Good book on Continuation War?

[Aragorn2002]

Can anyone recommend me a good book (in English or German) about the Finnish Continuation War of 1941-1944? I doubt whether there is such a book, but perhaps the Finns on this site will know. I'm especially interested in the fighting during 1944.

[ April 01, 2008, 10:47 AM: Message edited by: Aragorn2002 ]

[John Kettler]

Aragorn2002,

Would say it's covered here

http://www.amazon.com/Finland-War-1939-45-Elite/dp/184176969X/ref=tag_tdp_sv_edpp_i/002-1452563-1548859

plus there's lots of stuff online (sites, pics, vids) via Google under "continuation war" as the search phrase.

This list should help, for several of the titles cover your period of interest.

http://www.amazon.com/Russo-Finnish-War-1939-40-amp-Continuation/lm/R311N4VELL7VD

E-book on Finnish Army battle tactics in the Continuation War

http://www.quikmaneuvers.com/finnish_army_continuation_war.html

If you want the other (Russian) side of the fence, suggest you ping JasonC and Andreas. The latter's Red Army Studies doubtless has pertinent translations available, but you'll need to know what the Russians called the region.

Regards,

John Kettler

[undead reindeer cavalry]

Originally posted by Aragorn2002:

Can anyone recommend me a good book (in English or German) about the Finnish Continuation War of 1941-1944? I doubt whether there is such a book, but perhaps the Finns on this site will know. I'm especially interested in the fighting during 1944.

there are a couple of books about the Continuation War in english, but i haven't read them and i do not know if they are even available. you can try making searches on Amazon.com.

i think by far the best sources in english are online. wikipedia has some short descriptions of some battles and some more are posted on various forums related to the subject.

it's a shame that there aren't decent books in english about the subject, because there are tons of excellent material available in finnish.

i guess there simply are no markets for such books. i doubt the books on Winter War sell in meaningful numbers and their subject is a lot more sellable.

regarding that Osprey booklet, i did browse it at a bookstore once and it wasn't too impressive. it wasn't bad (for one of those Osprey 64 page booklets), but if you buy it don't expect marvels. it isn't as good as the old Osprey Campaign series booklets.

[ April 02, 2008, 09:07 AM: Message edited by: undead reindeer cavalry ]

[Aragorn2002]

Thanks John and URC for the links. Interesting stuff to find out there, and yes, Wikipedia has good information too. Yes, it is a shame there aren't any decent books in English on this subject. Perhaps the Swedish publisher Leandoer and Ekholm will come up with a book sooner or later, since they seem interested in the Winter and Continuation war. http://www.leforlag.com/hw_02bocker.asp

I hope they will publish the books they show, and I hope they translate them as well.

[John Kettler]

Aragorn2002,

Glad to help!

Regards,

John Kettler

[undead reindeer cavalry]

axishistory.com had a couple of short narratives:

Battle of Tali-Ihantala - a translation of the main events of the said battle in a series of posts.

Infantry Regiment 30 - a brief history of the said regiment.

it would be relatively trivial to write a general book about Continuation War because it's been done to death in Finnish.

because it's been studied quite deeply for decades there's also quite an amount of stuff that's interesting from a wider viewpoint. for example just yesterday i noticed that one academic book about summer 1944 battles of Karelian Isthmus quotes Soviet archives regarding (very effective) repairing of armored vehicles on the Karelian Isthmus: during the 3 month period Finns had apparently by average KOed every Soviet armored vehicle 2.5 times. couldn't help but think about all the discussions on this board about German overclaiming.