Talk:Lauri Heino

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Medal winner and source of trivia regarding the T-34 tank. Sorry, web references seem to be in Finnish, which I am not able to read. Please don't delete. —Michael Z. 2006-07-06 06:26 Z

T-34 tank in Finnish use

[request copied from User talk:62.237.141.28#Reference for tank ace Lauri Heino —MZ]

Thanks for adding some information about Lauri Heino to the article about the T-34 tank. I've since started a stub article about him.

I've nominated the T-34 article for Featured Article status, and that requires all the more obscure facts to be sourced. Can you supply any reference sources for Heino being the first to capture the tank, and for the Finnish name sotka for the tank? English-language books or web sites would be best, but Finnish-language sources are acceptable too (a quick Google search ).

Thanks. —Michael Z. 2006-07-06 22:07 Z

[response copied from user talk:Mzajac#T-34 tank in Finnish use —MZ]

Hi, I read about Lauri Heino years ago on the Parola Tank Museum (Parola, Finland) guide leaflet. If my memory serves me correctly, he was the first foreigner to ever capture an intact T-34 at river Svir and drive it in Poventsa, October 1941. Later his driver was Sergeant Reino Lehväslaiho, later a well-known war author. His books and memoirs deal with Heino - unfortunately I don't know if they have been translated into English. their best day was 25 June 1944, when they destroyed five T-34s and two JSU-152s in one combat.

The word "sotka" means waterfowl common goldeneye. The side profile of T-34 resembles a swimming waterfowl. Heino (who survived the war and retired as sergeant major) told 1969: "We had tanker named S. Suominen in my company, who had been donkeyman on steamer named "Sotka" before the war. He was known to tell seaman stories, and mentioned "how tall a funnel did Sotka have". When I drove the captured T-34 to Petrozhavodsk 1941, someone in the company saw the barrel of T-34/76, which was long on the standards of the day, and said: "Hey, look there, Suominen's Sotka is coming!". The name then stuck, and that particular tank was given the name "Sotka". (Finnish tanks were regularly given individual names - usually girls' names.) When me and Suominen later tested and examined the tank thorougly, we found it very agile and mobile: I then said "This tank also swims gently as goldeneye on waves".

T-34/85 was known as "pitkäputkinen Sotka" (long-barrel Sotka)

Finns did not lose a single T-34 in action 1941-1944, but one was lost because of bridge breaking and falling into canal when crossing Saimaa Canal. That T-34 was later raised and repaired. The Parola museum has several T-34s on display, and one fully combat-ready example of T-34/85. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 62.237.141.28 (talk • contribs) .

Thanks for the reply. Is your quotation from the museum leaflet, or a book? Did you translate it from Finnish? This is an excellent quote containing some unique and interesting information, and even if it's not from a formal publication, it deserves to be used as a citation in this article and T-34 or T-34 variants. —Michael Z. 2006-07-07 20:53 Z