Researching the Hanko Front, Part II

The biggest excavation trenches of the 2020 Hanko field season were placed within and outside a dugout called "Hamster's Nest" (Hamsterbo). The site was selected due to a story surrounding it, as the dugout was mentioned by a Swedish volunteer soldier Åke Kretz in his book Frontvardag. In the book, Kretz not only describes the interior of the dugout, but also it's fateful end – a story which we wanted to follow through an excavation.

Part of a British issue gas mask. Found within the Hamster's Nest.

As described by Kretz, the small timber built dugout was built on the Finnish side of the frontline, only some 100 meters from the enemy. Even though the inside of the dugout was only 4 square meters, it housed four Swedish volunteer soldiers, including Kretz himself. Thus, it was given the playful nickname Hamster's Nest.

On one fateful night in September 1941, enemy activity was observed in no man's land in front of the Finnish trenches and the four men from the Hamster's Nest entered the listening post nearby to observe the situation. Suddenly they noticed reddish light from where they had took off – their dugout had burst in fire.

The soldiers rapidly advanced towards their burning shelter from which a continuous sound of exploding rifle cartridges and sharp detonations of exploding hand grenades could be heard. The soldiers tried to put down the fire, but the dangerous mission was abandoned after Soviet forces, alerted by the glare and the sounds of exploding ammunition, took aim at the burning shelter with handguns, mortars and artillery.

The shelter was burnt to the ground and beneath the burnt rubble lied everything that wasn't saved during the first minutes of salvage efforts. 79 years later, we arrived to this time capsule that contained not only ammunition and parts of exploded hand grenades, but also a plenty of personal items, such as a razor, mirror, compass and even a gas mask.

Digging inside and outside the dugout.

As we dug deeper, timber remains of the dugout came visible along with a plenty of burnt pieces of wood and even a small stove, which was described by Kretz to have taken its share from an already cramped living space. However, as the constructions and finds continued ever deeper, it became evident that our workforce and schedule wasn't enough to excavate the area with proper detail. Thus, the trench was covered for further research next summer.

Interestingly, a plenty of exploded cartridges, buttons and other finds were found right outside the dugout. As there was a clear disturbance in the soil of the excavation layer inside the dugout, it's possible that someone has once dug into the ruins of the dugout and piled the soil nearby. Perhaps the site was salvaged for weapons or other valuables soon after the fire itself. However as the digging had concentrated only to a small area, it didn't disturb the site a great deal.

While the site remains still unfinished, it has already provided us with interesting results and connected the previously unknown dugout remains to the one described by Kretz. Maybe one day an information post will be added to the site in order to spread the story of Hamster's Nest to anyone visiting these peculiar remains.