Finnish Wartime Photograph Archive (1939-1945)
sa-kuva.fiOne of the best snipers ever to have lived was Simo Häyhä. The soviets nicknamed him "The White Death" and he has over 500 kills in the Winter War. (A precursory war just before the start of the WWII between Soviet Union and Finland.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simo_H%C3%A4yh%C3%A4
My goal is to honor him and make a game similar to Command & Conquer and incorporate the character of Simo Häyhä in the game. However I'm going about this the DIY way building my own game engine. Those interested can find more info here:
easy to start shooting, harder to stop shooting?
8136 photos in this collection covering the war years in Finland. They appear to be slides.
Lots of WWII-era aircraft, vehicles, naval assets, etc in color.
There are many events documented with multiple slides that are out of order but these photos appear to all have dates assigned and references to locations so it should be possible to identify what was happening.
Someone could assemble this collection in chronological order and it would likely tell a coherent story of the war as it affected Finland.
There are also war-time videos and the entire collection according to the site contains more than 160k photos. They were taken by units tasked with documenting the war and its effects.
This is a huge resource with a lot to see.
Presented on a map with a time slider would be a nice way to explore.
I agree. That's a good idea for any historical photo series. It would be a massive project but it seems that it could be done with this photo set since they are dated and locations are noted.
Very interesting! A legacy of a historical period that have shaped the scandinavians.
Fun fact: Finland is typically not considered part of Scandinavia. I was told this flatly by a Finn.
Nitpick: Finns are not technically Scandinavian, right? Although the Swedish-Finns presumably are.
The first 5 subpages seem to give an romanticized picture of war, which is unfortunate.
Edit: Nvm, was some ruins on page 3 at least.
Well they're outdoors so it will be kinda picturesque at times.
What do you mean? I see a ton of pictures in there of all kinds of things, that would certainly seem to be useful to historians
Like, 'Soldier picking berry from tree' does not seem to have a 'Retreat through mud carrying wounded' counterpart.
But yes the pictures are certainly fine and useful for historians.
Soldiers that are actively involved in fighting are less interested in fiddling around with 1930s era camera equipment, which I also have to imagine was less common in Finland than the relatively more wealthy imperial powers.
Also random soldiers interested in photography are probably doing it as an escape/hobby more than for historical reasons.