Bombing of Helsinki in World War II – “The first bombing of Helsinki occurred the very day Finland was invaded on 30 November 1939. On the morning of the first air raid, Soviet bombers flew over Helsinki and dropped leaflets with the inscription:
You know we have bread – don’t starve. Soviet Russia will not harm the Finnish people. Their disaster is due to the wrong leadership. Mannerheim and Cajander must go. After this peace will come!
By the afternoon, eight Soviet Ilyushin DB-3 long-range bombers of the Black Sea Fleet air arm bombed Helsinki after returning back from Russarö on a futile naval attack mission. The bombers dropped their payload of 600 bombs on Helsinki with the intent of offloading them before returning to their airbase at Kronstadt. The following morning on 1 December, another wave of Soviet bombers were sent to bomb Helsinki. Despite dropping their payload over Helsinki, the unescorted bombers were intercepted by the Finnish air force. The first two air raids resulted in the deaths of approximately 100 Finnish civilians.
Helsinki was bombed a total of eight times during the Winter War. Some 350 bombs fell on the city, resulting in the deaths of 97 people and the wounding of 260. In all, 55 buildings were destroyed.
The Soviet bombings led to harsh reactions abroad. US President Roosevelt asked the Soviets not to bomb Finnish cities. Molotov replied to Roosevelt, “Soviet aircraft have not been bombing cities, but airfields, you can’t see that from 8,000 kilometers away in America”.
The name Molotov cocktail was coined by the Finns during the Winter War in 1939. The name was a pejorative reference to Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov, who was one of the architects of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact on the eve of World War II.
The name’s origin came from the propaganda Molotov produced during the Winter War, mainly his declaration on Soviet state radio that incendiary bombing missions over Finland were actually “airborne humanitarian food deliveries” for their “starving” neighbors. As a result, the Finns sarcastically dubbed the Soviet incendiary cluster bombs “Molotov bread baskets“. When the hand-held bottle firebomb was developed to attack and destroy Soviet tanks, the Finns called it the “Molotov cocktail”, as “a drink to go with his food parcels“.
How did Moscow call its invasion of Poland in 1939? >
