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Lenny Kravitz’s Hero Uncle and Other Lesser Known American Heroes

Khalid Elhassan August 18, 2020 35 min

American Revolutionary War - United States — The British surrender at Yorktown. Library of Congress

9. Torni in Finnish Uniform

soviet casualties and wrecked equipment during the winter war. sa kuva scaled — Soviet casualties and wrecked equipment during the Winter War. SA-Kuva

Lauri Allan Torni was born in Finland, in 1919. He was a natural athlete, and got into skiing and other sports at an early age. One of his childhood friends, Sten Suvio, won a welterweight boxing gold medal at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. In his teens, Torni joined the Civil Guard, Finland’s military reserve militia. He also attended business school. In 1938, he joined the Finnish military, and was assigned to an infantry battalion.

Lauri Torni after graduating from officer training in 1940. Wikimedia

The following year, the Soviet Union demanded that Finland cede some strategically important territory. When the Finns refused, the Soviets attacked, kicking off the Winter War. The Red Army expected to steamroll over tiny Finland, whose population at the time numbered a mere three million. The Finns, however, put up a fierce resistance that humiliated the invaders. Against the odds, the Finns actually went on the counterattack at some point, and managed to encircle and wipe out a number of Soviet divisions.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.