Many years ago there was a fairly good looking Lisunov Li-2 outside the museum. Don’t know if it is still there, and the museum was closed on the day of my visit, so I have no idea what’s inside. So go and have a look and tell the rest of us…

I really hate to write this, but I guess I must. I phoned a friend of mine who has a copy of C-F Geust’s Red Stars in the Sky Vol. 4 which deals with Lend-Lease aircraft. And it seems I was wrong…
OK, the Spitfires were never used operationally against the Finnish AF, but they did see operational use in Northern Russia, 122. IAD in Murmansk used them from June 1944, and RAF pilots flew PR missions with Spitfires from Afrikanda, up north as well. Some were based in Voyenga, northern Norway.
The northern part of Finnish front was taken care of by Germans.
PVO 7. IAK in Leningrad used Spitfires starting in 1945, by that time the war against Finland was over.
Sorry for having written BS, only defence being the discussion over the claims of Spitfire kills by Finnish AF pilots having been on my mind.
I’ll have access to Geust’s book next week, and study it more carefully. Anyway, interesting topic, taught me something.. 🙂

Finland never had any Spitfires (although Spitfires fought over Finland),

This is a bit off-topic, but Spitfires never fought over Finland, though several Finnish pilots claimed shooting down “Spitfires”. They were probably misidentified Yak-7s. Similarly, in at least one occasion early in the war Russian pilots had reported a fight with Finnish “Spitfires”, which in reality were Fokker D.XXIs!
Also claimed by Finnish pilots were several Russian P-51s, which never saw any action with Russian AF. Not easy to recognize planes, when they try to shoot you down, I guess.

Malcolm, you are partly right, but in our case we did not just accept the Soviet terms. Please do some googling as I recommended in my previous post. The Soviet offensive was stopped in the battle of Tali-Ihantala (which btw was a bigger battle than for example El Alamein), and they agreed to negotiate with us. Yes, we did lose a piece of our country, but remained independent. Of course Soviets could have conquered Finland, but after their loss in Tali-Ihantala they decided that it is not worth the effort.

While I agree that Finns would have gladly exchanged the Brewsters for FW190s, I must say that they would probably first have repalced Fiat G50s, Morane Saulnier 406s and Curtiss Hawks…

Although being a Finn I should not, but I tend to agree in many respects with Mr McKay. A few points though. I am not qualified to judge the quality of the Russian forces fighting us in the so called “Coninuation War” of 1941 – 45, in which the Brewster was used. In the preceding “Winter War” of 1939 – 40, though, I find it hard to believe that Russians would have sent their less qualified forces to attack Finland, as they started the war on 30 November, and their intention was to have a victory parade in Helsinki on 6 December, the independenca day of Finland. Well, they did not.
In this campaign certainly the Finns were the underdogs, and I think it is very difficult to deny what a great achievement it was to remain independent against such a huge enemy.

Yes, we were your enemies in the Continuation War, UK even declared war on Finland, on 6 December 1941. We did have a choice, to be on the side of Stalin or Hitler. You could call that being between a rock and a hard place. With hindsight, our choice was good. Otherwise, we would have regained our independence about 15 years ago, just like Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia did. And I would not be writing this. Besides, Finland was never part of the so-called Axis powers, we just shared the enemy, and in that, only Soviet Union.

Back to Brewsters. One thing that made a difference with ours compared to yours was that in Finland they were de-navalised, and a lot of armour was removed, making them lighter, more manouverable and agile.
The kill to loss ratio of Finnish Brewsters is the greatest of any combat airplane. Now here I must say (and this is just my gut feeling) that honestly, I believe both sides in our camapigns inflated thei victory claims considerably. Of course, we know exactly what we lost, but it is (has been) difficult to find out the exact Russian losses.

One last note, you say that “once the tide turned in the Russian campaign the Finns folded very quickly”. Not true, the Finns never folded, they just bent backwards a little. In the European theatre of war there were three capital cities which were never occupied by the enemy forces. One was Moscow, another London and the third was Helsinki.

Yeah, and make it “Ormond Haydon-Baillie”, it will work better. Of course, English is only my third language, so…

I have heard of one at The Cradle of Aviation Museum on Long Island, NY, but I am not sure whether it is to be a wooden mock-up or a “real” reproduction. Does anybody else know?

And scratch the Finnish one out too, it will never fly. I am not 100% sure about its whereabouts now. It belongs to the collection of Central Finland’s Aviation Museum (aka Finnish AF Museum) near Jyväskylä Airport, but has been on loan to the Finnish Aviation Museum at Helsinki-Vantaa Airport. However, late last summer it was transported to South East Finland’s Aviation Museum at Lappeenranta Airport, could still be there.