Lapland War

[Vaeltaja]

Just branching out to avoid off topic discussion...

Using Sampo Ahto's 'Aseveljet vastakkain - Lapin sota 1944-1945' (Brothers in arms against each other - Lapland War 1944-1945)...

Battle of Ylimaa
Author states quite bluntly that unless Germans had pressing reason to hold there was no way for the Finns to actually trap them. Along the road from Ranua towards Rovaniemi Germans had however need to actually stall Finnish more than elsewhere. Mountain Jäeger Regiment 218 was set to the task in standard defensive formation against the objections of the regiments CO (colonel Schuler) who was perfectly aware that Finns would never assault along the road but instead flank him, however divisional commander (general Krakau) did not allow deviations from German SOP (ohjesääntö). Finns got unexpected boon when German motorcycle messenger accidentally drove into Finnish positions so Finns had accurate maps and reports of the German positions and strength. Even then Finns only had 4 nearly exhausted battalions facing 3 German battalions (and artillery) at Ylimaa who had rested in prepared positions for one and a half weeks. From the book it appears the worst German problem was that the SOP (which the divisional commander followed like holy scriptures for the most of the battle) did not allow regimental commander to detach two his battalions to fight off the flanking Finns instead they stood idle guarding the road. Finnish tanks did not reach the battle in time. Germans in the end threw all three battalions against two Finnish battalions blocking the road, forced Finns away from the road and drove away.

Battle of Muonio
As the normal Finnish procedure when encountering Germans was to outflank them the operations along the Torne and Muonio rivers (ie. Swedish border) were difficult. By the time Finnish advance reached Muonio it consisted only of 6 battalions facing initially 10 German battalions, German artillery was roughly 4 times as powerful as the Finnish artillery. Again Germans manage to keep flanking Finns in check while supply dump at Muonio was being evacuated. And once it was done Germans drove away from burning village.

[Mika68*]

I'm very interested of Lapland war. I was born in Eastern Lapland.
I'm keen especially happenings in eastern Lapland. I know there was not battles, but some little fightnings.
Finnish 'Rajajääkäripataljoona' advanced through Kuusamo, Salla, Savukoski to north. Soviets burned Kuusamo main village, not Germans. However Germans burned a lot too. For example they burned Savukoski 90 %.
Most destroyings came not from battles but burnings.

[larth]

Good initiative!

On Ylimaa, here is first a map from ”Schicksalsweg und Kampf der Bergschuch-Division” by Roland Kaltenegger:

ylima7oct44.jpg

I will dig up and add excerpts/translations from "Laguksen miehet-Marskin nyrkki" by Erkki Käkelä and from Panssarisotaa 1941-1944" by Reino Lehväslaiho. The battle I mentioned in the other thread occurred between the two lakes on the east.

Lars

[Vaeltaja]

http://www.sotamuistomerkit.fi/testi/suomi/Ylimaa2.jpg

[Vaeltaja]

If there is interest i might post a bit more...

Battle of Kivitaipale (or Taipale - though that name tends to lead to confusion)
Another battle on the road from Ranua towards Rovaniemi (WGS84 - 66.323 N, 25.925 E) 12-14 October 1944. Direct followup for the Ylimaa battle. However this time German regimental commander (218th Mountain Regiment) got permission to deploy his battalions against flanking attacks instead of frontal attacks. Battle itself - at least according to what Sampo Ahto writes - was a set of endless mishaps. For starters Finns (JR 33 - 33rd Infantry Regiment) had heard local rumour that there was a forest road which would enable flanking move around west, so Finns deployed decoy patrols to flank from the east and real patrols to locate the road in the west. As it happened Germans never noticed the Finnish decoys, however they did notice the rather careless real patrols in the west. Since they were careless and built large and visible fires the German regimental commander (Schuler) believed those troops to be decoys (since expert Finnish forest troops could not make such mistakes... ) and deployed against flanking move from the east. Meanwhile Finns had found out that rumours regarding forest road were false and also decided go forward with the flanking move, from the east as the decoy patrols had located suitable trail.

To make sure Finns could bottle up the Germans they choose to go for a long flanking move with bulk of their forces and leave only small blocking force to annoy the Germans at roadblock. However as befitting the battle the mishaps were not over yet. By the midday 13 October Finnish officer patrol was captured and the officer leading it choose to defect to the German side revealing all Finnish plans, including the exact point where the flanking move should have reached the road. Germans redeployed their forces so that the flanking Finns would have been walking into German trap with one battalion north of them (III/218), one south of them (I/218) and one west of them (II/218) while 99th Mountain Recon Battalion manned the roadblock. All that Germans needed to was to wait for the Finns to walk in to the trap - or so it seemed. With German trap ready to be sprung Krakau (German divisional commander) informed that regiment's delay operation was completed and they needed to withdraw immediately - which saved the JR 33 from its impending doom of which existance the Finnish regiment had remained oblivious.

