Aimo Koivunen

Time stranded: 2 weeks

Distance traveled: around 400 km

Terrain types: Mountain, Arctic

Deaths: 0

Situation ended: Found friendly forces

Location: Finland/Russian border

When the Second World War broke out it wasn’t as widespread as people realize, and the first 8 months were often referred to as the “Phoney war” due to the lack of large-scale troop movements. In the beginning, there were only a few countries directly involved, one of them was Finland which had a history of conflict with Russia.

In November of 1939, Russia launched a large-scale invasion of Finland in an attempt to capture territory that was previously contested. This conflict became known as the Winter War and lasted until March 1940. The invasion did not go as planned for the Russians due to the mountainous and snow-covered terrain that made it impossible to get vehicles into the area, forcing the Russians to advance on foot.

The Fins met this threat with ski patrols that would rapidly get into position, ambush the enemy, and then disappear faster than the Russians could follow. This single tactic changed the course of the invasion and saved the country from falling into the hands of the Soviet Union. Finland remained part of the Axis powers until 1945 when they signed a treaty with Russia and began to fight with the Allies, but until this point, they were mostly in direct conflict with the Soviet Union.

Aimo Koivunen was born on 17 October 1917 and joined the army near the start of the war. He was used to fighting in the snow and knew how to ski, so on 15 March 1944, his commander assigned him to a ski patrol and he was sent on a mission along with a small squad.

On the third day of their mission, they were attacked by a Soviet patrol but managed to escape. After they realized they were badly outnumbered, the ski patrol began to race down the hill away from the gunfire, but in their rush to do so, they didn’t realize how badly their supplies were spread out among the group.

One of the more interesting things they had with them was something called Pervitin. This substance was developed in Germany in 1937 by a researcher working for a pharmaceutical company. They found that the end product was able to keep people awake for a long time without any fatigue, and they started selling it on the streets of Germany to regular people. It didn’t take long for the government to notice this new product and they started to make it in huge amounts to be distributed among their troops.

The product created was a purified version of amphetamine, commonly known today as crystal meth. This new drug was made into various forms, including a meth-infused chocolate bar called Panzerschokolade (Tank chocolates) that was made especially for tank crews. Since Finland was an ally of Germany, they also had access to this product.

When Aimo Koivunens’s group was attacked, Aimo was carrying the entire squad’s supply of Pervitin, which was around 30 pills. They had to make it far away from the area to avoid any Soviet reinforcements, but at this point, Aimo was exhausted and could barely stay upright.

In his mixture of panic and exhaustion, Aimo tried to open the pack of Pervitin but couldn’t because of his thick mittens. There was no chance of stopping with the Soviets so close behind and he couldn’t take off his gloves, so he just cracked it open and poured the entire pack into his mouth and ate the lot.

It only took a few seconds to kick in and Aimo found himself with a huge burst of energy, skiing faster than the rest of his squad. He was now unable to get tired and had a huge amount of energy, so he just kept going.

It’s not clear when he lost his squad, or when he blacked out, but somehow in his drug-infused state, he managed to clear about 100km. He claims his vision went blurry and he thought he passed out, but it seems he was still skiing when so heavily under the influence that he didn’t realize he was conscious.

It was the next day when Aimo finally regained consciousness, finding himself seperated from his squad and with no rifle, which he later found out was taken from him by his squad after he started to act strangely soon after taking the pills. He was also without food and completely lost, surrounded by nothing but more snow.

He decided to travel west in the hope of reaching the Finish front line and friendly forces, but even after regaining consciousness was still heavily under the effects of the drug. After walking for a few hours he managed to find an old abandoned log cabin, and for some reason decided to start a fire in the middle of the floor and go to sleep.

Over the next few hours, he would wake up with the fire spreading around the cabin, but instead of leaving or trying to put it out, he just moved further away from the flames and went back to sleep. After doing this several times he had no choice but to leave the burning cabin and once again found himself in the snow with nothing but his skis.

After leaving the cabin he continued west for several miles and found an abandoned German camp. He searched the camp for food but found that they had left traps for the Finnish soldiers, one of which was a landmine discovered by Aimo when he accidentally skied over it. The mine injured one of his feet and both legs, but not badly enough to stop him from carrying on.

By now the effects of the Pervitin were wearing off and he was no longer protected from feeling the cold, or from his hunger being suppressed. The hunger pains were so bad he started to eat pine tree shoots whenever he found them and managed to catch a Siberian Jay, a small sparrow-like bird that he ate raw.

Aimo managed to travel around 400 kilometers in sub-zero conditions with nothing to eat but a handful of pine shoots and a small bird before finding friendly troops. He was seen by another ski patrol who took him to the nearest army hospital. When he was admitted, he weighed 43 kg and his heart rate was 200 beats per minute. He managed to make a full recovery and returned to fight for the remainder of the war.