that demanded punitive action
against the crew of a Finnish place with BL registry. Eskola's voice is
rife with irony as he tells how the search for guilty party began in
Kauhava, and not until just before Winter War there was any idea of the
culprit.
The hose of the pilot's oxygen mask had come off unnoticed and he had
passed out. The plane did weird maneuvers over the city of Aunus. The
photographer, Staff Sergeant Oinonen, couldn't reach his parachute because
the photographing equipment filled the machine gun turret.
Another time trouble came on the Finnish side: the motor of the camera
quit because of faulty valve springs. The pilot had to fly low to the
Frontier Guard airbase at Onttola and face an angry Colonel. Colonel Erkki
Raappana calmed down after hearing what was going on.
Even a general was looking for culprit
On the second day of the Winter War, December 1, 1939, the
Commander-in-Chief of the Air Force, General J.F.Lundqvist, came to
Luonetjärvi, Tikkakoski, and showed the staff HQ "a terribly big bunch of
photographs we had taken", as Eskola put it. According to the General, the
time of secrets was over. Early '41 Eskola was called for a hearing. The
C-in-C had given an order to begin investigations on the revealed recon
flights. Eskola strictly refused any kinds of interrogations.
After the Continuation War Lundqvist, a known anglophile, was made the
Chief of Defence. President Juho Kusti Paasikivi however relieved him of
the duty, when Lundqvist attempted to do services to the allied Watch
Commission, that weren't even requested. Lundqvist wanted to make quick
purges in the Defence Forces by forcing high officers to retire.
Lundqvist's reputation is uneasy, and no one thinks the former artillery
officer as any kind of expert on air war.
Did the Soviets know?
There is material concerning Finns in In the so-called Venona papers,
deciphered Soviet intelligence messages that the U.S. National Security
Agency published. According to them, Soviet Union had informants in high
levels of Finnish government and military.
Soviet military intelligence was in disorder before Winter Was, as its
creator Jan Berzin had lost his life in Stalin's purges. Earlier Berzin's
organization had revealed the secret cooperation between Finland and
Estonia to close the Gulf of Finland, with the help of their agent,
photographer Lieutenant Vilho Pentikäinen.
It is known that the Finnish Blenheim programme was a special interest of
the Soviet intelligence, and the bombers were targeted for sabotage. There
may be no reason to suspect, though, that the fault in the vent springs in
Eskola's plane was deliberate.
But if the dictator government of Josif Stalin, fervent in its paranoid
hunt of saboteurs, got a hint of Finnish spy flights from a reliable,
high-ranking source, it may have affected the coming events.
The pilot of the recon flights, ret. Lieutenant Colonel Armas Eskola, met
his surviving colleagues in the aviation museum of Tikkakoski in 1989.
During the flights, Armas Eskola's rank was Captain.
There's interesting discussion of the topic in the
Third Reich Forum, some of which quoted below::
Did anyone saw article from Etelä-Suomen Sanomat 17.11 "Suomalaiset Leningradin taivaalla kesällä 1939" (Finns in the Leningrad sky in summer 1939). It tells about several(23 if I remember correct) missions where Bristol Blendheim plane with 3 crew members flew over and photographed Leningrad, Kronstad, and southern beach of gulf of Finland. Germany used same region in their attack to Leningrad in 1941. Only few people knew about these missions and no one still knows who neened these pictures. Captain Armas Eskola who flew all 23 missions believes that Germany was behind it...
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This is the first time I have seen this information. Sounds a bit far fetched that FAF would have done photographing flights on German account in 1939. More plausible reason would be own security needs. The situation in Europe was already getting tense and photographic information, or spying if the planes flew over Soviet territory, could have revealled any troop concentrations on the Soviet side of the Finnish and Estonian borders. Strength and location of the Soviet Baltic Fleet would probably also have been of interest. If there was any co-operation with some other nation, I would guess it was Estonia. Especially given the recently published study on Finnish-Estonian co-operation in coastal defence.
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I have also red about these flights. They are well described in Kavo Laurila's book about Finnish long-range patrol pilots (published in 2002) and also in the book(s) of Joppe Karhunen. These stories are written/told by Capt. Eskola himself so they should be reliable.
Eskola says that he saw German officials at Helsinki in the FAF Staff. Finns also received new Zeiss cameras from Germany for these missions, so it is more than likely that this photography operation was mutual Finnish-German one. Why these regions were photographed is another thing, but it is always good to know what is behind the frontier because situation was becoming "hotter" all the time...
My theory is that photographing was done for the making of new better maps. On the other hand Soviet Union carried out similar kind of job in Finland and for sure elsewhere too. These flights were called "ghost flights" in Finland and happened before Winter War. For example Lt. T. Huhanantti was about to crash with an unknown plane near Utti air base in 1938 (or 39?). That plane flew with all lights off and Finnish pilots believed that it would have been in secret duties. But was it a Soviet one? The Commander of FAF ordered that Huhanantti should admit that he saw nothing.
