My cold hands gripped my rifle; we are hopelessly outnumbered with no hope of reinforcements. The so called "Winter War" has gone unnoticed, overshadowed by Hitler's invasion of Poland. The Russians have continued to advance through the forests of my homeland, Finland. No matter how many enemy soldiers we kill the Russians seems to have an infinite supply of men and arms. My squad was separated from the main platoon after a motor division of Russian T-28 tanks smashed through our poorly armed soldiers. With less than ten of us remaining it is almost impossible to continue holding the Mannerheim Line. We can still hear the constant pounding of the artillery shells that continue to decimate our forces. The captain had us regroup as we try and stay warm, constant challenge in the minus forty degree weather. Without much ammo remaining we wanted to retreat, to flee. All the men wanted to but no one wanted to be the first to admit it. If it wasn't for my other comrades I would run as fast as I could to get away from the powerful advancing Red Army. The captain was a veteran; he kept the squad together. He knew that we must complete our orders or the reinforcements behind us will be eliminated. We must ambush an infantry division and the supply line that they are guarding.
The ten of us treaded through the waist deep snow. It was slow moving but we were experienced in the snow. As children we all would go for trips through the woods just to get to school. The Russians on the other hand were not used to being this far north and most of them were from the city; they were suffering. Exhaustion set in on the squad. I have been awake for the last 28 hours when the mortar attacks first started, when people began dying. Some of us are at the end of our line, ready to quit, but the squad banded together to keep on going. I helped carry a pack of one of the squad members who was struggling. He is lightly wounded from shrapnel but he is one of the strongest people in our squad, always be the last to quite. We hiked for the next few hours. It wasn’t until we could go no longer when the captain finally allowed a few hours of rest. I could not sleep in the Arctic temperatures. I shivered uncontrollably for the next hour or so until the captain had us continue our march. We were close to the convoy.
I could hear the trucks thundering through the forest road, the enemy soldiers chatting with each other. The captain had us set of positions a few clicks down the road and had us wait in hiding until the perfect moment to attack. I looked over at the soldier beside me; his face was white with fear. I wanted to comfort him saying that we were going to make it but being outnumbered three to one there can be no guarantees. The first truck has just passed when I heard the captain yell the order to fire. The five of us on our side of the road sprang out of our cover emptying our magazines. The Russians were taken completely by surprise, they scattered. One of my squad members beside me went down with a bullet wound but the rest of so started to converge on the remaining convoy guards. The firefight ended as quickly as it begun. In that short battle we lost three soldiers but we captured two transport trucks and the twelve Russians that surrendered. The captain looked at us and I could tell he was proud. It was a tough last couple of days but with the support of the other squad members we could continue on and complete our mission.
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