75 PstK/40 Guns

Toivo Ilomäki was born in 1917 and worked as a storeman before the Winter War. He participated in the Winter War and the early Continuation war as a member of an anti-tank gun crew initially as an ammunition carrier.

However, in the middle of a battle in 1941 when the gunner did not seem to be able to hit anything, he went to the platoon commander and said he would be a better shot. With the permission of the platoon commander he then demonstrated this by shooting into a tree that fell on Soviet infantry.

In 1944 he was the gunner of a PaK40 and destroyed a total of 21 tanks. At the Battle of Sammatus alone he destroyed 16 Soviet tanks over three days, many of them at close range in the middle of a Soviet artillery barrage. These included T-34 tanks and IS-2 heavy tanks. He was the only man in the Finnish army to get all four additional stripes to the tank killer badge and received the Mannerheim Cross for his valor.

After the war Ilomäki returned to his job as a storeman and died in 1965, aged just 48. His gun (with 21 kill marks) is preserved in the armor museum in Parola.