Winter war 1939-40 Leipäsuo combat- KIA Red Army soldiers recovered

[Wagriff]

My question is, how do people completely forget about, or miss something like this? Unless everyone was killed or MIA after the battle. I find it strange IMO.

Many factors to consider....the Gigantic amount or area and land to be "cleaned up" so to speak, the hundreds of Thousands of "missing in action-presumed dead Somewhere" to be found, the time,work and cost to track down each and every one involved...the shear manpower needed, as all work must be done completely by hand...the "cooling down" period after a war's conclusion-it takes a long time to settle back into normal routine government, rebuilding, recovery and moving on from such an enormously all-encompassing war-before you can finally get around to hunting down the fallen and "properly" interring them, which in most cases, usually means a mass military remains grave with a monument of some sort above it but seldom actual Identities being found.....
All wars have lost or forgotten deads. Here in the States, this is one reason why no digging is allowed on Civil War battlefields-there are fallen dead Everywhere and hastily buried by necessity. If Lucky, there was time to identify and record the fallen soldiers names and units, but in far too many cases, it was simply a matter of bury them quick-they stink and it's undignified to let the birds and animals feed on them. If a person Wanted to rummage through the pockets of a putrid battlefield corpse and search for ID,no one was stopping them, but few ever Wanted to do this. Toss dirt on them and be done quick about it. Even during the Civil War itself, old battlefields from a year or 2 before would be passed through and skeletal remains would be apparent everywhere.(Not to mention a terrible stench as well) In many cases, a thin later of dirt was the best a person could hope to have. Unfortunately, this soon washed away in the elements, in many cases, and then you had the sight of unburied deads. Battlefields can roll for Miles and you may be in continuous combat contact throughout the entire movement. It's likely that you will not Ever return to the former spot again as you move on to engage the enemy down the road. Can you ever get time to see about sending people to the spots of combat and tidy things up? Perhaps you and Your unit get demolished 100 miles away Before you can do this. Then no one will ever know exactly where to go. There are endless scenarios of how and why the combat deads are not recovered soon after they fall, and each scenario is as equally valid as the next. War is a horror. As Robert E. Lee said ""It is well that war is so terrible–we would grow too fond of it!"

[ristot]

October, 2012 year, swamps in the Leipasuo lake county. The soldiers from 123 Cadre Infantry Regiment, most in service was a young men from Ukraine, Armenia, Georgia.
At the the shots after the 1:00:00 hrs in the video you can see the peoples who work with this recovery- cannot continue the work and vomiting.
All the soldiers was reburied , some of the soldiers are recognized. Take a look at the pictures and video about the condition. The camera man cannot continue the work when the bodies from the bottom of the bomb crater where recovered, but really that was a awfully hard work. The work was made by a Russian Patriotic search group The Star" - "Zvezda" from Vyborg- Viipuri

Hi,

That is great work they are doing..
I'm having a personal interest in winter war & continuation war (or what that was), since my grandfathers were on the other side.
Unfortunately i didn't have a chance to speak with them about the war (maybe they would have told me something, maybe not), but since the other one died a few years before i was born and the other one when i was very little, so i need to "dig" their war paths all by myself.. (not an easy task, i tell you that.)
I know that Finns started searching kia-soldiers 1993 (if i remember that correctly..)
Do you know how long they have been doing this in leningrad district or is it just this one? I doun't think i have red/heard anything about this and i'm visiting Vyborg & Saint Petersburg quite a lot, since i'm living under 100km from vyborg. Or maybe i've just managed to miss everything..

[Scout]

Amazing that the bodies have been preserved so much.
RIP

A human body can be preserved well in a bog for a long time under the right conditions.

A long time, a really really loooooooooooooooooong time.

Like 4th century BC long

[Charles R]

RIP to all these men. May they have final peace buried properly alongside their comrades.
This was a very sobering and informative thread. My hat's off to the team who recovered them.

A human body can be preserved well in a bog for a long time under the right conditions.

A long time, a really really loooooooooooooooooong time.

Like 4th century BC long

Yes, you are right....a really loooooong time indeed. Although the Danish Tollund bog man you have shown, only his head is all original......

"The body is displayed at the Silkeborg Museum in Denmark, although only the head is original. Because conservation techniques for organic material were insufficiently advanced in the early 1950s for the entire body to be preserved, the forensic examiners suggested the head be severed and the rest of the body remain unpreserved. Subsequently the body desiccated and the tissue disappeared. In 1987, the Silkeborg Museum reconstructed the body using the skeletal remains as a base. As displayed today, the original head is attached to a replica of the body.
Both feet and the right thumb, being well-conserved by the peat, were also preserved in formalin for later examination. In 1976, the Danish Police Force made a finger-print analysis, making Tollund Man's thumb print one of the oldest finger-prints on record." Source: wikipedia

[Scout]

Although the Danish Tollund bog man you have shown, only his head is all original......

There is always one.....

It hardly undermines my POV that bogs can preserve a body for a long time

There are plenty of other 'bog corpses' - take your pick.

I choose the Tollund Man, because he wears the most amazing serene expression on his face (you know, the preserved part).
None of the other 'bog people' do (to put it diplomatically). He is unique - especially as he most likely was hanged (a rope was found round his neck).

Its not like this thread really needed another rictus and I initially didnt want to post others, but as you brought it up.....