However, in rather naive example of by-the-book leadership Krakau ordered 99th Mountain Recon Battalion to cover the withdrawal of 218th Mountain Regiment - at the roadblock. While Finns were already closing in on the road further up in the north this order effectively ordered 99th Btn into a motti. Which did happen at 00:30 on 14 October. Which forced the 218th to move 20 km back to rescue the stranded battalion. Though inital four hour long effort from III/218 failed to get to the surrounded unit the full strength of 218th managed to do that and an hour later both German outfits headed to Rovaniemi.

[larth]

If there is interest i might post a bit more...

Thank you - please do!

Here is the first summary from "Laguksen miehet-Marskin nyrkki" by Erkki Käkelä:

This is the battle from the Finnish point of view as told in "Laguksen miehet-Marskin nyrkki" by Erkki Käkelä. This books also mentions a magazine article describing the battle.
I/218 was attacked by JP 5 on the 7th. This happened near the text "Ylimaa" on [the German] map. This action is described as follows in my book "JP5 had contact to enemy troops near Salmela on 7th at 0520 hours. Heavy machine gun fire was encountered. Troops were taken by surprise by the high rate of fire of the German machine guns. The delaying units used artillery and mortars. Our T-34 tanks did not arrive help Lounilas' (commander of JP5) troops until 0940 hours". JP5 and I/218 remained in static combat the for the next two days.
This is the part of the action that T-34s took part in.
JPs 2, 3 and 4 tried to outflank defenders of Ylimaa (the arrow showing the 1. Finn Jägerbrigade). JPs 2 and 3 led the way, JP 4 arrived later. This resulted in confused figting around fighting and Yiliportimojärvi between 7th and 9th of October.
On the 7th at 1400 hours JP2 hit the German positions northeast of Portimojärvi north of Kantomaa. This attack took the Germans by suprise. Germans tried to counterattack using 6./II/218 and 7/II218, but the activity of JP2 and darkness halted this attack.
On the 8th of October 8th company of II/218 was surrounded near Palovaara (the place is not Vaarapalo as [the German] map says!) by JP3. 2nd company of JP2 managed to cut the road near the HQ of 218th, but was forced back by an counter attack. JP4 was also commited on the 8th but it did not meet any success.
On the 9th at 0915 hours 2/JP4 started to advance towards the crossroads near Saukkoniemi. Rest of the JP4 was to follow, but German artillery, mortars and rockets dispersed these troops. 2./JP4 reached its objectives noon, and attacked german rocket artillery battery. Germans withdrew I/218from Ylimaa as they were now cut out from other troops and JP5 followed on close pursuit. Now the situation along the Palovaara-Saukkoniemi road was quite confused: At Palovaara 8/218 was surrounded by JP3, then there was the main part JP4 getting ready for another try against Saukkoniemi crossroads, rest of the II/218 was up next getting ready to relieve 8/218, 2./JP4 at the crossroads and III/218 getting ready to throw 2/JP4 out of the crossroads.
After noon III/218 counterattacked against 2./JP4, and this company was forced to whitdraw west along the road leading to Palovaara. At the same time II/218 attacked against the rest of JP4, aided by heavy artillery barrage. 2/JP4 suffered heavy losses (two of the platoon leaders were killed and the commader of this company was wounded) and it was forced to withdraw. II and III/218 were thus able to join forces. Rest of JP4 was dispersed, and JP3s encirclement around the 8th company relieved before darkness fell. Especially JP4 was getting low on ammunition at this point, riflemen had 5 rounds per man and SMG men only 15 rounds remaining. Germans pulled off but the weary troops of JPr were not able to pursuit them. Especially JP4 suffered heavy casualties (36 killed, 44 wounded and 21 POWs) This is nearly one-third of the complement of this battalion.

Lars

[larth]

And the second summary from Panssarisotaa 1941-1944" by Reino Lehväslaiho:

We stopped our tanks on the road and looked around. We heard gunfire ahead (note: JP5s' first attack at 0720 hours). Wounded Jääkäris were carried from the frontlines. We heard a shout from the lead vehicle.

"Tank commanders, come here at once!"

Low woods grew on the both sides of the road, ahead the woods became thinner and a marsh began there.

" We'll support the Jääkäris as they attack. Enemy is behind that marsh. Now we go to scout the attack area."
After the cover offered by the woods ended, the scouts continued by crawling between hummocks. On the other side of the marsh they could see the German positions built of rocks. They stopped by Jääkäris entrenched on the marsh. A blown up road passed over the swamp, and the scouts asked if Germans had any ATGs. They did not have any. All the Jääkäris seemed to be wet and tired. Some exited Jääkäris shook hands with the tankmen and thanked for the help. Scouts stared at the opening until they knew every feature of the area, and then they returned to their tanks.

"Company forward!"

