My grandfather was a truck driver from northern Sweden. Just before the war he had just bought a new Volvo truck with about 70 hp (a monster in those days) and had loans to pay, but during the war suddenly there was no jobs. In the newspaper he read about a job in the port of Holmsund near Umeå and when he went it became clear that this was no ordinary job.
As you said Sweden allowed and encouraged Swedish volunteers to Finland, but the military also sent a lot of firearms, artillery and other equipment. But the railways in Sweden and Finland were of different widths meaning all cargo would have to be unloaded and re-loaded by hand at the border. They still tried but the system was quickly overrun.
The winter in 39/40 was one of the coldest ever here, meaning the Bothnian Bay was frozen solid. The solution was to drive civilian truck convoys loaded with armaments over the ice over "Kvarken", the strait from Holmsund to Vasa. There they unloaded the trucks and loaded Finnish pulp for paper production, which was the only thing they had a surplus of.
They had to drive at night and cover their headlamps so Soviet planes wouldn't spot them. They had to drive with their door open so they could get out and run if they were attacked or if the ice started caving, meaning many of them got frostbitten (especially those from southern Sweden )
My grandfather drove many times and "advanced" to plowtruck in the front part of the convoy, a safer position. One time there was a blizzard and the tracks got covered with snow in seconds. Since the drivers couldn't see more than a meter or two, the convoy quickly clogged up. Even if the ice was thick, it couldn't handle it. One driver died. He was the only casualty of the "Kvarken traffic" although 6 trucks went through the ice in total.
My grandfather proposed to my grandmother in the beginning of the war, but she already had a boyfriend. The morning after the blizzard my grandmother heard that the convoy hadn't yet arrived in Vasa. She was worried and devastated, and realized she loved him.
So, I guess the moral of the story is I exist because Sweden and Finland had incompatible train tracks..
As you said Sweden allowed and encouraged Swedish volunteers to Finland, but the military also sent a lot of firearms, artillery and other equipment. But the railways in Sweden and Finland were of different widths meaning all cargo would have to be unloaded and re-loaded by hand at the border. They still tried but the system was quickly overrun.
The winter in 39/40 was one of the coldest ever here, meaning the Bothnian Bay was frozen solid. The solution was to drive civilian truck convoys loaded with armaments over the ice over "Kvarken", the strait from Holmsund to Vasa. There they unloaded the trucks and loaded Finnish pulp for paper production, which was the only thing they had a surplus of.
They had to drive at night and cover their headlamps so Soviet planes wouldn't spot them. They had to drive with their door open so they could get out and run if they were attacked or if the ice started caving, meaning many of them got frostbitten (especially those from southern Sweden )
My grandfather drove many times and "advanced" to plowtruck in the front part of the convoy, a safer position. One time there was a blizzard and the tracks got covered with snow in seconds. Since the drivers couldn't see more than a meter or two, the convoy quickly clogged up. Even if the ice was thick, it couldn't handle it. One driver died. He was the only casualty of the "Kvarken traffic" although 6 trucks went through the ice in total.
My grandfather proposed to my grandmother in the beginning of the war, but she already had a boyfriend. The morning after the blizzard my grandmother heard that the convoy hadn't yet arrived in Vasa. She was worried and devastated, and realized she loved him.
So, I guess the moral of the story is I exist because Sweden and Finland had incompatible train tracks..