Air Defence in Northern Europe 1

AIR POWER BEFORE WORLD WAR II

Finland

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The Finnish Air Force was founded on 6 March 1918, and its first aircraft was donated by a Swedish count, Erik von Rosen, and bore his own personal insignia, blue swastikas, painted on its wings. This was the origin of the first official Finnish Air Force markings, which thus have nothing to do with the Nazi swastikas of the 1930s.

There was one exceptional feature in the founding of the FAF, that it was organized right from the start as an independent branch of the armed forces. This foresight on the part of the Supreme Commander, Mannerheim, created a good basis for its development and made it one of the oldest air forces in the world.

The FAF flew its first combat operations in the War of Independence in 1918, its main missions being reconnaissance sorties, with equipment that included a modest total of 19 Thulin Parasol, Albatros, Friedrichshafen, Rumpler, D.F.W.C.V and Nieuport aircraft.⁵

In summer 1918, after the War of Independence was over, the FAF was organized into five air stations, of which three acted as training centers as well. Because of the enormous number of lakes in the country, sea planes were regarded as the most suitable type of aircraft, thus four out of the five air stations were in effect sea plane harbours. All of the stations were located in southern Finland, as their main mission was surveillance and in this way the network served well to cover the Gulf of Finland and Lake Ladoga areas. The total number of aircraft was increased to 31, representing 14 different types.⁶ This type variety was to prove a fairly permanent problem in later times, especially for the FAF technicians.

New proposals were made in the early 1920s to organize and strengthen the Finnish Air Force in order to be ready to take up the challenges emerging in the international military aviation. The Commander drew up a development plan according to which the FAF should have 15 fighter squadrons, 10 reconnaissance squadrons, 8 ground attack squadrons and 8 bomber squadrons, to planned total 315 aircraft. A competing plan devised by British specialists put greater emphasis on the offensive squadrons, especially sea planes.⁶ The small number of existing air bases, the ubiquitous presence of lakes and the dominance of sea operations in a British context had obviously left their mark. The FAF Commander's plan was much more up to date than the British proposal, but the real arbitrator proved to be the lack of resources, which effectively compromised any development plans.

The next attempt was made around 1930, when a plan for 17 squadrons was proposed, with a total of 221 aircraft.⁶ This had been influenced by the international trend which favoured an offensive role for military air power. The earlier predominance of fighter aircraft in planning had relax to create some room for bombers as well. Air warfare was still too distant a subject for either the military or political leadership to appreciate, however, and yet one more plan was more or less buried. The total complement of the FAF in the early 1930s remained at around 80 aircraft.

When General C.G.E. Mannerheim in 1931 was appointed Chairman of the Defence Committee in Finland, he initiated a thorough investigation into the status of the Finnish Defence Forces. He was one of the military leaders who foresaw the importance of air operations in the future wars and therefore set about improving the combat potential of the Air Force. The international fashion of bomber dominance was criticized by a group of fighter pilots who, started to oppose the offensive ideology and to emphasis the importance of air defence in any future war. They were able to achieve positive results in the priorities assigned to the purchase programs, to the extent that the five-year program of 1937 included 11 squadrons comprising 81 fighters, 27 bombers, 52 reconnaissance and light ground attack planes for army cooperation and 13 maritime reconnaissance aircraft.⁶ War was about to break out by this time, however, and the armament program was very much unfinished. Even so, the fighter leaders had developed and practiced a Finnish blend of fighter tactics which proved to be justified in the harsh test of the air combat.⁷ The use of formation tactics and the emphasis on individual precision in air-to-air gunnery were important force multipliers against the superior numbers of the enemy.

The organization of FAF in 1938 was:⁶

Air Force Headquarters, Helsinki

1 Wing

Staff, Suur-Merijoki

10, 12, 14 and 16 Reconnaissance squadrons, Viipuri and Sortavala

2 Wing

Staff, Utti

24 and 26 Fighter squadrons, Utti

3 Wing

Staff, Immola

44 and 46 Bomber squadrons, Immola

36 Maritime squadron, Santahamina

Air Academy, Kauhava

Technical School, Santahamina

Air Depot, Tampere

The State Aircraft Factory in Tampere had planned and manufactured several original aircraft types and was building Fokker DXXI fighters and Blenheim bombers, for example, under license.

When the Winter War began on 30th November 1939, the FAF had altogether 114 aircraft in its possession, but almost a half of these were obsolescent. Thus the nation was placing its pilots in a most difficult defence position. Their motivation and fighting spirit were high, however, and the training provided in both the FAF and the voluntary Air Defence Association gave a good boost for their morale. Also, the people at large lent both psychological and material support. The various collections of money by students and other groups materialized in the form of donations of aircraft to the Air Force, and a special Academic Air Defence Organization was founded in addition to the existing Air Defence Association to support the Air Force.⁶

Anti-aircraft artillery was first considered by the Finnish Defence Forces in 1921, when an artillery committee considering anti-aircraft defence decided that 21 batteries were needed to protect the front-line troops at the center of the defence. This proposal did not lead to any action by the general staff, however, and remained in existence on paper only.⁸

The next time that the question anti-aircraft artillery was raised was in a meeting the Defence Rationalization Committee on 26th November 1923. The need to organize this new branch of artillery and acquire the proper weaponry was identified and calculations of the material needed in war time were made.⁸

AAA training started on 1st July 1924, and the first anti-aircraft battery was founded on 18th June 1926. By 1928 three anti-aircraft batteries were ready, belonging to the coastal and field artillery divisions. This arrangement caused certain discrepancies in the cooperation over training methods and development priorities, and thus the three batteries were eventually combined in 1930 to form an anti-aircraft artillery battalion, which then became an anti-aircraft artillery regiment in 1934.

Purchases of anti-aircraft weapons were small, however, and lagged behind the development plans. An additional separate Anti-Aircraft Artillery Battalion was founded at Suomenlinna (Helsinki) in 1938, and all anti-aircraft troops were subordinated to the Air Force. The basis for an integrated air defence system had been created and the principles for its organization had been brought up to the date, but for practical reasons, considering the time needed for equipping, training and fine tuning a technologically complex branch of arms, these actions had come too late. The anti-aircraft artillery was still materially in an early phase of its development in the autumn of 1939.⁸ Since aircraft purchases had also been slow on account of the general underdeveloped nature of the defence funding, it was no wonder that the war was to face both political and military leadership with a rude awakening.

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