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The Continuation War, also known as the Second Soviet-Finnish War, was a conflict fought by Finland and Nazi Germany against the Soviet Union during World War II. It began with a Finnish declaration of war and invasion on 25 June 1941 and ended on 19 September 1944 with the Moscow Armistice. The Soviet Union and Finland had previously fought the Winter War from 1939 to 1940, which ended with the Soviet failure to conquer Finland and the Moscow Peace Treaty. Numerous reasons have been proposed for the Finnish decision to invade, with regaining territory lost during the Winter War regarded as the most common. Other justifications for the conflict include Finnish President Risto Ryti's vision of a Greater Finland and Commander-in-Chief Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim's desire to annex East Karelia.
Operation Silver Fox from 29 June to 17 November 1941, was a joint German–Finnish military operation during the Continuation War on the Eastern Front of World War II against the Soviet Union. The objective of the offensive was to cut off and capture the key Soviet Port of Murmansk through attacks from Finnish and Norwegian territory.
Operation Tanne Ost was a German operation during World War II to capture the island Suursaari in the Gulf of Finland before it could fall into Soviet hands. Suursaari was especially important because it worked as a lock in the Finnish Gulf guarding the minefields keeping the Soviet Baltic Fleet in Kronstadt.
Finland participated in the Second World War initially in a defensive war against the Soviet Union, followed by another, this time offensive, war against the Soviet Union acting in concert with Nazi Germany and then finally fighting alongside the Allies against Germany.
Cold-weather warfare, also known as arctic warfare or winter warfare, encompasses military operations affected by snow, ice, thawing conditions, or cold, both on land and at sea, as well as the strategies and tactics used by military forces in these situations and environments.
Operation Platinum Fox was a German and Finnish military offensive launched during World War II. Platinum Fox took place on the Eastern Front and had the objective of capturing the Barents Sea port of Murmansk. It was part of a larger operation, called Operation Silver Fox.
The Battle of Tornio was the first major engagement between Nazi Germany and Finland in the Lapland War; although hostilities had already begun elsewhere.
The Petsamo–Kirkenes offensive was a major military offensive during World War II, mounted by the Red Army against the Wehrmacht in 1944 in the Petsamo region, ceded to the Soviet Union by Finland in accordance with the Moscow Armistice, and Norway. The offensive defeated the Wehrmacht's forces in the Arctic, driving them back into Norway, and was called the "Tenth Shock" by Stalin. It later expelled German forces from the northern part of Norway and seized the nickel mines of Petsamo.
The Karelian Front Russian: Карельский фронт) was a front of the Soviet Union's Red Army during World War II, and operated in Karelia.
The Battle of Rovaniemi was an event during the 1944 Lapland War. The actual fighting between the components of the Finnish Armoured Division and Finnish 3rd Division against the troops of the German Twentieth Mountain Army took place at the vicinity of the town of Rovaniemi. The notoriety of the encounter derives from the near-total destruction of the town.
The 14th Army was a field army of the Soviet Army, formed twice.
In Operation Doomsday, the British 1st Airborne Division acted as a police and military force during the Allied occupation of Norway in May 1945, immediately after the victory in Europe during the Second World War. The division maintained law and order until the arrival of the remainder of Force 134, the occupation force. During its time in Norway, the division was tasked with supervising the surrender of the German forces in Norway, as well as preventing the sabotage of vital military and civilian facilities.
During World War II, the Lapland War saw fighting between Finland and Nazi Germany – effectively from September to November 1944 – in Finland's northernmost region, Lapland. Though the Finns and the Germans had been fighting together against the Soviet Union since 1941 during the Continuation War (1941–1944), peace negotiations between the Finnish government and the Allies of World War II had been conducted intermittently during 1943–1944, but no agreement had been reached. The Moscow Armistice, signed on 19 September 1944, demanded that Finland break diplomatic ties with Germany and expel or disarm any German soldiers remaining in Finland.
Operation Nordlicht was a German operation during the end of World War II. After Finland had made peace with the USSR, the Germans planned to fall back to defense lines built and equipped in advance across Finnish Lapland. During the operation, the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht gave an order to move from Operation Birke to Operation Nordlicht on 4 October 1944. That meant that instead of evacuating everything and then fortifying on the strong defensive positions, the German 20th Mountain Army was to retreat according to a set timetable to a new defense line in Lyngen Municipality in Troms county, Norway. The Germans retreated using scorched-earth tactics and destroyed almost all buildings and all boats in Finnmark, thus denying the enemy any facilities in the area. The same tactics had already been used in Finnish Lapland. The retreat ended on 20 January 1945. A detailed account of 'the Nazis' scorched earth campaign in Norway' by Vincent Hunt includes statements by eyewitnesses, photographs taken at the time and a map of locations and prisoner of war camps.
The Liberation of Finnmark was an Allied military operation lasting from 23 October 1944 until 26 April 1945, in which Soviet and Norwegian forces wrested away control of Finnmark, the northernmost county of Norway, from Germany. It began with a Soviet offensive that liberated Kirkenes.
The 114th Rifle Division began service in July 1939 as a standard Red Army rifle division, as part of the pre-war expansion of the Soviet forces. It was stationed on the Svir River front in the autumn of 1941 and had a relatively uneventful war facing the Finns until the Vyborg–Petrozavodsk Offensive began on June 10, 1944, from which point it saw much more active service. As the Finns were leaving the war the division was transferred to 14th Army in the Arctic, from where it helped to defeat and pursue the German forces from Lapland into Norway.
The Battle of Olhava occurred during the Lapland War on 28 September 1944. A brief armed struggle occurred in Northern Finland between retreating German troops and north of the advancement of the Finnish troops. The previous day the first skirmish between German and Finnish troops in Pudasjärvi. In Olhava, troops for the first time opened full-scale fire against each other and the casualties were the first of the Lapland War.
The 367th Rifle Division was raised in 1941 as a standard Red Army rifle division, and served for the duration of the Great Patriotic War in that role. It began forming in August 1941 in the Chelyabinsk Oblast. After forming, it was initially assigned to the 28th (Reserve) Army, but was soon reassigned to Karelian Front, where it remained until nearly the end of 1944. The division had mostly a relatively quiet war on this defensive front, but later saw action against the German forces trying to hold northern Finland, being awarded the Order of the Red Banner for its services. The division ended the war in 14th Separate Army on garrison duties in the far north.
References
- ↑ Ahto (1980) p. 37
- ↑ Lunde (2011) p. 322-325
- 1 2 Ahto (1980) p. 38-41
- ↑ Ahto (1980) p.70,
- ↑ Lunde (2011) p.327
- ↑ Ahto (1980) p. 92-99
- ↑ Lunde (2011) p. 342-343