Kaleva surmalend

On a June afternoon in 1940, the passenger plane Kaleva took off from Tallinn airfield, heading for Helsinki. Over the sea, two Soviet warplanes tailed the Kaleva and opened fire with machine guns. The Kaleva caught fire, exploded, and plunged into the sea. Nine people on board perished, and the unanswered questions surrounding the tragedy have intrigued many history enthusiasts for decades. The wreck of the Kaleva was searched for as recently as the summer of 2008 with the help of a US research vessel, but it remains undiscovered. Drawing on extensive source material, Risto Niku provides an overview of the downing of the Kaleva, which at times reads like a chapter from a spy novel—featuring encrypted messages, broken codes, couriers and spies, submarines and fighter pilots.