Novel intro and first post BTW, but still - welcome to the forum

[Charles R]

There is always one.....

It hardly undermines my POV that bogs can preserve a body for a long time

There are plenty of other 'bog corpses' - take your pick.

I choose the Tollund Man, because he wears the most amazing serene expression on his face (you know, the preserved part).
None of the other 'bog people' do (to put it diplomatically). He is unique - especially as he most likely was hanged (a rope was found round his neck).

Its not like this thread really needed another rictus and I initially didnt want to post others, but as you brought it up.....

Novel intro and first post BTW, but still - welcome to the forum

Hello Scout, nice to met you, hope all is well.
I don't quite understand you're comments: "There is always one" and that my first post is "novel"....both followed with sarcastic rolling eyes smilies, I'm not really sure if you're truly irked or not by something I've said or done.

Either way, if you read the first words of my post, I'm merely wishing the brave Soviet frontoviks, the main subject of this thread who've been lost (and most probably forgotten) for over 75yrs to finally rest in peace along with their comrades in arms and tipping my hat to the fine work the volunteers did recovering them.
If that makes me "the one" in "there is always one" and makes my first post "novel" so be it.
My added information about the Tollund man were secondary and in no way were trying to undermine the POV of yourself or the many others who know vastly more than you or I about this phenomenon of peat bog preservation. I thank you for showing Tollund man, he is truly fascinating. He is the finest example of all the iron age "Bog people". I thought the added info would be interesting to any future viewers of this thread who did not know about him. What you mention about his serene expression is really amazing, also amazing to me is even his beard stubble is perfectly preserved. He's also provided the oldest set of fingerprints in Scotland Yard & the world


"But still" Scout, Thank you for your welcome to the forum.

I did not see a section of this forum for new members to make a formal introduction, and it's maybe not proper to do so here, so forgive me if so, but........
Hello, my name is Charles... or "Charlie" as friends call me, and I've been a military historian and collector for almost 50 years. My main focus for the last 40yrs has mainly been firearms and ordnance items of all countries involved in WWII, but over the years I've been a bit eclectic as most true collectors are, and I've collected & researched many many items & subjects. My family were all WWII veterans. My mother's brother was KIA Sept. '44. Keeping in tune with this thread, they did not recover his remains and some of his B24 crew members until 1949. The remains being found on a Greek island where there are no peat bogs were surely not in the extremely well preserved state of some of the frontovik's shown in this thread, nor anywhere close to Tollund man.

Godspeed to all the fallen, past, present and future, our world should never forget

Wishing all a happy holidays and a good new year coming soon.

[don_kihotis7]

Hello Scout, nice to met you, hope all is well.
I don't quite understand you're comments: "There is always one" and that my first post is "novel"....both followed with sarcastic rolling eyes smilies, I'm not really sure if you're truly irked or not by something I've said or done.

Either way, if you read the first words of my post, I'm merely wishing the brave Soviet frontoviks, the main subject of this thread who've been lost (and most probably forgotten) for over 75yrs to finally rest in peace along with their comrades in arms and tipping my hat to the fine work the volunteers did recovering them.
If that makes me "the one" in "there is always one" and makes my first post "novel" so be it.
My added information about the Tollund man were secondary and in no way were trying to undermine the POV of yourself or the many others who know vastly more than you or I about this phenomenon of peat bog preservation. I thank you for showing Tollund man, he is truly fascinating. He is the finest example of all the iron age "Bog people". I thought the added info would be interesting to any future viewers of this thread who did not know about him. What you mention about his serene expression is really amazing, also amazing to me is even his beard stubble is perfectly preserved. He's also provided the oldest set of fingerprints in Scotland Yard & the world


"But still" Scout, Thank you for your welcome to the forum.

I did not see a section of this forum for new members to make a formal introduction, and it's maybe not proper to do so here, so forgive me if so, but........
Hello, my name is Charles... or "Charlie" as friends call me, and I've been a military historian and collector for almost 50 years. My main focus for the last 40yrs has mainly been firearms and ordnance items of all countries involved in WWII, but over the years I've been a bit eclectic as most true collectors are, and I've collected & researched many many items & subjects. My family were all WWII veterans. My mother's brother was KIA Sept. '44. Keeping in tune with this thread, they did not recover his remains and some of his B24 crew members until 1949. The remains being found on a Greek island where there are no peat bogs were surely not in the extremely well preserved state of some of the frontovik's shown in this thread, nor anywhere close to Tollund man.

Godspeed to all the fallen, past, present and future, our world should never forget

Wishing all a happy holidays and a good new year coming soon.

Hello Charlie and welcome.
You can also post your introduction here: New WRF Members

[Thanatos]

G'day Charlie,
Welcome to the forum mate.

All the best
Dave

[Charles R]

Hello Charlie and welcome.
You can also post your introduction here: New WRF Members

Hello Don_kihotis, Thanks for welcome and link, I looked for this section but did not see it, they really have it hidden good!

G'day Charlie,
Welcome to the forum mate.

All the best
Dave

Hi Dave, thank you very much!

[Charles R]

Hello Charlie and welcome.
You can also post your introduction here: New WRF Members

Thank you for welcome don_kihotis...and thanks for link...I looked all through forum and did not see this...it is VERY well hidden! : )

G'day Charlie,
Welcome to the forum mate.

All the best
Dave

Thank you Dave, G,day to you also...