The 3 Soviet Bombings of Swedish Lapland

Remains of all three Soviet bombings with museum staffer Sivert Mässing.

For the first time, remains from all three Soviet bombings of northernmost Sweden are on public display. Soviet shrapnel from the Övertorneå bombing 1944 has never been displayed in a museum before.

The Soviet bombing of the northern Swedish town of Pajala on February 21 1940 meant about 150 dropped bombs. It may have occurred due to an actual navigational error, Pajala is located on the Finnish border. The Pajala bombing caused rather great damage but no person was killed. It is the northern Soviet bombing that has made it into many Swedish history books.

However, the first ever Soviet bombing of Swedish territory was that of Kallaxön outside Luleå on January 14 1940. Three DB-3 bombers entered the Luleå area from the south east and were well over Swedish ground flying in the direction of the fortress town of Boden when they turned, probably due to the weather conditions, and then bombed Kallaxön with at least ten bombs. Amazingly, only one house was really damaged. Is is quite possible that the Soviets had intended to bomb Boden and when this was no longer possible, they instead opted for damaging the air base being constructed on Kallax. The intention may have been to send a strong signal (protest) to the Swedish government, not to support Finland during the Soviet Winter War against Finland. The Kallaxön bombing is mentioned in only a few books, but forms a rather large part of the bonus chapter in the paperback version of my book Germans and Allies in Sweden.

Now, since last week, bomb parts from the Kallaxön and Pajala bombings have been joined by two Soviet bomb fragments from Övertorneå, that was bombed on February 12 1944. Although there is little that speaks for Soviet intent (Övertorneå also being a border town) this incident too is of some interest, as it has eluded historians. But, thanks to the discovery of an original map from 1944 with bomb craters clearly marked, and evidence from locals and local newspapers, shrapnel has been found and it has been concluded that the bombs had Cyrillic script. Remains of nine were found and one did not go off. The bomb parts constitute just a small part of the museum Flygmuseet F 21 Luleå.

Did other states bomb northernmost Sweden during WWII? A couple of British bombs were dropped, in connection with the battle of Narvik 1940, but they were dropped by the Norwegian border and landed in the wilderness, not harming anyone or anything except the ground.

P.S.
The above text constitutes an English summary of three articles in Swedish I have written, that were published in Soldat & Teknik 3/2014, 1/2017 and 4/2017.