Transcription
Lauri Törni, also known as Larry Thorne, was born in 1919 in what was then the Finnish city of Viipuri. Finland had gained independence from Russia less than 2 years earlier and had been in a bitter Civil War between the Reds and the more conservative Whites. While the Whites had won, the divisions in Finnish society remained, and Lauri grew up in this segregated environment. Lauri’s father had fought for the Whites and instilled in him a fierce dislike for communism that was to define his life.
At 19, he enrolled in the army and shortly after was selected for officer training. On November the 26th, 1939, at 2:45pm, 7 shells exploded in a small Soviet village near the Finnish border. The Soviets immediately blamed the Finns for this aggressive act. The Finns quickly calculated that the shells had been fired from the Soviet side! The Soviets rejected any notion of this and declined a joint investigation. What’s more, they demanded that the Finns immediately withdraw their forces at least 18 miles from the border... war was brewing.
On the 30th of November, the Soviets started the attack. 460,000 men, 2000 tanks, 2000 heavy guns, and 800 planes attacked... just as one of the coldest winters of the century began... Khrushchev later wrote: “We could fire one shot and the Finns would put up their hands and surrender... Or so we thought.”
During the first 6 weeks of the Winter War, Thorne’s Battalion saw heavy fighting, but its losses were minimal. The Soviets were forced to travel along roads with their heavy machinery and guns through the dense Nordic forests. The Finns, through the use of roadblocks and traps, would stop these long columns, sometimes miles long, by attacking the front and back, leaving no room to advance or retreat. Then, dressed in white with skis, they would slip back into the forest, traverse along the columns, breaking the column up into smaller groups... forcing the attackers to take defensive positions. Deadly silent, they would often attack field kitchens as a priority. The Finns had time to let the cold do its work, creating smaller and smaller groups, which they called “Motti” in Finnish, as they went up and down the Russian columns.
In one of these Mottis, Thorne was tasked with blowing up a Russian provisions transport near Pukitsanmaki, or Sugar Loaf Hill. Surrounding the provisions vehicle, the Soviets had foxholes, and tanks were patrolling. Thorne and 3 men moved silently from tree to tree. It was observed that under stress, Thorne was ice-cool; the more stressful the situation, the calmer he became. They managed to get to the truck without being seen. One of the men attached the charge to the provisions truck and released the trigger... A loud click was heard, and all hell broke loose as the Soviets realized they were under attack. Throwing grenades and shooting machine guns, the Finns slipped back into the woods, their mission accomplished.
Despite many Finnish victories, they were under-equipped and outnumbered. The sheer size of the Red Army meant that the Finns would have ultimately lost... But the price of that victory would have been too high, even for Stalin, and in March 1940, a peace agreement was signed. Finland had to give up significant land to the Soviets... including Lauri’s hometown of Viipuri. 420,000 Karelian Finnish refugees moved across the new Finnish border.
In May 1941, with the Germans planning Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union, they entered into secret dialogue with the Finns. The Finns agreed to co-operate, although the wording of that co-operation was not as an ally but as a “co-belligerent” against the Soviets. Finnish volunteers were to be trained by the Germans, and Lauri volunteered. At the command of the Germans, all the Finnish volunteers were to join the Waffen-SS. When Operation Barbarossa started on June the 22nd, Finland waited 3 days and then joined the attack. The Continuation War had begun. Törni left Germany to take the fight to the Russians back home. Finland had recaptured all the land lost to the Soviets during the Winter War. Now they were pushing forward to take even more land from the Soviets.
Törni became a tank commander. On one operation, when his tank got stuck, he single-handedly detached the tank’s machine gun, set up a defensive position in a ditch, and laid down fire while his crew escaped, and then resumed the attack on foot. By August 1941, the Finns were within 20km of Leningrad, blocking the Northern route. With the Germans cutting off the last supply roads to the South, the 872-day siege of Leningrad had begun, which would decimate the city’s inhabitants with hunger and disease.
Larry was given command of a new Company. 2nd Company became known as “Törni Unit.” They had a special arm patch with a “T” for Törni. These men, around a 100 volunteers, formed a unit for deep reconnaissance, counter-reconnaissance, and anti-partisan operations. Tough men with special skills. They were so successful in their operations the Soviets even put a bounty on Törni's head.
In June 1944, a massive Soviet offensive began against the Finnish positions. Finland was fighting a battle it couldn’t win, and by September was forced into a ceasefire agreement that meant giving up land, demobilizing the military, and paying reparations. A Soviet Commission was set up in Helsinki that brought criminal trials against hundreds of Finnish officers for war crimes. The Finnish Communist Party was encouraged to enter the political arena, “The Revolution coming to Finland.”
As a civilian now, Törni was unemployable as an ex-member of the SS. Joining the underground resistance, he helped a number of Finns escape to Sweden, but eventually, on the 17th of January, 1945, he and a small party left Finland for Germany on a secret U-Boat. After briefly fighting on the Russian front with the war clearly at its end, he surrendered to the Americans using a false identity, was imprisoned by the British, but escaped after just 2 weeks and slipped back into Finland via Denmark.
Becoming a civilian, Larry took a job working in an electrical shop. In 1946, at the age of 27, the Finnish police arrested him at the behest of the Soviets. He was found guilty and sentenced to 6 years in prison. He was pardoned on Christmas Eve 1948 after serving 3 years of his sentence. Slipping out of the country on a false passport, he finally made his way on a ship from Venezuela to America. Before the ship had docked in Alabama, Larry had dived over the edge, swam to shore, and illegally entered the United States. It was September 1950, and the Cold War was well underway.
He changed his name to Larry Thorne. Although he preferred the hybrid pronunciation – Thorny. Larry had been living in the US for 3 and a half years before winding up again in the military. He enlisted for the maximum 6 years, and as part of the deal, would receive US citizenship. At the age of 35, he was almost twice the age of the other recruits, but he breezed through boot camp and signed up for a 16-week cold weather training course at Camp Carlson. It was obvious that he was already supremely skilled in this regard, and so started his rapid rise through the ranks. He became part of the newly formed Special Forces and one of the elite new “Green Berets.”
In 1964, Thorne and his Special Forces team volunteered to go to Vietnam. Upon arrival, he immediately took control of 300 guerrillas and trained them how to ambush and strike the Viet Cong. Jungle warfare was far from the frozen forests of Finland, but Thorne took to it with ease. The Deputy Commander of Special Forces in Vietnam wrote, this is “...the type of person you like to have around in a fight, for he has unlimited courage.”
October 1965, and Törni was at the end of his second tour of duty in Vietnam. He had been selected for promotion to Major. Thorne was in one of 3 CH-34s flying on a mission low over the jungle near the Ho Chi Minh trail. Rain and heavy weather was closing in. Thorne was in a chase copter making sure the insertion of the special operations teams went okay. 2 of the CH-34s landed, and the teams disembarked successfully. Thorne’s copter suddenly found itself enveloped by cloud. The other 2 choppers were on their way home when contact was lost with Thorne’s aircraft. 56 search and rescue sorties found no sign of the crash.
In October 1966, the man who fought in 3 armies was officially declared dead. In 1999, his remains were located, and finally, in 2003, Major Larry Thorne was buried an American hero in Arlington Cemetery. Most viewers aren't yet subscribers, so if you like this film, please support us by hitting Subscribe. Thank you.