On the importance of a good team

Today we did a full 15 hours of hard work in trying to locate the lost grave of 13 Soviet soldiers killed during fierce fighting on a tiny skerry off Hanko in late July 1941. While we didn´t find the exact location of the massgrave I´m convinced that we will finish the job later this year.

Part of todays hard work. Original archive picture by courtesy of an important contributor to the Hanko 1941 project who wishes to remain anonymous, colour photo from todays fieldwork by BA Aleksi Rikkinen and "now and then edit"  by MA Jan Fast.  

Modern conflict archaeology of war graves is teamwork at it´s very best. Without the help of a multitude of experts and talented archive and oral tradition researchers an archaeologist like me would be left totally in the dark. As many of you who help us out wish to remain anonymous I will try to express my deepest gratitude in the form of this post and this picture that capture what I feel is the essence of our work.

And last but not least our work is about people lost. Trying to find out their names and stories so that the devastation nature of a world will never be forgotten. Every soldier despite of his or her nationality deserves a grave and a name.