Boje na finském nebi- Sovetsko-finská válka 1939-1940 Dodávky stíhacek pro finské letectvo Gloster Gladiator Mk.II – Gloster J 8A (Gladiator) – Bristol J 7 (Bulldog II, IIA) – Svenska J 6 a J 6A, ASJA J 6B – Morane-Saulnier MS.406 C1 / Fighting in Finnish

From November 30, 1939 to March 13, 1940, the fighting between Finland and Stalin's USSR raged in northeastern Europe. They entered the annals of history under the name of the Winter War. The Republic of Finland, a country covering 383,000 km2 and having a population of only 3.8 million, faced an overwhelmingly outnumbered Soviet invasion force. The Red Army launched an attack without a declaration of war, conducting offensive operations along the entire 1,000-mile (1,600 km) length of the common border, beginning on the coast of the Gulf of Finland and ending at the Barents Sea in the far north, deep beyond the Arctic Circle. The bloody encounter ended up lasting a full 105 days. The Finns were able to hold back the onslaught of a much stronger enemy for many weeks. The Soviet dictator J.V. Stalin was eventually forced to agree to a sort of compromise peace, far removed from the original war intentions of wiping Finland off the map and making it part of the Soviet Union. The Winter War was not only fought on the ground, but also in the air. Here, too, the defenders faced a huge numerical superiority of the attacker's air force. The Finns used a varied mixture of aircraft types, some of which formed the original equipment of the Suomen Ilmavoimat and others arrived from abroad only after the outbreak of hostilities (or after its end). The first group included single-plane Fokkers D.XXI and very outdated biplanes Bristol Bulldog IVA. In the second group of aircraft, fighters were represented by a number of designs of different combat value. In the first part of this work, we presented the Brewster Model 239, Fiat G.50, Gloster Gauntlet and Hawker Hurricane Mk.I airplanes. In the second part, we will look at the types Gloster Gladiator (including its Swedish version J 8A), Bristol Bulldog (J 7), Svenska J 6, Morane-Saulnier MS.406 and Caudron-Renault C.714. The first foreign fighters appeared in Finland as early as December 1939, the last ones arrived only in the spring of 1940, when the war was already over. Gladiators (including Swedish J8A) and Morane-Saulnier MS.406 represented the greatest contribution to Suomen Ilmavoimat combat capability. On the contrary, the J 6 and J 7 aircraft were used only for training. The C.714s then arrived too late for the Finns to use during the Winter War.

A4, hardcover, 112 pages, color side views, hundreds of photos