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AFAIK Soviet "Ghost flights" over Finland were common in 1934 and also just before WWII. There was a big trial against Finnish helpers (beacon maintenance) of these flights and it seems that this trial proved that the Soviet flights really had occured. However, I have only one source for this information: the book "Skuggan över Norden" by Valentin Sjöberg, that was written for political reasons, i.e. anti-bolshevism. Who knows of later and more objective sources?
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I don't think the fact that the cameras were manufactured by Zeiss is very relevant. Zeiss manufactured most if not of all cameras that Finns used for aerial photography. One type manufactured by Zeiss was designed by Nenonen's staff. Zeiss bought the patent.
It is an other matter if German officers have been present. Still I don't really see what possible benefit Finns could have had from the business. Being caught on a mission does not sound worth the trouble if the only beneficiary was a third power. German-Finnish relations were not the best possible in 1938 or 1939 either. There must be something more to it than has been mentioned in the references quoted here.
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I don't think the fact that the cameras were manufactured by Zeiss is very relevant. Zeiss manufactured most if not of all cameras that Finns used for aerial photography. One type manufactured by Zeiss was designed by Nenonen's staff. Zeiss bought the patent.
I thought Gen. Nenonen just invented the method of stereo photographing and Zeiss made the camera systems for that. I don't know any details so I may be wrong but this indicate that Finns and Germans co-operated in this sector already much before WW II.
It is an other matter if German officers have been present. Still I don't really see what possible benefit Finns could have had from the business. Being caught on a mission does not sound worth the trouble if the only beneficiary was a third power. German-Finnish relations were not the best possible in 1938 or 1939 either. There must be something more to it than has been mentioned in the references quoted here.
I didn't say "German officers" because officials Eskola met wore civil clothes but spoke German. It is also possible that these guys were not Germans.
Of course we Finns get these photographs too. It seems that another country partispated in these missions - perhaps financing them, supplying films and cameras etc. The primary reason for these flights was for sure mapping. Perhaps spying newest Soviet ships and aircraft (types and numbers) could be other reasons.
I don't think military relationships would have been as bad as political relationships. You forget that Gen. Halder visited in Finland in the summer 1938 (IIRC). Many Finnish officers visited in Germany for example Capt. "Eka" Magnusson (later Commander of Flying Squadron 24) who got to know interesting things on German air defence in 1938. Heinkel He 112 "cannon fighter" was demonstrated at Utti after that visit, but was fortunately not bought (it was a "sheep in wolf's clothes" according to Suomen Ilmailuhistoriallinen Lehti / Finnish Aviation History Magazine).
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This is a very interesting post. Thank you for posting it on this forum. I would like to give some more fuel to this discussion by asking some further questions. I hope you don't mind me doing this. The questions are:
a.) Did Finland have any naval intelligence surveillance stations along the Baltic Sea coastline and on the islands of Suursari, Seiskari and Laavansaari, from which it could easily monitoring the movements of the Soviet Baltic Fleet? I have read in some book some years ago that from the Finnish border town and famous sea resort before the war, TERIJOKI, today known as Zelenogorsk, you could very easily saw all the movements of the Soviet Baltic Fleet in Kronstadt and Sankt Petersburg?.
b.) If these aerial reconnaissance flights really happen, how come the Soviets were not aware of them? I mean the fact that someone could made twenty-three air missions unharmed over Kronstadt and Sant Petersburg, the second largest city in Soviet Union and the largest Soviet Naval Base in the Baltic, in such a tense time as it was 1939 is leaving me in some skepsis. Was either the Soviet air defence so badly manned and led or ..... Also, how come the Soviet spy, one Finnish officer in the Finnish headquarters did not introduce to the Soviets that such reconnaissance flights are being carried ourt over Soviet Union? Unless of course, if they were kept in absolute secrecy even in the Finnish Military Command.
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It would seem extremely risky to fly such missions over the very city whose security was used as the pretext for territorial demands on the Karelian Isthmus. If the Blenheim would have been shot down, it would have offered an immediate reason to attack, so the risks were politically high explosive.
On the other hand, Blenheim was a comparatively fast aircraft compared to Soviet fighters at that time (Polikarpov I-16), and obviously the missions were flown in a very high altitude to avoid detection visually or by sound. Apparently the weather had to be bright for good photographic resolution.
Air surveillance radar systems were not operative on the Soviet side then, so the Blenheim would have been revealed only with bad luck from an airborne Soviet fighter.
The number of missions, 23, sounds high. Do the sources give the reason for this? Was it perhaps "basic research" to determine a reference point regarding normal peacetime military activity, to be compared with troop concentrations later?
Are you quite sure about the name of the battleship above?
My bet is it's the "Oktyabrskaya Revolyutsiya", or October Revolution.
