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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

7. A Second Round Against the Soviets

Lauri Torni in SS officer uniform in 1941. Wikimedia

By the time Torni finished his Waffen-SS training, Finland was once again at war with the Soviet Union. When the Nazis invaded the USSR in 1941, Finland joined Germany as a co-belligerent in what the Finns termed the Continuation War. After completing his SS training, Torni was made an Untersturmfuhrer – the SS equivalent of a lieutenant. During this second round of warfare against the Red Army, Torni once again became a war hero, and earned a reputation as a feared raider and irregular warrior.

Finnish ski soldiers during WWII. Pintrest

Soon after the Continuation War commenced, Torni was promoted to captain. He was put in charge of a unit of snow skiers, who literally skied into battle against the Red Army. In 1942, Torni earned a German Iron Cross for leading a machine gun unit into a firefight, on skis with guns blazing, while displaying sundry heroics, including the rescue of a wounded officer. Torni was severely injured when he skied over a landmine, but recovered and was soon back in action.

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.