One Platoon advanced along the road, two others in the woods. Tanks crashed forwards using a small gear. Black smoke came out from the exhausts. The excitement in the tanks went up, even the old-timers were nervous. We drove past the Jääkäris and started to firing. Near the tanks trees started falling down and blasts blew debris and sand around. The enemies heavy artillery had opened fire. Jääkäris leapt forwards after the tanks, but a hail of fire erupted from the other side of the marsh making Jääkäris to take cover. I saw two Jääkäris lying nearby to disappear when an artillery shell hit them. Only a crater was left of these two men. I heard an order on the radio:

"Forwards"

We advance to the edge of the marsh and fired until our gunbarrel became hot. Rocks flew around in the enemy positions. the German artillery barrage moved to the rear. The edge of the marsh started to shudder and black mud covered the colorful hummocks. We looked backwards to see how the Jääkäris were doing. They were seen to be crawling back to their foxholes. On the left a Sotka advanced to a shed near the edge of the marshy opening and fired along the road. Two enemy ATGs opened up.

"Back away, hurry!"

Tank withdrew towards the woods. The shed was torn down by the tank. We wiped the sweat from our eyes and kept on firing. We withdrew back to the Jääkäri positions.

" That was a close one. No-one is going to cross that opening now. They had some ATGs after all".

All the Sotkas whitdrew. We stayed in the tanks and waited. The German artillery went silent as fast as it had began. We heard the moaning of wounded men on the other side of the opening.
A few hours after this attack the Germans pulled out and and withdrew north of the twin lakes. They blew the bridge and thus Jääkäris and Sotkas could not follow.

Lars

[Vaeltaja]

Here is the first summary from "Laguksen miehet-Marskin nyrkki" by Erkki Käkelä:

From Ahto's book (which uses both German and Finnish sources) it comes apparent that Germans were not really surprised - they were just not allowed to react. At Ylimaa they had a regiment (218) defending the place using premade plans designed for a regiment size defending force. Plan called for the position held by 8./II/218 (8th company of 2nd battalion of 218th regiment) to be manned by a company. All in all effectively reducing Schuler's reserve 'battalion' into two companies. And regardless of repeated pleas Schuler was not allowed to deviate from the plan even when he knew from the start that it was doomed to fail. Not even when he knew that Finns had captured messenger carrying detailed maps of German plans. Talk about going 'by the book'.

Reported casualties are whole another story. Of course own casualties were reported fairly accurately by the Finns (and by Germans) but it seems that Finns embellished 'a bit' (nearly ten-fold) the number of German casualties. Apparently to appease Soviets who by that time had access to Finnish reports. Of course POW count was correct since Soviets counted those themselves but Germans killed in the field...

And the second summary from Panssarisotaa 1941-1944" by Reino Lehväslaiho

Ahto states that Finnish armored (tracked) vehicles were demoted pretty much into transport duties (supplies to the front and wounded from the front) since the roads were demolished by the Germans.

[Vaeltaja]

kivitaipale - 1a.png

Here is a sketch i made of the events at the start of the battle at Kivitaipale. Drawn as per maps and descriptions by Sampo Ahto.

EDIT: Added missing 'Recon' to the 99th Mtn Recon Bn.

[Vaeltaja]

Since it's relevant could post a question about here... In couple of books during fighting at Tornio there are descriptions related to German usage of glide bombs at Röyttä (outer harbor of Tornio). Most accounts agree on Stuka (Ju 87) divebomber attacks but is there more information on the use of the more advanced weapons there as well - beyond Osmo Hyvönen's 'Tornio 1944' which has a couple of eyewitness reports of German usage of 'winged rocket propelled aerial torpedoes'.

[Panssari Salama]

Good initiative!

On Ylimaa, here is first a map from ”Schicksalsweg und Kampf der Bergschuch-Division” by Roland Kaltenegger:

ylima7oct44.jpg

I will dig up and add excerpts/translations from "Laguksen miehet-Marskin nyrkki" by Erkki Käkelä and from Panssarisotaa 1941-1944" by Reino Lehväslaiho. The battle I mentioned in the other thread occurred between the two lakes on the east.

Lars

Can anyone help me with interpreting the German map symbols from the above map?

- Black flag with "218" I take to mean the Regimental HQ of the 218th Mtn Jgr Rgt.
- Square with a Black triangle in, a bit northeast from HQ, I take to mean a Mtn Jgr Coy. Reserves were stationed here?
- What are the "upside down Pi -symbols"? Some of them come with a double line, one with letter "N" added to it. Mortars?
- What about the Howitzer like symbol next to Saukkoniemi, with "10." next to it? Although it is not "H" but two dots, more like a MG but that would make no sense.
- "Trosslager" would mean the transport & supply depots of the said regiment?

EDIT: The quotation does not include the picture for some reason. I am referring to the map in the third post as you propably would have figured out anyway