Skip to content

Banff's Tiesmaki fought and died with famed 10th Mountain Division in Italy

Hannu Tiesmaki was awarded the Silver Star for single-handedly taking out a Nazi machine gun post in the Italian Apennine mountains on Feb. 4, 1945. Just over two weeks later, he was wounded and killed during the campaign to drive the Germans from Mount Belvedere and out of the country as part of the Allied offensive to end the Second World War.

When 16-year-old Hannu Tiesmaki and his family moved to Anthracite near Banff in 1933, he didn't speak a word of English, or know how to ski.

Little did he know that spending his formative years in the Canadian Rocky Mountains would lead him to becoming an expert skier and mountain guide, and put him on track to join the famed 10th Mountain Division of the United States Army during the Second World War.

Tiesmaki's heroic actions during the war effort in Italy fighting back the Nazis in the Apennine mountains near Bologna would result in him being awarded the Silver Star and also cost him his life. He is honoured for his service as part of the Banff Royal Canadian Legion Colonel Moore Branch's cenotaph for fallen soldiers from the Second World War.

His nephew, and Banff resident Brett Tiesmaki, didn't know much about his uncle growing up, but was inspired to find out more about his service and death in the mid-1980s. 

"I knew something about my dad’s background, but I didn’t know much about Hannu," Brett said in an interview with the Outlook

"I wanted to try and learn more about him and I have done what I can to find out what he was part of.

"From all reports I could get about him, and the comrades that I reached out to at the 10th Mountain Division, they said he was a very nice, very quiet, stoic individual, as a lot of the Finns are. They tend to be very button-down individuals." 

COMING TO CANADA

Hannu Tiesmaki was born in 1917 and his older brother, Brett's father, Veijo was born in 1915 in Finland. They had an older brother Jouko and their father Ilmari fought in the Finnish Civil War.

After the end of that conflict, their father ended up fighting in the Russian Civil War before being recruited by the British to join the organized Murmansk Legion. 

He eventually made his way to the United Kingdom, remarried and decided to immigrate to Canada and sent for his two youngest sons. 

They arrived in the coal-mining town of Anthracite in 1933, where Ilmari ended up working for the Canadian Pacific Railway.

"I remember hearing one of my mother’s friends talking about ... these two big blonde-haired Finnish boys being put in their Grade 2 class to learn English," Brett said. "And so that is where they ended up when they came here. They didn't speak any English, they put them in a Grade 2 class and they learned." 

They also learned to ski – very well. A Feb. 1, 1940 article in The Albertan featured the "Flying Finns" that starred on skis and detailed their alpine abilities leading up to the Dominion Ski Championships at Mount Norquay.  

With the headline "Two Banff Brothers, After Seven Years in Canada, Developing into Clever Competitive Skiers," the article provides insight into their skills on skis. Having only learned to ski in 1937-38, they were already working as mountain guides, skiing people into and out of Skoki and Sunshine lodges. 

"Veigho (sic) was first to fall a victim of the competitive urge and eventually spent hours on the Mount Norquay slalom slopes," read the article. "Hannu caught the racing fever only this winter, patterning his style after that of his older brother. 

"Last week, both negotiated the still slalom course set on Norquay by Victor Kutschera and with the best zone talent in the field, finished fifth and sixth in a race only seconds behind the winners." 

Hannu was 23 and Veijo was 26 at the time and it was not long after that Germany invaded Norway and occupied Denmark on April 9, setting off what would become the Second World War. 

"At some point in the intervening years, from the time this story was written in 1940 until the time Hannu ended up enlisting in the U.S. Military, he moved to the United States and was pursuing his big dream, which was to train seeing-eye dogs," Brett said. 

Founded in 1929, the Seeing Eye is a guide dog school in Morristown, New Jersey and a photo of Hannu shows him working with three German shepherds. 

That was where Hannu was when he heard the stories about a new division of mountain troopers being formed by the U.S. Army in Colorado. Public relations for the new regiment featured men in all-white mountain gear with rifles training on skis in the pacific northwest in print and film. 

The Nov. 9, 1942 cover story in Life Magazine and March 27, 1943 cover of the Saturday Evening Post served as effective recruitment tools for the newly established 87th Mountain Regiment, which would eventually become the 10th Mountain Division.

