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The bombing of Pajala was a bombing that took place in Sweden during World War II on February 21, 1940. Seven Soviet bombers accidentally dropped around 150 aerial bombs over Pajala in Norrbotten County. Six buildings caught fire and two people were injured.
The bombing took place at around 12:40pm that day. A total of 48 explosive bombs weighing between 60 and 100 kilograms each were released. In addition, about a hundred incendiary bombs were spread by a rotating bomb spreader, which the Finns called Molotov's bread basket.
Most of the bombs fell on the outskirts of the village, which may indicate that altitude and wind strength were misjudged. Residents of Kengis, closer to the Finnish border, had seen the passing planes and some of Pajala's residents were therefore warned and were able to seek shelter outdoors or in their homes.
There was no fire department in the village, but residents put out the fires as best they could. Help also came from people in the surrounding villages who heard the bomb calls and saw the clouds of smoke.
One of the aircraft that took part in the attack had to make an emergency landing in Sodankylä in Finland on the way back to the base in Murmansk due to a lack of fuel. The three on board escaped on skis but were captured by Finnish troops. [1]
When the news of the bombing spread, country secretary Ragnar Sundberg traveled directly to Pajala to be able to report to the government. [1] Later that day, Sweden submitted a formal protest to the Soviet Union. At first the Soviets denied that the bombing had taken place, [2] saying the reports were a "malicious fabrication", but on March 6 they admitted that the bombs had been dropped by Soviet planes that had gone off course. It was the only one of the Russian bombings of Sweden during World War II that was recognized by the Soviet government. [3]
In the time before the bombing was recognized as a mistake by the Soviet Union, both the national media and the local press reported extensively on the incident. Communist and social democratic press pushed the view that the bombing was a simple mistake, while bourgeois press took the view that the bombing was a provocation on the part of the Soviet Union. The event sparked further debate on whether Sweden should send aid to the Finns. [3]
Soviet officers later inspected the damage and the Soviet Union paid 40,000 krona in damages. The material damage in society was estimated at almost SEK 45,000.
A Molotov cocktail is a hand-thrown incendiary weapon consisting of a frangible container filled with flammable substances and equipped with a fuse. In use, the fuse attached to the container is lit and the weapon is thrown, shattering on impact. This ignites the flammable substances contained in the bottle and spreads flames as the fuel burns.
The Winter War was a war between the Soviet Union and Finland. It began with a Soviet invasion of Finland on 30 November 1939, three months after the outbreak of World War II, and ended three and a half months later with the Moscow Peace Treaty on 13 March 1940. Despite superior military strength, especially in tanks and aircraft, the Soviet Union suffered severe losses and initially made little headway. The League of Nations deemed the attack illegal and expelled the Soviet Union from its organization.
The Finnish Air Force is one of the branches of the Finnish Defence Forces. Its peacetime tasks are airspace surveillance, identification flights, and production of readiness formations for wartime conditions. The Finnish Air Force was founded on 6 March 1918.
The Mannerheim Line was a defensive fortification line on the Karelian Isthmus built by Finland against the Soviet Union. While this was never an officially designated name, during the Winter War it became known as the Mannerheim Line, after Finnish Army's then commander-in-chief Field Marshal Baron Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim. The line was constructed in two phases: 1920–1924 and 1932–1939. By November 1939, when the Winter War began, the line was by no means complete.
Sweden maintained its policy of neutrality during World War II. When the war began on 1 September 1939, the fate of Sweden was unclear. But by a combination of its geopolitical location in the Scandinavian Peninsula, realpolitik maneuvering during an unpredictable course of events, and a dedicated military build-up after 1942, Sweden kept its official neutrality status throughout the war. At the outbreak of hostilities, Sweden had held a neutral stance in international relations for more than a century, since the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1814 and the invasion of Norway.
Pajala is a locality and the seat of Pajala Municipality in Norrbotten County, Sweden, with 1,958 inhabitants in 2010. It is located in Swedish Lapland.
The Shelling of Mainila, or the Mainila incident, was a military incident on 26 November 1939 in which the Soviet Union's Red Army shelled the Soviet village of Mainila near Beloostrov. The Soviet Union declared that the fire originated from Finland across the nearby border and claimed to have had losses in personnel. Through that false flag operation, the Soviet Union gained a great propaganda boost and a casus belli for launching the Winter War four days later.
