Fighter over Finland

by Eino Luukkanen, Mauno A. Salo (Translator)

English, Finnish (translation)

Genres: History, Aviation

254 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1955

About the author

Eino Astere Luukkanen

Reviews

[Bob · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an excellent book of its type--the air pilot's combat memoir. The author was a very good writer (or had a superlative translator) who served in two of the most little-known conflicts of the WWII era: The Russo-Finnish Winter War of 1939-40 and the Russo-Finnish Continuation War of 1941-44. He flew multiple fighters that were mostly unfamiliar to me, and that increased his memoir's interest immensely. He amassed a total of 54 confirmed kills, so his skill level as a combat pilot was extremely high, and he is quite adept at explaining how he flew, how he fought, and how he led his comrades. My edition is one of Time-Life's "Wings of War" series and is quite an attractive volume. It includes multiple informative photos and two appendices. The first appendix lists the aircraft downed by the author according to date, type and location. The second more extensive one provides detailed descriptions of the types of aircraft encountered during the two conflicts I've mentioned above. My sole complaint about my edition is that while the single included map shows the locations of all the airfields from which the author flew, it fails to indicate more than a very few of the myriad villages, towns, cities and lakes mentioned in the text.

To sum up: a great combat pilot's memoir from a lesser known theater of WWII. If you're at all interested in combat aviation or WWII itself, don't hesitate.

[Michel · Rating 5 out of 5]

There are not many autobiographical stories about airborne warfare between Finland and the Soviet Union in WW2: this is one of the few. In the present times of Russian aggression in Ukraine, it is somewhat shocking to see the same story exactly over the war of aggression led by the Soviet Union again Finland. Some things never change...

The author, Eino Luukkanen, was a top ace in the war, and an experienced squadron commander that fought the whole duration. His memoir is precious and interesting, in part because of the paucity of information. It is shocking to see the poor equipment that these pilots had to deal with, the harsh conditions in which they fought, the constant material unbalance of their fights (both in the quality of the equipment and the unequal numbers), and the extraordinary success these airmen met.

The book is very factual, focused on the story, with some good pictures. It might have been interesting to hear more about the morale, tactics, and other considerations (although the author does occasionally broach these subjects).

[James Crabtree · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent story of Luukanen, a pilot in the tiny Finnish Air Force who found himself outnumbered and supposedly outmatched, flying against the Soviets and the staggering numbers of aircraft they had at their disposal. During the Winter War the Finns fought on their own, with vague promises and moral support from the free world. Their aircraft were largely British and Dutch models, some of which were slower even than the Red bombers they tried to intercept!. However, Finland made the best use of the small number of planes they had at their disposal and when Round 2 (the Continuation War) came around the pilots of Finland managed to hold their own, flying aircraft provided by their "ally" Germany as well as Brewster Buffalos provided by the U.S.!

An amazing story, well-illustrated with maps, photographs and even descriptions of the aircraft involved, many of which saw very little combat outside of Finland.