THE 87th MOUNTAIN REGIMENT

It all started with a conversation in front of a roaring fire in a ski lodge near Manchester, Vermont in February 1940. 

In his book Climb to Conquer: the Untold Story of World War II's 10th Mountain Division, author Blake Shelton tells the tale of how four skiers were discussing the Russo-Finish war and Adolf Hitler's blitzkrieg through Poland. 

"Looking back," Shelton wrote, "each member of the quartet could legitimately be called a founding father of the new sport of skiing in America, though they probably wouldn't have described themselves that way; downhill skiing was simply too new, and their passions had yet to gain the perspective of history." 

There was Boston's Robert Langley, president of the National Ski Association; Harvard University graduate and Olympic alpine ski racer Robert Livermore; Alex Bright of the Boston ski club; and Charles Minot "Minnie" Dole, an insurance executive, amateur skier and organizer of the first volunteer ski patrols – the National Ski Patrol System.

They were equally impressed by how the Finns held out against invading Soviets, using stealth raids on skis, and concerned with Hitler's possible territorial ambitions in North America. 

Dole and Langley decided to write the War Department to offer their services. While they were focused on defending the U.S. from an invasion by having in place forces that could fight effectively in mountainous terrain, the offer to help did not make an impression on the Secretary of War at the time.

"Now, after watching the Finns fight on skis, Minnie Dole was convinced the United States needed specialized cold-weather and mountain troops," wrote Shelton. "The Germans had their Jaegers, the French their Chasseurs Alpin, the Italians their Alpini. The United States should be similarly prepared – either for defense or to fight on foreign mountains – and Minnie, with his organizational skills and grassroots connection to American skiers, could help." 

It took a while for the idea of a specialized mountain division of troops to gain traction, but in the summer of 1940 Chief of Staff Gen. George C. Marshall approved using some existing U.S. Army units to experiment with training and equipment for cold-weather fighting. 

Dole and others, under the auspices of the civilian National Ski Association spent time exploring the questions that came out of that initial experiment – how to train and equip a mountain military force. 

Marshall and the Secretary of War at the time, Henry L. Stimson, activated the 1st Battalion (Reinforced) 87th Mountain Infantry Regiment as of Nov. 15, 1941 at Fort Lewis, Washington. 

Nearby Mount Rainier, standing at more than 4,300 metres in the Cascade Range, provided the terrain to begin to form what would become the 10th Mountain Division. Col. Onslow S. Rolfe leased Paradise Lodge from the National Park Service for the 1941-42 season. 

Rolfe, a West Point graduate, didn't know much about skiing or mountain survival techniques, but it didn't take long for him to learn. Shelton wrote that as the first two companies began to fill up, they became a "who's who of American skiing." 

Olympic, world cup and national championship ski racers enlisted, while those already serving like Lt. John Jay transferred into the new regiment. Jay, a direct descendant of the first Supreme Court justice, was a budding ski filmmaker and was soon put in charge of public relations.

Great European skiers were also drawn to join the mountain troopers like Norwegian ski jumper Torger Tokle, Swiss world champion Sgt. Walter Prager, and Austrians Friedl Pfeifer and Toni Matt, who were ski instructors at Sun Valley. 

Paradise, however, was not big enough to handle the increasing number of recruits to the regiment and in the fall of 1942 they arrived at Camp Hale, which filled a valley near Pando, Colorado. Built over the summer at a cost of $30 million, it was specifically designed for the ski troops. 

"Hannu enlisted in the States and at the same time by dad attempted to enlist in Canada, but he was rejected because they found out he had [tuberculosis]," Brett said. 

"My uncle ended up joining the 10th Mountain Division, which was based out of Colorado at a place called Camp Hale. He went ... and was a ski instructor. 

"He was teaching all these guys who came in wanting to join and were being taught how to ski and manage in the backcountry, so that was his role." 

Around the same time, members of the 10th were tasked with testing a new over-the-snow vehicle on a secret mission to the Columbia Icefields in the Canadian Rockies

"The Studebaker Corporation had a contract with the Army to build such a vehicle, and the mountain troops' job was to build the camps, keep the engineers and their prototypes from falling into crevasses on the glacier, and ski as much as possible on their days off," Shelton wrote. 

THE ITALIAN CAMPAIGN

While there were some in the regiment that thought the mountain troops would never see action, in 1944 toward the end of the war effort they were sent overseas to join the Italian Campaign.

