The Finnish Navy is one of the branches of the Finnish Defence Forces. The navy employs 2,300 people and about 4,300 conscripts are trained each year. Finnish Navy vessels are given the ship prefix "FNS", short for "Finnish Navy ship", but this is not used in Finnish-language contexts. The Finnish Navy also includes coastal forces and coastal artillery.
HMS Charity was a C-class destroyer of the Royal Navy laid down by John I. Thornycroft and Company of Woolston, Southampton on 9 July 1943. She was launched on 30 November 1944 and commissioned on 19 November 1945. She was sold to the US Navy in 1958, for transfer to the Pakistan Navy as a part of the Military Aid Program.
The Flower-class corvette was a British class of 294 corvettes used during World War II by the Allied navies particularly as anti-submarine convoy escorts in the Battle of the Atlantic. Royal Navy ships of this class were named after flowers.
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.
HNoMS Kjell was the final ship of twenty-seven 2nd class torpedo boats built for the Royal Norwegian Navy, launched at the Royal Norwegian Navy's shipyard in Horten on 12 March 1912 with build number 106. Kjell saw more than 32 years of service, the first 28 years in the Royal Norwegian Navy during the First World War and in the interwar period, the last four in the Kriegsmarine, having been captured in the first days of the 1940 Norwegian campaign. After being rebuilt as a minesweeper by the Germans, she was sunk by Royal Air Force de Havilland Mosquito fighter bombers on 28 September 1944. Divers rediscovered the shipwreck in 2006.
HMS Safari was a third batch S-class submarine built for the Royal Navy during World War II. Commissioned in 1942, she was assigned to operate in the Mediterranean Sea. During the course of the war, Safari sank twenty-five ships, most of which were Italian.
Väinämöinen was a Finnish coastal defence ship, the sister ship of the Finnish Navy's flagship Ilmarinen and also the first ship of her class. She was built at the Crichton-Vulcan shipyard in Turku and was launched in 1932. Following the end of the Continuation War, Väinämöinen was handed over to the Soviet Union as war reparations and renamed Vyborg. The ship remained in Soviet hands until her scrapping in 1966.
Vesihiisi was a Finnish 500-tonne Vetehinen-class submarine that was constructed in the early 1930s. The vessel served in the Finnish Navy during the second World War. The name Vesihiisi refers to a mythological Finnish sea creature similar to a Siren.
German submarine U-37 was a Type IXA U-boat of the German Navy (Kriegsmarine) during World War II. The submarine was laid down on 15 March 1937 at the DeSchiMAG AG Weser yard in Bremen, launched on 14 May 1938, and commissioned on 4 August 1938 under the command of Kapitänleutnant Heinrich Schuch as part of the 6th U-boat Flotilla.
HMS Brilliant was a B-class destroyer built for the Royal Navy (RN) around 1930. Initially assigned to the Mediterranean Fleet, she was transferred to the Home Fleet in 1936. The ship then patrolled Spanish waters enforcing the arms blockade during the first year of the Spanish Civil War of 1936–39. She spent most of World War II on convoy escort duties in the English Channel, and the North Atlantic, based at Dover, Gibraltar, and Freetown, Sierra Leone. During the war, Brilliant never destroyed a submarine, but did sink a Vichy French minesweeper during Operation Torch. She also intercepted two German supply ships and rescued survivors of two troopships that had been torpedoed by submarines. The ship became a target ship at the end of the war and was scrapped in 1948.
Vorpostenboot, also referred to as VP-Boats, flakships or outpost boats, were German patrol boats which served during both World Wars. They were used around coastal areas and in coastal operations, and were tasked with – among other things – coastal patrol, ship escort, and naval combat.
Riilahti was a Ruotsinsalmi class minelayer of the Finnish Navy. Riilahti was commissioned in 1940 and sunk in 1943. The vessel was named after the battle of Riilahti, which was fought between Sweden and Russia in 1714.
The Patrouillenboot Ausland (PA)-class patrol ships were a class of vessels commissioned into the Kriegsmarine in the Second World War.
Louhi was a Finnish Navy minelayer. The ship was originally constructed for the Imperial Russian Navy but was taken over by the Finns during the Russian Civil War. She had originally been named Voin, but was renamed as M1 in Finnish service. In 1936 she was given the more personal name Louhi, following the procedure of all other major ships in the Finnish navy.
German submarine U-354 was a Type VIIC U-boat of Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine during World War II.
German submarine U-548 was a Type IXC U-boat of Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine during World War II.
HMS Ekins (K552) was a British Captain-class frigate of the Royal Navy that served during World War II. Originally constructed as a United States Navy Buckley class destroyer escort, she served in the Royal Navy from 1943 to 1945.
The Type 24 torpedo boat (also known as the was a group of six torpedo boats built for the Reichsmarine during the 1920s. As part of the renamed Kriegsmarine, the boats made multiple non-intervention patrols during the Spanish Civil War in the late 1930s. One was sunk in an accidental collision shortly before the start of World War II in September 1939 and the others escorted ships and searched for contraband for several months of the war. They played a minor role in the Norwegian Campaign of April 1940 and resumed their escort duties. After being transferred to France late in the year, the Type 24s started laying their own minefields in the English Channel.
Sisu was a Finnish state-owned icebreaker. Built in 1939 at Wärtsilä Hietalahti Shipyard in Helsinki, she was one of the world's first diesel-electric icebreakers. In addition to icebreaking duties, she served as a submarine tender for the Finnish Navy during the summer months until the end of the Continuation War.
The Soviet Navy launched the Soviet submarine Baltic Sea campaign in 1942 to harass the strategic iron-ore traffic from neutral Sweden to Nazi Germany during World War II. The Soviet Union and the German Reich fought each other on the Eastern Front (1941-1945) during the war. The Allies also launched other operations - especially involving the Royal Navy - against the traffic.
Finnish Navy 