Lauri Allan Törni, later known as Larry Alan Thorne, was a Finnish-born soldier who fought under three flags: as a Finnish Army officer in the Winter War and the Continuation War ultimately gaining a rank of captain; as a Waffen-SS captain of the Finnish Volunteer Battalion of the Waffen-SS when he fought the Red Army on the Eastern Front in World War II; and as a United States Army Major when he served in the U.S. Army Special Forces in the Vietnam War.
Thorne in the U.S. Army uniform in the 1960s
Vänrikki Lauri Törni after graduating from cadet school in 1940
Törni in a Waffen-SS uniform during training in 1941
A plaque in Hotel Tammer, Tampere, about Lauri Törni's jägers being banned from meeting there in 1946.
Finnish volunteers in the Waffen-SS
From 1941 to 1943, 1,408 Finns volunteered for service on the Eastern Front of World War II in the Waffen-SS, in units of the SS Division Wiking. Most of these volunteers served as motorized infantry in the Finnish Volunteer Battalion of the Waffen-SS. The unit was disbanded in mid-1943 as the volunteers' two-year commitment had expired and the Finnish government was unwilling to allow more men to volunteer. In 1944-1945 a company sized unit of Finnish defectors recruited to the SS continued fighting alongside Germany.
An SS representative speaking with members of the Finnish Army's TK company, August 1941
Mikko Korpijaakko served in the 10th company of the SS-Division Wiking's Westland regiment
Finnish Waffen-SS volunteers of the 5th SS Panzer Division Wiking during their homecoming parade in Hanko, Finland, 1 June 1943.
Military chaplain SS-Obersturmbannführer Kalervo Kurkiala gives a memorial speech for fallen brothers in arms in Hietaniemi in 1943