The deployment did not go according to plan, as all the equipment developed for use by the mountain troops did not make it overseas. The specialized gear needed for the alpine environment they were about to find themselves in was replaced with makeshift crampons and borrowed skis scavenged in the Italian countryside.   

The 10th Division sent approximately 13,000 troops into battle against the Nazis in the mountains of Italy and saw some of the highest casualty rates with 1,000 killed in battle, including Hannu Tiesmaki on Feb. 21, 1945, for which he received the Purple Heart. 

On Feb. 5, 1945, near Mount Spigolino, Tiesmaki's actions during battle resulted in him being awarded the Silver Star. It is the third highest honour that can be given for valour in combat by the United States Armed Forces.

"Leading an assault group of 60 men in a raid on enemy machine gun positions, Second Lieutenant Tiesmaki advanced with his men under covering fire from the summit of a mountain," reads the commendation that came with the medal. "With his submachine gun, he neutralized the fire coming from the hostile bunkers until they were within grenade range.

"Then he dashed forward to throw three grenades into the enemy emplacements. One of the hostile soldiers rose to fire at him, but instantly Second Lieutenant Tiesmaki killed him with submachine gun fire.

"The remaining enemy, overwhelmed by the aggressive attack, gave themselves up. By his gallant leadership in the assault, he earned the undying memory of his men, who will always be inspired by his brave deeds. Such heroism is truly worthy of the finest traditions of the United States Army."  

In his book The Last Ridge: The Epic Story of the U.S. Army's 10th Mountain Division and the Assualt on Hitler's Europe, author McKay Jenkins sets the stage for the 10th's action in the northern Apennine mountains beginning at the tail end of 1944.

The mountain range cuts across the country south of Bologna and north of Rome. Dubbed the Gothic Line, the Germans were not giving up any ground easily. Mount Belvedere, according to Jenkins, was the linchpin as "the most heavily fortified position in a strategically crucial series of mountain ridges." 

The Allies faced-off against unforgiving vertical mountain faces with hundreds of concrete machine-gun pillboxes, tanks equipped with 88-mm guns, and landmines. 

"Worse, the Germans had such a panoramic view that they could see not only every lone soldier walking down a dusty road, but everything behind the Allied lines," wrote Jenkins. "It was, it seemed, a perfect defensive stronghold."

Eighteen months of non-stop fighting and General George P. Hays brought in the 10th Mountain Division to take the keystone position the Nazis held away from them under the cover of darkness.

The mountain troops had to rely heavily on their alpine experience and intelligence, especially their rock climbing skills. Multiple routes for the offensive were scouted along Riva Ridge and Mount Belvedere for what Jenkins called "one of the most daring assaults of the war," on Feb. 18, 1945. 

"Again, if everything went according to plan, the mountaintops would fall like dominoes, from the five peaks of Riva Ridge to the three large humps leading northeast from Belvedere to della Torraccia," wrote Jenkins, who added military brass expected a 90 per cent casualty rate, which was not shared with the regiments about to make the daring assault on the Germans. 

After two days, and climbing 2,200 vertical feet, Riva Ridge was secured, with minimal casualties compared to what was expected. The subsequent assault on Belvedere, on the other hand, proved to be deadly and difficult, but ultimately successful. 

One of those killed taking the mountain from the Germans was Tiesmaki, who was afterwards buried in the American Military Cemetery near Florence.

Brett visited his uncle's gravesite in 1985 and found it an incredibly powerful experience and something he will never forget. 

The success of the 10th on Riva Ridge and then Belvedere proved pivotal in the war effort. On May 2, 1945 the Germans surrendered Italy to the Allies. 

Jenkins noted that despite three years of training, the ski troops hardly ever skied, but it was technical mountain training that proved critical as the 1,000 specially chosen men of the 10th climbed Riva Ridge during the night time assault. 

"For those following the exploits of the mountain troops – both before and after they left for Europe – Riva Ridge fit the division's public image perfectly," wrote Jenkins. "It was a terribly steep cliff and once again showed the brilliance of the men's extra-military training. It wasn't marksmanship that won the day, it was mountaineering." 

push icon
Be the first to read breaking stories. Enable push notifications on your device. Disable anytime.
No thanks