| Battle of Kuhmo | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of the Winter War | |||||||
 Positions of the Army units | |||||||
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| Belligerents | |||||||
 Finland |  Soviet Union | ||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
| 54th Soviet Rifle Division | |||||||
  Location within Finland  Battle of Kuhmo (Karelia) | |||||||
The Battle of Kuhmo was a series of skirmishes, mainly between January 28 and March 13, 1940, near the town of Kuhmo during the Soviet-Finnish Winter War. The 54th Soviet Rifle Division was encircled, but was able to hold out until the end of the war.
By conquering Northern Finland, the Soviet leadership wanted to occupy the entire Finnish state and cut off the traffic routes to its neighbors during the war. [2] In order to support the advance of the 163rd Rifle Division and 44th Motorized Rifle Division on Oulu, the 54th Rifle Division was to advance south to cut off any routes for reinforcements from the Finnish heartland. [3]
After crossing the border, the 54th Division advanced towards Kuhmo. The Finnish army had only small border units stationed in this area, as an attack in northern Finland was not expected. On December 3, 1939, the Finnish High Command under Mannerheim was forced to send a regiment from the reserve, to slow down the advance of the Soviet division. By New Year 1940, the Soviet units had moved within 15 kilometers of the village. There, the division was largely spared of attacks by the outnumbered enemy. The commander of the division, General Nikolai Gusevsky, used this pause to fortify his positions and even had a makeshift airfield built on a frozen lake. The division was in the form of an elongated column along the approach road to Kuhmo. [4]
After the 163rd and 44th Soviet divisions had been defeated at the Battle of Suomussalmi further north, Mannerheim sent the units from Suomussalmi towards Kuhmo. The 9th Division under Hjalmar Siilasvuo reached Kuhmo but was outnumbered by the Soviet division and it was now lacking ammunition and artillery. Anyhow, on January 28, 1940, the Finnish troops launched a counterattack. The Finns, who operated on skis from the forest like they did at Suomussalmi, succeeded in cutting off the Soviet division and dividing it into three parts, so-called mottis. The Finns used captured Soviet anti-tank guns in Suomussalmi to repel enemy counter-attacks with tanks. A stalemate loomed.[ citation needed ]
The Soviets tried to relieve the surrounded units with a newly formed 1,800-man ski brigade and the deployment of the 23rd Rifle Division, but these attempts failed. The 54th Division was adequately supplied by the Soviet Air Force so that it was able to maintain its resistance until the armistice on March 13, 1940. [5]
Finnish casualties were 1,340 dead, 3,123 wounded and 132 missing. The Soviet casualties were 2,118 dead, 3,732 wounded and 573 missing. The bodies of 720 Soviet soldiers were found in the area where Colonel Dolin's ski brigade had fought. [6]
The assessment of the result of the battle is double: the Finns managed to block the Soviet advance, but their hope of being able to quickly repeat the success of the Battle of Suomussalmi and that of the Raate road, in order to then be able to transfer the 9th division to the crucial sector of the Isthmus of Karelia, was thwarted by the strenuous Soviet resistance. [7]
The Winter War was a war between the Soviet Union and Finland. It began with a Soviet invasion of Finland on 30 November 1939, three months after the outbreak of World War II, and ended three and a half months later with the Moscow Peace Treaty on 13 March 1940. Despite superior military strength, especially in tanks and aircraft, the Soviet Union suffered severe losses and initially made little headway. The League of Nations deemed the attack illegal and expelled the Soviet Union from its organization.
The Battle of Suomussalmi was fought between Finnish and Soviet forces in the Winter War. The action took place from 30 November 1939 to 8 January 1940. The outcome was a Finnish victory against superior forces. This battle is considered the clearest, most important, and most significant Finnish victory in the northern half of Finland. In Finland, the battle is still seen today as a symbol of the entirety of the Winter War itself.
Hjalmar Fridolf Siilasvuo was a Finnish lieutenant general, a knight of the Mannerheim Cross and a member of the Jäger Movement. He participated in the Eastern Front of World War I, the Finnish Civil War, the Winter War, Continuation War and the Lapland War.
