Between 30 November 1939 and 13 March 1940, Finland and the Soviet Union were at war in a 105-day period that became known as the Winter War. Although the Soviets had an almost inexhaustible supply of men, weapons and materiel, they were fighting the Fins in the freezing wastes of their country. Although the Fins deployed troops on skis, thereby thinning the Soviets’ ranks with guerilla warfare, the country was too small to keep up a prolonged war, and was forced to sign a peace treaty.
The following year, however, Operation Barbarossa saw millions of German soldiers invade the USSR. Finland joined forces with the Third Reich in an attempt to reclaim the territory they had lost as part of the peace treaty. Unfortunately for the Fins, the Russian winter of 1944 proved too much for the Germans. The Red Army slowly but certainly pushed back the German forces and were soon back on the Fins’ doorstep. Although things were looking grim and the Soviets were almost certain to win, many Finns refused to throw in the towel. Among them was 27-year old Aimo Koivunen.
Koivunen and his comrades had been assigned to a ski patrol in Finnish Lapland in March 1944. Several days into their mission, the men were attacked and surrounded by Soviet forces. The group managed to escape, but hours of cross-country skiing took its toll and at some point, Aimo couldn’t keep up with the others. With the enemy not far behind, his comrades started yelling at him to him to keep moving and stay awake. If Koivunen was to stay ahead of his pursuers, he needed to act… and quickly.
It was at that moment that Koivunen, decided to set aside his principles and use the unit’s stash of Pervitin (military-grade crystal meth tablets), which he was carrying. Still on the move, and wearing heavy, cold-weather gloves, Aimo was struggling to pull out one or two tablets of the box. In the panic of the moment, he consumed the entire box, which contained over thirty pills. Koivunen soon felt a burst of energy and would later write: “I didn’t ski long before I felt like a new man! It felt like I was skiing the first kilometers!”
However, it wasn’t long before Aimo tripped out. He became dangerously disorganized and his comrades had to take the clips off his sub-machine gun. At some point, Koivunen passed out. When he woke up in a ditch the following morning, he found himself separated from his men and without food and ammunition. Aimo had little choice but to try and find his comrades, but the drugs made him hallucinate and fall asleep. During his search, Koivunen ran into a group of Soviets and managed to escape them, but at some point he woke up and noticed he had lost his gun and backpack which contained his cooking pot.
The situation was bleak, but somehow Aimo managed to stumble across a lodge. Inside, he found wood and decided to build a fire. He was so disordered, though, that he built it on the floor, causing the cabin to go up in flames. Fortunately for Koivunen, he escaped the flames. There happened to be a next door sauna, and Aimo lit a fire in its furnace and managed to warm up and sleep for a full day.
The following morning, he continued his search for his comrades. He found a ski track and followed it, but at some point noticed his fingers were completely frozen. After rubbing them with snow, he thawed them out. Not long after, he spotted a dugout and barbed wire obstacles that turned out to be an abandoned German fortification. Unfortunately for Koivunen, he set off a landmine which severely mangled his foot and leg. Unable to continue his journey, Koivunen crawled to a ditch and remained there for a week, hoping that someone would find him.
Over the course of the following days, Aimo Koivunen went through phases of being awake, sleeping and hallucinating. As a result of the Pervitin he did not feel hungry, but realizing he should eat, he consumed some pine buds and a bird which he ate raw. Miraculously, Koivunen survived days and nights of -20 and -30 degrees Celsius and was ultimately found by Finnish troops who took him to a hospital, where doctors found he weighed only 43 kg (94 pounds). Moreover, rather than the normal 60-100 beats per minute, Aimo’s heart rate was 200 BPM. It was calculated that he had skied over 400 km (250 miles).
Although he fully recovered, he had difficulty telling th memories from hallucinations. He rarely spoke of his endeavor, but was convinced to write his story down. Aimo Koivunen died peacefully at the age of 71.
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