A Frozen Hell: The Russo-Finnish Winter War of 1939-40 (1991) [+]
Feb 12 2024
A Frozen Hell by William R Trotter is an account of the Russo-Finnish Winter War which the Soviets started about 18 months before Germany invaded the USSR. It has the usual background on Finland and it's relation with their big neighbor and the politics as Stalin tried to negotiate to lease prime territory in Finland to use as bases to defend against the eventual German war.
The majority of the book details the fighting. Most of that concentrates on the Karelian Isthmus where the bulk of the fighting took place. A few chapters detail other operations and in general more material from south to north of the eastern front since the farther north it went the colder and sparser the terrain and the worse the Soviets did.
There are some simple drawn maps which you can kind of use to follow the fighting but often there are place names given in the text not on the maps. There are also a couple of photograph sections so you can see the principal generals, troops, places and equipment.
Trotter is an American with I guess Finnish roots. He did a bunch of research in Finland: reading and interviews. He also cites a bunch of American sources, mostly academic type materials. Although he does cover of the Soviet side this book is mostly from the Finnish point of view and has more details about their side of the story.
I have not read other books on the Winter War but overall this seems to be a nice one. It gets into a fair amount of battle details though still written for a general audience.
The majority of the book details the fighting. Most of that concentrates on the Karelian Isthmus where the bulk of the fighting took place. A few chapters detail other operations and in general more material from south to north of the eastern front since the farther north it went the colder and sparser the terrain and the worse the Soviets did.
There are some simple drawn maps which you can kind of use to follow the fighting but often there are place names given in the text not on the maps. There are also a couple of photograph sections so you can see the principal generals, troops, places and equipment.
Trotter is an American with I guess Finnish roots. He did a bunch of research in Finland: reading and interviews. He also cites a bunch of American sources, mostly academic type materials. Although he does cover of the Soviet side this book is mostly from the Finnish point of view and has more details about their side of the story.
I have not read other books on the Winter War but overall this seems to be a nice one. It gets into a fair amount of battle details though still written for a general audience.