The III Corps was a corps of the Finnish Army during the Continuation War, where Finland fought alongside Nazi Germany against the Soviet Union. Formed from the peacetime V Corps and subordinated to the German Army High Command Norway, III Corps fought initially in northern Finland on the flank of the German XXXVI Corps, participating in the Finno-German Operation Arctic Fox. In February 1944, it was moved to the Karelian Isthmus just prior to the launch of the Soviet Vyborg–Petrozavodsk offensive. Following the Moscow Armistice, III Corps took overall command of the Finnish forces participating in the Lapland War, the removal of German forces from northern Finland.
Operation Arctic Fox[a] was the codename given to a World War II campaign by German and Finnish forces against Soviet Northern Front defenses at Salla, Murmansk Oblast, in July 1941. The operation was part of the larger Operation Silver Fox which aimed to capture the vital port of Murmansk. Arctic Fox was conducted in parallel to Operation Platinum Fox in the far north of Lappland. The principal goal of Operation Arctic Fox was to capture the town of Salla and then to advance in the direction of Kandalaksha to block the railway route to Murmansk.
The Shelling of Mainila, or the Mainila incident, was a military incident on 26 November 1939 in which the Soviet Union's Red Army shelled the Soviet village of Mainila near Beloostrov. The Soviet Union declared that the fire originated from Finland across the nearby border and claimed to have had losses in personnel. Through that false flag operation, the Soviet Union gained a great propaganda boost and a casus belli for launching the Winter War four days later.
The Battle of Salla was fought between Finnish and Soviet troops near Salla in northern Finland during the Winter War. The Soviets had orders to advance through Salla to Kemijärvi and Sodankylä, and from there to Rovaniemi in just two weeks. From there they were to advance to Tornio and cut Finland in two. The Finnish troops managed to stop the Soviet advance just east of Kemijärvi. During the last days of February 1940 the Finnish troops were replaced with the Swedish, Norwegian and Danish volunteers of the Stridsgruppen SFK.
The Battle of Summa was fought between the Soviet Union and Finland, in two phases, first in December 1939 and then in February 1940. It was part of the Winter War and was fought near the village of Summa along the main road leading from Leningrad to Viipuri.
The Battle of Raate Road was fought during the Winter War between the Soviet Union and Finland in January 1940, as a part of the Battle of Suomussalmi.
The Finnish invasion of Ladoga Karelia was a military campaign carried out by Finland in 1941. It was part of what is commonly referred to as the Continuation War. Early in the war, Finnish forces captured the Ladoga Karelia. It had been ceded to the Soviet Union on 13 March 1940, in the Moscow Peace Treaty, which marked the end of the Winter War. Later, in the summer of 1944, the Soviet Union recaptured the eastern part of Ladoga Karelia in the Vyborg–Petrozavodsk Offensive.
The Finnish invasion of East Karelia was a military campaign in 1941. It was part of the Continuation War. Finnish troops occupied East Karelia and held it until 1944. For over a month after the outbreak of the Continuation War, the Karelian Army reinforced and prepared to resume its earlier offensive while waiting for the recapture of the Karelian Isthmus. The Soviets had prepared fortifications and brought troops to the front. When encirclements on the western shore of Lake Ladoga were resolved, the Finnish 7th Division was transferred to the junction of VI and VII Corps.
The Battle of Taipale was a series of battles fought during the Winter War between Finland and Soviet Union from 6 to 27 December 1939. The battles were part of a Soviet campaign to penetrate the Finnish Mannerheim Line in the Karelian Isthmus region to open a route into southern Finland. Despite their numerical superiority, the Soviet forces were unable to break through the Finnish defences.
The timeline of the Winter War is a chronology of events leading up to, culminating in, and resulting from the Winter War. The war began when the Soviet Union attacked Finland on 30 November 1939 and it ended 13 March 1940.
The 44th Kievskaya of the Red Banner Rifle Division of Nikolay Shchors, or 44th Kievskaya for short, was an elite military formation of the Soviet Union. Created during the beginnings of the Russian Civil War. It was destroyed during the Winter War, after being ordered to help the 163rd Rifle Division break a Finnish siege on the Raate road as part of the Special Rifle Corps 9th Army, together with the 54th Rifle Division. Afterwards it was levied and dissolved multiple times throughout the 40s and 50s until its final dissolution in 1959.
