The Finnish Attack on the Hotel

By noon the Finnish attack had stalled. There was simply too much Soviet firepower to easily move forward, and the Finnish troops had become disorganized during their morning advance. Dozens of grenades would then be thrown into the bottom floor of the hotel, which killed or wounded most of the Soviets. This allowed the Finns to capture all of the ground floor but strong resistance still continued on the second floor. After the massive amount of grenades and then the Finnish soldiers running up, the Soviet defenders were finally neutralized. The troops who captured the hotel also capturing 18 automatic weapons and plenty of ammunition for them.