Ilmarinen was a Finnish Navy Panssarilaiva, Swedish Pansarskepp. The unit was constructed at the Crichton-Vulcan shipyard in Turku, Finland, and named after the mythological hero Ilmarinen from the Finnish national epic, the Kalevala. Ilmarinen was the flagship of the Navy from 1 May 1933 until her sinking on 13 September 1941.
Alfons Vilhelm Robert Rebane was an Estonian military commander. He was the most highly decorated Estonian military officer during World War II, serving in various Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS units of Nazi Germany.
ORP Orzeł was an Orzeł class submarine of the Polish Navy that served during WWII.
Augustus Willington Shelton Agar, was a Royal Navy officer in both the First and the Second World Wars. He was a recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces, for sinking a Soviet cruiser during the Russian Civil War.
Reinhard Gehlen was a German career intelligence officer who served the Weimar Republic, Nazi Germany, the U.S. intelligence community, and the NATO-affiliated Federal Republic of Germany during the Cold War.
E-boat was the Western Allies' designation for the fast attack craft of the Kriegsmarine during World War II; E-boat could refer to a patrol craft from an armed motorboat to a large Torpedoboot. The name of E-boats was a British designation using the letter E for Enemy.
The Baltic Sea campaigns were conducted by Axis and Allied naval forces in the Baltic Sea, the Gulf of Bothnia, the Gulf of Finland and the connected lakes Ladoga and Onega on the Eastern Front of World War II. After early fighting between Polish and German forces, the main combatants were the Kriegsmarine and the Soviet Navy, with Finland supporting the Germans until 1944 and the Soviets thereafter. The Swedish Navy and merchant fleet played important roles, and the British Royal Navy planned Operation Catherine for control of the Baltic Sea and its exit choke point into the North Sea.
Lürssen is a German shipyard with headquarters in Bremen-Vegesack and shipbuilding facilities in Lemwerder, Berne and Bremen-Fähr-Lobbendorf.
Osmussaar is an Estonian island situated in the mouth of the Gulf of Finland in the Baltic Sea, 7.5 km off the Estonian mainland. Administratively the island is part of Lääne-Nigula Parish in Lääne County. Its area is 4.8 km2.
Operation Beowulf refers to two German plans to occupy the islands of Saaremaa, Hiiumaa and Muhu, off the Estonian west coast. Both plans had the same objectives but assumed differing start points. The attack, using Beowulf II, started on 9 September 1941 and had achieved its objectives by 21 October.
The Estonian Navy are the unified naval forces among the Estonian Defence Forces.
HNoMS Olav Tryggvason was a minelayer that was built by the naval shipyard at Horten in the early 1930s with the yard number 119. She served in the Royal Norwegian Navy until captured by the Germans in 1940. The Germans renamed her first Albatros II, and a few days later Brummer. She was wrecked in a British bombing raid in northern Germany in April 1945.
The Battle of Moon Sound was a naval battle fought between the forces of the German Empire, and the then Russian Republic in the Baltic Sea during Operation Albion from 16 October 1917 until 3 November 1917 during World War I. The German intention was to destroy the Russian forces and occupy the West Estonian Archipelago, and achieved both objectives. The Imperial German Navy had ten battleships, one battlecruiser, nine light cruisers, one mine cruiser, fifty destroyers and six submarines while the Russians had only two pre-dreadnoughts, three cruisers, three gunboats, twenty-one destroyers, and three British submarines.
A British submarine flotilla operated in the Baltic Sea for three years during the First World War. The squadron of nine submarines was attached to the Russian Baltic Fleet. The main task of the flotilla was to prevent the import of iron ore from Sweden to Imperial Germany. The success of the flotilla also forced the German Navy in the Baltic to keep to their bases and denied the German High Seas Fleet a training ground. The flotilla was based in Reval (Tallinn), and for most of its career commanded by Captain Francis Cromie.
The Moonsund landing operation, also known as the Moonzund landing operation, was an amphibious operation and offensive by the Red Army during World War II, taking place in late 1944. It was part of the Baltic offensive, and was designed to clear German forces of Army Group North from the islands in East Baltic Sea, the West Estonian archipelago. The attacking forces were from the 8th Army of the Leningrad Front.
Latvian Naval Forces is the naval warfare branch of the National Armed Forces. It is tasked with conducting military, search and rescue operations, mine and explosive sweeping on the Baltic Sea, as well as ecological monitoring activities. The Naval Forces have participated in international NATO/Partnership for Peace operations and various exercises with great success. The main development priorities of the Naval Forces are to expand their activities within the Baltic States’ Ship Squadron BALTRON and to develop a Sea Surveillance System. They pay a great deal of attention to professionally specialized training and English-language teaching.
The Gehlen Organization or Gehlen Org was an intelligence agency established in June 1946 by U.S. occupation authorities in the United States zone of post-war occupied Germany, and consisted of former members of the 12th Department of the German Army General Staff. It was headed by Reinhard Gehlen who had previously been a Wehrmacht Major General and head of the Nazi German military intelligence in the Eastern Front during World War II.
The guerrilla war in the Baltic states was an insurgency waged by Baltic partisans against the Soviet Union from 1944 to 1956. Known alternatively as the "Forest Brothers", the "Brothers of the Wood" and the "Forest Friars", these partisans fought against invading Soviet forces during their occupation of the Baltic states during and after World War II. Similar insurgent groups resisted Soviet occupations in Bulgaria, Poland, Romania and Ukraine.
The British Baltic Fishery Protection Service (BBFPS) was a front organization of the British intelligence service MI6. It was founded in 1949 - ostensibly to monitor the fisheries within the maritime borders of the British occupation zone in the Baltic Sea as a part of the Royal Navy, but in reality to carry out covert operations in the Baltic region.
HMS Valentine was a V and W-class destroyer, built in 1917 for the Royal Navy. She fought in both world wars, serving in several capacities. She was heavily damaged by air attack and beached in 1940 near Terneuzen. Her hulk remained there until it was broken up in 1953.
United Kingdom 
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