Customer Reviews

Battlefield Series 6: Scandinavia; The Forgotten Front

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This video gives a reasonable, though brief summery (not nearly as thorough as the Fire and Ice video) of the war between Finland and the USSR (the so-called Winter War) but fails to tell anything about the war in Norway in 1940, which the packaging leads one to believe is there. I got the feeling this is an incomplete video (actually lists it as Part 1, with no Part 2 following). Because of this and the fact that it totally lacks any menu (or anything else) but goes right into playing as soon as it is place in the DVD player) I do not really recommend this video except to individuals greatly interested in the Winter War of 1939-40.

The information on the dvd box gives the very strong impression that the German invasion of Norway is on the dvd. IT IS NOT!!! Since, the dvd starts with "Part 1", I assume that the invasion of Norway is on part 2. I wish the vendor had made that clear.

This episode shares the virtues and flaws of the others in this second series. Most of the important details are sketched in by the narration and the accompanying newsreel footage. There are no talking heads. But the graphics are less skillful than in the earlier series, and the maps are superimposed on a faded but still discernible background of piece of flags and irrelevant other items.

About equal time is given to the conflicts in Finland and in Norway.

In important ways, the first is the more interesting of the two. The Soviet Union had acquired Finland's neighboring states of Latvia and Estonia around 1940 by pointing to the threat from Germany and demanding that Soviet troops be let in for mutual defense. Vini, vidi, vici. They stayed for about fifty more years.

Finland opted for independence and rejected the Soviet demands. A war followed between the vastly outnumbered and outgunned Finnish forces and the ruthless mass of the Soviet armed forces.

This posed a problem for those looking for easy moral choices, and it still does. The Russians had territorial ambitions but were, after all, our allies in World War II. They wound up fighting the Germans, which the Finns never did. What's equally bad is that the national insignia on Finnish airplanes resembled a swastika, even though many of their airplanes were made in America. All of which goes to demonstrate that war, like so many other human enterprises, doesn't much resemble a high school football game. In any case, the Finns were finally overwhelmed by a nation that was to become our Cold War adversary.

As a matter of fact, it was surprising that the program didn't mention the Finnish Air Force at all. They flew the Brewster Buffalo, produced by a small company in upstate New York. The Buffalo had developed an absolutely terrible reputation among the Marine and Navy pilots who flew them. They were underarmed and underpowered, and they would simply not hold steady in the air. The life rafts were stored in a compartment behind the pilot's seat and they had a tendency to suddenly inflate without any prompting. Buffalos were shot down in droves by Japanese Zeroes at Midway. Yet, in the hands of Finnish pilots they were evidently used very effectively against the Soviet Air Force.

The second half deals largely with Norway. Denmark was a walk over for the Nazis, and Sweden kept out of the war. Losses by the Allies and the Germans were about equal in the Norwegian campaign, fought on land, sea, and air, but in the end the British, French, and Poles withdrew and abandoned the place at about the same time they were being evacuated from Dunkirk.

It's a valuable production if only because, as the subtitle says, it's a "forgotten" war. There aren't many Hollywood or British movies made about it. It's not the subject of any television documentaries. Perhaps that's because we don't like our convictions to be challenged. The human mind is an odd thing, tending towards simplification of what it perceives. There must be "good" and there must be "evil" -- and "good" must win, unless there's a treacherous surprise attack or a heroic last stand. Scandinavia doesn't easily fit our preferred narrative mode. Maybe that's why we hear so little about it. Or maybe it's because history books are written by the winners, and the winners tend to disregard unmitigated losses and other confusing contingencies.

shows why it is the forgotten front. Not really much added but a good overall superficial view.