Transcript
Mr. Ballin (0:00)
Hey guys, I'm back by the fire and I have another awesome story to share with you. Today's story is this epic survival story. And I mean the story itself is truly unbelievable. But I'm telling you the twist at the end. Basically how this person was able to survive, you will not see coming. Great plot twist, great story. I know you're gonna like it. But before we get into today's story, if you're a fan of the strange, dark and mysterious delivered in story format, then you come to the right campfire because that's all we do. And we upload two, three, even four times every week. So if that's of interest to you, please invite the follow button to come on down to your campfire. But when they get there, just immediately push them into the flames and then leave. Also, please subscribe to our channel and turn on all notifications so you don't miss any of our weekly uploads. Okay, let's get into today's story.
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Mr. Ballin (2:02)
Around 10am on March 18, 1944, a 26 year old Finnish soldier named Aimo Koivunen sat around a campfire with a group of other soldiers inside of the Arctic Circle in northern Europe. They were very deep into the wilderness in this forest that was covered in several feet of snow and, and Ayimo was melting a pot of that snow over the fire so the group could drink some tea. And at the same time that Ayamo was doing this, even though it was kind of relaxing to be sitting here, Ayimo, I mean his whole body was basically aching. Number one, it was, you know, five degrees outside and this was also the first time that he and the other soldiers had stopped to rest in about two days. They had been on the move the whole time. At this point during World War II, they were Allied with Nazi Germany. Not because, you know, they were Nazis, they were not, but because Finland and Germany shared a common enemy, the Soviet Union. Right now, Aimo and his squadron were in an area called Lapland, which used to belong to Finland. But four years earlier, the Soviet Union had invaded Finland and ultimately forced Finland to cede this land to the Soviets. But now During World War II, Finland wanted to get their land back and Germany was helping them do that. And so IMO and his squadron were in Lapland on essentially a reconnaissance mission. They were there to try to figure out sort of what the Soviets were doing in this part of Lapland and how many Soviets were out there. Again, in this particular part of Lapland. However, Aimo and the others had spent the past two days skiing all over the place in their area of operations, but so far they hadn't seen any Soviet soldiers or any Soviet bases. But you know, for Aimo and probably for the other soldiers that he was with, I mean, this was ultimately a good thing. They were trained for combat, but they didn't necessarily want to come across Soviets and have like a full blown shootout, in part because the Soviets were just a bigger, more well equipped military. And, you know, they were also more advanced. And so if they got into a gunfight with them, who knows what would have happened. And so even though Aimo is like sitting here feeling very sore and very tired as he melts his snow, he was ultimately feeling kind of grateful that this reconnaissance mission had proven to be pretty low key. However, just as the water began to boil, Aimo and the other soldiers heard the unmistakable sound of machine gun fire coming from somewhere that had to be nearby. And so immediately Aimo and the others, they jump up, forget what they're doing, and they're just, they're looking to see where this gunfire is coming from. But then before they could even make sense of the situation, Aimo's lieutenant yelled like, hey, get ready, get your guns. And so they all scooped up their weapons. Aimo, he's picking his weapon up. And as he looks up, he looked off in the distance, maybe a quarter mile away, and he was shocked to see an entire pack of Soviet soldiers bearing down on them. They were literally skiing down this mountainside right nearby. And they were obviously shooting their machine guns, not in random directions but right at Ayimo. And the other men, they were clearly being attacked by these Soviets. Now, Aimo and the other men have clearly been Trained for this. This is literally why they're out here. They are soldiers, they're ready for this type of encounter. But for a moment, when Aimo sees this overwhelming force that's descending on them, they're clearly outnumbered. Like, this is gonna end badly. All Ayimo had in his head was just this overwhelming feeling of just terror. He was the oldest of six children, and when he first enlisted in the military, he had promised all of his little siblings that he wouldn't get hurt, he would come home, he would be okay. And now he knew that wasn't gonna happen. Like, he was gonna get killed. He just knew it. But at this point, Ayimo, he looked over at his lieutenant to get orders, but Aimo, after sort of breaking out of this initial thought, he looked over at his lieutenant, and his lieutenant looked terrified too. But he quickly composed himself and yelled for Aimo and everybody else to flee. Just moments later, Aimo and the other Finnish soldiers were on their skis, skiing as fast as they could away from the Soviets, down the backside of this mountain, just doing anything they could to survive. And as Ayimo is skiing away, he can hear the sound of gunfire ricocheting off trees, zipping by his head. Like he's thinking, at any point, I'm gonna get hit or one of my teammates are gonna get hit. There's nothing we can do. We just gotta go as fast and as far as we can. And so he's skiing, and actually Ayumo was at the front of their formation, so he's actually leading the pack. And so really, it was his job to kind of create tracks in the snow that the others could follow in behind. It was easier for them, but it meant he was expending a lot of energy, basically pushing all the snow down as he was making his escape. And as much as he wanted to maintain that position and do this for his teammates to continue to make tracks here, it was so exhausting. And also, like, when you're in combat, you have this unbelievable adrenaline rush that sometimes can lead to, like, a massive crash of energy. And it was like he had this huge rush of energy. And now it's like he's. He's collapsing. Despite the need to escape here, it's like his body just cannot go any faster than he's going. And so before long, it's like he found himself slowing down. And his teammates are zipping by him because they can't stop. The bullets are flying fast, like their only hope of survival is just to keep on going. And so Aimo knows that like, basically, if he can't keep up, he's dead. But his body, it was just, he couldn't, he couldn't go any faster. He was slowing down, he was going slower and slower. He can hear the sound of the gun getting closer and closer, and he's thinking about his siblings and how devastated they're gonna be to find out that he was killed in this war. And so slower and slower he's going. The sounds are getting louder and louder behind him, and he sees the last of his teammates pass him, and he sees them just kind of drift off down the mountain into the white abyss beyond. And they're gone. He's alone and he just can't keep up. And then finally he just loses control of his skis. He veers off to the side, he starts tumbling down the mountain and smashes into a tree and he passes out.