Troubles in Finland: The Swedish Expeditionary Air Force
Chapter 2: To fly or not to fly
Ze Shakaer-1
Ze Plane... Zome people zought it would never fly. Zhey were zrong...
Zome other people zought it was a weird idea. Zhey were too wrong...
It coulz have been worze...
Things were never easy for Johan von Shaka. Since he was a child he had always to endure the fact that he was black. To make it worse, he had only a wish: to fly. So, with the help of his grandfather, Orwill von Shaka, he began to build a plane of his own. Good old Johan von Shaka had a lot of enthusiasm, but he had no idea of airplane building. Anyway, he managed to end a flyable (if odd shapped) plane. Thus, he began to write letters to the Swedish War Ministry to persuade them to take his plane for the bomber groups of the Swedish Air Force. Of course, nobody trusted his mad design. However, when the new Nordic Alliance with Finland was a fact, the Swedish Government decided to get rid of Johan von Shaka. If they had sent the Svenska Skidorjägar regiment to Finland, they could also send von Shaka and his flying aberration.
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Zome day it zill fly -von Shaka swore to himself...
In Helsinki the Air Force officers were stunned by the plane that von Shaka offered them. With good words they suggested him that, not due to the fact that the plane looked as a hellish thing, not at all, but, as it was nothing but a yet-to-test-plane, it may be "tested" first. And for them, to test the plane meant to send it (with its creator) as far as they could.
Johan was lucky. Towards the end of October, 1936, he got a letter from which had been already baptised as the
Shakaer-1 (from Shakaenska Aeroplan One). Thus, Johan travelled to China with his plane, where he was offered to join the Chinese Army with the rank of leutenant. Those were happy times for Johan, as he was able to fully test his plane. Then, the day of the first combat mission came.
The plane was waiting at the runway, with the crew ready. Johan was checking the controls of the plane when a hand tappend on his shoulder. Then, before he could mutter a word, a white paper told him everything he needed to know:
"Mission Cancelled. The War is Over."
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Zhit -it was all that von Shaka was able to say.
A few weeks later he was reading the newspapers. Something odd has taken place in the USA. The voters, unable to decide who wanted to be their president, had selected both candidates, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Alf Landon to rule (1). However, it seemed that FDR had managed to persuade Landon to withdraw from the game.
A Zommy gun iz alwayz helpful, von Shaka thought
Then he had a new chance to fly. A civil war had erupted in Spain and the Republican government, which was in dire need of help, asked von Shaka to bring his bomber to them in order to defeat the "Fascist scum". Von Shaka did not give a damn about politics, but a chance to fly was a chance to fly, so he accepted. When the plane and his creator arrived to Spain, the Republic was in a quite disgusting situation. Johan was not surprised when he ended being sent to Seville to test his bomber there, to pound the enemy divisions which were marching against the city. Fully confident in the capacities of his plane, he took for his first and historical mission of the
Shakaer-1 at dawn of October 1st, 1936.
He had hardly took off when the airstripe came under attack, with enemy bombers releasing their bomb load and plenty of fighters straffing anything that moved. It was a miracle that he was able to steer the plane into a cloudbank, scaping that way of the danger of being attacked. Alàs!, during the attack the navigator had been killed by a fragment of shrapnel fired by the Republican AA guns, and, when von Shaka got out of the clouds he had not the slightest idea of were the hell he was. Then he saw them.
There, in the ground, a vast concentration of soldiers, guns and tanks. He had been told that the enemy was ready to attack Seville and it was needed that he managed to cause enough damage to the attacking troops to give time the reserves to hold the line. Thus, he was in the right place. Without a second thought he and and his co-pilot pulled the bomber into a dive as steep as he dared, with the engines to full power. Then, when they were almost to crash against the ground, von Shaka managed to pull the plane from the dive and, with an incredible amount of luck, to place all his charge of bombs just in the middle of the enemy formation, who vanished in a hell of explosions as the whole place went ablaze.
Also, without time to pause, he tried to broke contact with the enemy and the bomber buzzed towards the nearest friendly airfield as fast as possible. It goes without saying that von Shaka was awfully happy when the airstrip came in sight.
When his plane stopped dead on the green and von Shaka and his pals saw themselves surrounded by Nationalist forces, they all knew that something had went awfully wrong. Then, as they went out of the plane with their hands raised, a colonel came happily grinning to them:
-You! You're the heroes that have won the day!
It seemed that the Republican reserves had routed the enemy forces. Then, von Shaka had just dropped their payload and gave the Nationalist army the chance to conquer Seville. That way, von Shaka was still dressed in his Republican suit of aviator when he was given the Cruz Laureada by Franco himself.
His words when when he received the award were recorded by all the newspapers all around the world.
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What the zuck...
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Parliament of Finland, Helsinki, January 1st, 1937.
As the members of the Parliament had got used to, border patrols and spies kept spotting numerous massing of Soviet Troops on the border, around 28 divisions, all in all. According to this information, the few available divisions were kept in full allert near the border, hoping that nothing came out of it. Meanwhile the country kept its development when the mechanization reached the farms, increasing the production of food goods. Also, with a bit of luck, Finland got the license to produce the Blenheim Mk IV light bomber for his still unborn air force, which was achieved that at the end of December, 1939.
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