"Gangut" is an interesting story in itself. The Soviet / Russian naval history celebrates an unknown naval battle, "The Battle of Gangut", which few know about in the west. "Gangut" is actually the Russian way of pronouncing the Swedish "Hangö Udd", for "Hankoniemi" in Finnish. As far as I remember, The Imperial Russian Fleet had success in its waters against the Royal Swedish Navy sometimes in history. But I have not heard of "Gangut" given as a name to a warship.
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(I thought Gen. Nenonen just invented the method of stereo (photographing and Zeiss made the camera systems for that. I don't (know any details so I may be wrong but this indicate that Finns and (Germans co-operated in this sector already much before WW II.
Nenonen did not invent the method but he and his staff improved it a lot increasing the efficiency by 20 times compared to what it was before. This led to a situation where the army was mapping Finland 5 to 10 times faster than the civilian authorities.
Zeiss was not selected because it was a German company but because it was the best. And in some areas it still is. Some Japanese camera manufacturers still use lenses made by Zeiss because of their superior quality. So the fact that the equipment was "made in Germany" is not very significant.
What comes to the visits of German officers in Finland that was the policy German government followed in Finland. The more the diplomatic relationships deteriorated the more German foreign office used the inofficial channel that soldiers provided. Because of personal relationship between many Finnish and German officers it was relatively easy to get an invitation. German political goal was to prevent Finland becoming one of the Scandinavian neutrals. Those days both Germany and Russia allowed Finland only to choose side not to stay out. From Finnish point of view, the ministery of foreign affairs did not understand how the visits of German and western, especially British, military would be interpreted in Soviet Union. Obviously Berlin understood very well how the visits would be interpreted.
Wipert von Blücher's (German ambassador in Finland) comments that have been quoted in many history books are very revealing. He clearly saw how the German influence in Finland deteriorated towards the end of the 1930's and he did his best to slow down the process. Using visits of the military was one of the ways he recommended. He also tried other measures, like inviting Finnish artists to visit Germany. Unfortunatley Olavi Paavolainen's visit turned into a disaster from Blüchers point of view. As Blücher himself noted "ten years would not be enough to make good of the damage caused by Paavolainens book" (Kolmannen valtakunnan vieraana , Guest of the Third Reich).
Without more information I still find it hard to believe that FAF would have photographed Leningrad area on German account given the potential consequencies of getting caught. I don't doubt that Abwehr could well have received copies of the photos through some deal.
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a.) Did Finland have any naval intelligence surveillance stations along the Baltic Sea coastline and on the islands of Suursari, Seiskari and Laavansaari, from which it could easily monitoring the movements of the Soviet Baltic Fleet? I have read in some book some years ago that from the Finnish border town and famous sea resort before the war, TERIJOKI, today known as Zelenogorsk, you could very easily saw all the movements of the Soviet Baltic Fleet in Kronstadt and Sankt Petersburg?.
Well, not officially, but we could watch over all movements of Soviet Baltic Fleet. That was the main reason we lost Karelian Isthmus, these islands and submarines were forbidden for the Finnish Navy. Finns together with Estonians had solved the encrypting code of Soviet Baltic Fleet and could read their messages, so there was no need for observing.
All coastal batteries which could hit the sea routes to St. Petersburg and Kronstadt naval base were destroyed according to Tartu peace agreement in 1920. Also the islands of the Bay of Finland were unarmed.
Terijoki [Zelenogorsk] was not a town. There were only three towns in ceded areas: Viipuri [Vyborg], Sortavala and Käkisalmi [Priozjorsk].
b.) If these aerial reconnaissance flights really happen, how come the Soviets were not aware of them? I mean the fact that someone could made twenty-three air missions unharmed over Kronstadt and Sant Petersburg, the second largest city in Soviet Union and the largest Soviet Naval Base in the Baltic, in such a tense time as it was 1939 is leaving me in some skepsis. Was either the Soviet air defence so badly manned and led or ..... Also, how come the Soviet spy, one Finnish officer in the Finnish headquarters did not introduce to the Soviets that such reconnaissance flights are being carried ourt over Soviet Union? Unless of course, if they were kept in absolute secrecy even in the Finnish Military Command.
They just couldn't find/reach a fast flying single plane. The flying height was 6000 m which is quite high. Not all of these flights were directed to St.Petersburg. The whole coast from the border of Estonia, Karelian Isthmus and areas north from Lake Ladoga were photographed. And not all missions succeeded. IIRC at least once plane was about to crash when there was a failure in pilot's oxygen system. Plane crossed the border at low level and it was seen by Soviet soldiers. This occasion led to the exchange of notes between Finnish and Soviet border authorities.
I'm not quite sure if there were Soviet spy(s) in Finnish General Staff, more likely they worked in the Ministry of Defence. As a matter of fact even the Commander of Air Defence Maj.Gen. Jarl Lundqvist didn't know about these missions initially. The order came from the General Staff.
Perhaps our military authorities wanted to assure that there would have been no danger of amphibious assault against the southern coast of Finland. For us Soviet troop concentrations were of course vital information.
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