Alexei Ivanovich Vinogradov was a Soviet kombrig and the commander of the 44th Rifle Division. His unit took part in the Soviet invasion of Poland and the Winter War against the Finns. The unit perished in the Battle of Raate Road and Vinogradov was executed by the Soviet military for the failure.
The 54th Rifle Division was an infantry division of the Soviet Union's Red Army and Soviet Army, formed twice. The division was formed in 1936 and fought in the Winter War. The division spent most of World War II in Karelia fighting with Finnish troops in the Continuation War. After Finland left the war the division was relocated southward and fought in the East Prussian Offensive and the Prague Offensive in 1945. The division was disbanded in the summer of that year. The 54th Rifle Division was awarded the Order of Lenin, the Order of the Red Banner and the Order of Kutuzov 2nd class. It was also awarded the honorific "Masuria" for its actions in the East Prussian Offensive. The division was reformed in 1955 from the 341st Rifle Division and became a motor rifle division in 1957.
The Battle of Porlampi, also known as the Battle of Porlammi, was a military engagement fought between the Finnish Army and Red Army from 30 August to 1 September 1941 on the Karelian Isthmus. The battle was fought near the town of Porlampi during the second month of the Continuation War. The battle was a Finnish victory and effectively ended the reconquest of Karelia.
The Dolin Ski Brigade was a Red Army fighting unit led by Colonel Vjatšeslav Dmitrievitš Dolin during the Winter War. Well-equipped and composed primarily of Siberians with skiing expertise, the brigade was an elite unit. It was formed from three ski battalions of the 9th Soviet Army and was tasked with relieving the encircled 54th Rifle Division during the Battle of Kuhmo. The brigade was destroyed by Finnish forces during the battle, with the vast majority killed in action.
The 168th Rifle Division was formed as an infantry division of the Red Army in the Leningrad Military District in August - September 1939, based on the shtat of the latter month. It was the highest-numbered rifle division to take part in the Winter War against Finland, and attempted to advance west along the north shore of Lake Ladoga as part of 8th Army, but was encircled near Kitelä and remained in this pocket, struggling for survival, for the duration of the conflict. At the start of the Continuation War it was deployed in the same general area along the new USSR/Finland border as part of 7th Army in Northern Front. The Finnish Army crossed the border on June 25, 1941, and the 168th soon found itself again encircled on the shore of Ladoga. In the third week of August it was evacuated to Leningrad and assigned to Leningrad Front's 55th Army. During November it took part in the first offensive to try to break the German/Finnish siege by attacking out of a small bridgehead over the Neva River and then exploiting toward Sinyavino to link up with 54th Army attacking eastward. This effort soon became a bloodbath despite the commitment of reinforcements and a number of tanks. At the end of the year the remnants of the division were removed from the bridgehead and moved through the city and then marched across the frozen Gulf of Finland to reinforce the Front's Coastal Operational Group in the Oranienbaum Bridgehead, where it would remain until January 1944, when it took part in the offensive that drove Army Group North away from the city. It began the offensive as part of 2nd Shock Army, but after linking up with the forces striking west out of Leningrad the 168th was moved to 42nd Army and under this command drove south and west toward Pskov before coming up against the defenses of the Panther Line. In June it was moved back north of Leningrad to face Finland as part of 21st Army in the offensive that drove that nation out of the war. In August it rejoined 42nd Army, now as part of 2nd Baltic Front and took part in the offensive through the Baltic states toward Riga, where it won a battle honor. Until the final weeks of the war the 168th was part of the forces containing the German grouping in the Courland Pocket, when it was moved to the Reserve of the Supreme High Command. It was finally disbanded in January 1946.
The 163rd Rifle Division was formed as an infantry division of the Red Army just before the Second World War began, in the Tula Oblast, based on the pre-September 13, 1939 shtat. As a reinforced rifle division, it took part in the Winter War with Finland, where it was encircled at Suomussalmi. Despite a rescue attempt by the 44th Rifle Division from the Raate Road the division was largely destroyed in one of the best-known Finnish victories of the war.