The Baltic Sea campaigns were conducted by Axis and Allied naval forces in the Baltic Sea, the Gulf of Bothnia, the Gulf of Finland and the connected lakes Ladoga and Onega on the Eastern Front of World War II. After early fighting between Polish and German forces, the main combatants were the Kriegsmarine and the Soviet Navy, with Finland supporting the Germans until 1944 and the Soviets thereafter. The Swedish Navy and merchant fleet played important roles, and the British Royal Navy planned Operation Catherine for control of the Baltic Sea and its exit choke point into the North Sea.
The military history of Finland consists of hundreds of years of armed actions in the territory encompassing modern Finland.
The Interim Peace was a short period in the history of Finland during the Second World War. The term is used for the time between the Winter War and the Continuation War, lasting a little over 15 months, from 13 March 1940 to 24 June 1941. The Moscow Peace Treaty was signed by Finland and the Soviet Union on 12 March 1940 and it ended the 105-day Winter War.
Helsinki, the capital of Finland, was bombed repeatedly during World War II. Between 1939 and 1944, Finland was subjected to a number of bombing campaigns by the Soviet Union. The largest were three raids in February 1944, which have been called The Great Raids Against Helsinki.
During World War II, the Estonian capital Tallinn suffered from many instances of aerial bombing by the Soviet air force and the German Luftwaffe. The first bombings by Luftwaffe occurred during the Summer War of 1941 as part of Operation Barbarossa. A number of Soviet bombing missions to then German-occupied Tallinn followed in 1942–1944.
Operation Paravane was a British air raid of World War II that inflicted heavy damage on the German battleship Tirpitz, at anchor in Kaafjord in the far north of German-occupied Norway. The attack was conducted on 15 September 1944 by 21 Royal Air Force heavy bombers, which flew from an airfield in the north of the Soviet Union. The battleship was struck by one bomb, and further damaged by several near misses. This damage rendered Tirpitz unfit for combat, and she could not be repaired as it was no longer possible for the Germans to sail her to a major port.
The Battle of Someri took place in the Gulf of Finland during World War II on 8–9 July 1942, between the Soviet Union and Finland. Starting as a modest operation to clear a Finnish observation post from a small island, it became one of the largest surface ship engagements in the Baltic theater.
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The aerial warfare in the Winter War was the aerial aspect of the Winter War between Finland and the Soviet Union from 30 November 1939 to 13 March 1940. While the Soviet air forces greatly outnumbered the Finnish Air Force, the Soviet bombing campaign was largely ineffective, and Finnish pilots and antiaircraft gunners inflicted significant losses on the Soviets.
The Battle of Tali–Ihantala was part of the Finnish-Soviet Continuation War (1941–1944), which occurred during World War II. The battle was fought between Finnish forces—using war materiel provided by Germany—and Soviet forces. To date, it is the largest battle in the history of the Nordic countries.
Operation Pike was a proposed Anglo-French strategic bombing plan to destroy oil-production facilities in the Caucasus in the early years of the Second World War. Air Commodore John Slessor oversaw planning directed against Soviet oil industry. British military planning against the Soviet Union occurred during the first two years (1939–1941) of the Second World War, when, despite formal Soviet neutrality, the British and French, as initial Allies of World War II, concluded that the German–Soviet Trade Agreement of 19 August 1939 and the German–Soviet pact of 23 August 1939 made Stalin an accomplice of Hitler and of Nazi Germany. The plan envisaged destroying the Soviet oil industry to cause the collapse of the Soviet economy and to deprive Germany of Soviet resources.
The FAB 5000NG was a 5,000 kilogram large air-dropped, thin cased, high explosive demolition bomb used by the Soviet Air Forces during World War II. The device was the most powerful aerial bomb in the wartime Soviet inventory.
The Soviet Bombings of Stockholm and Strängnäs in 1944 were a military incident where Soviet aircraft bombed several locations in Stockholm and eastern Sweden during the night of February 22–23, 1944. Bombs were dropped on Blidö and Svartlöga in the northern Stockholm archipelago, near Stavsnäs and Järla, at Eriksdal in Södermalm, as well as in Strängnäs and Pershagen near Södertälje.