| Fritz-Kempf | Date: Monday, 2012-10-15, 12:46 PM | Message # 1 |
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| The Lapland War (Finnish: Lapin sota, Swedish: Lapplandskriget, German: Lapplandkrieg) was fought between Finland and Nazi Germany from September 1944 to April 1945 in Finland's northernmost Lapland Province. While the Finns saw this as a separate conflict much like the Continuation War, German forces considered their actions to be part of the Second World War. A peculiarity of the war was that the Finnish army was forced to demobilise their forces while at the same time fighting to force the German army to leave Finland. German forces retreated to Norway, and Finland managed to uphold its obligations under the Moscow Armistice, although it remained formally at war with the Soviet Union and the United Kingdom, one government in exile in London, and the British Dominions until the formal conclusion of the Continuation War was ratified by the 1947 Paris peace treaty.
Operation Tanne Ost
Operation Tanne Ost ("Fir East") was a German operation during World War II to capture the island Suursaari (Swedish Hogland, Russian Gogland) 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.
On September 14, 1944, a first wave of 1400 men from both the Wehrmacht and the Kriegsmarine were loaded on ships in Tallinn. Before the assault the German commander tried to negotiate with the Finnish commander on Suursaari, as he had been led to believe from intelligence reports that the Finns might leave without resistance. At midnight, when pair of Finnish VMV-class patrol boats were preparing to leave to transport stranded German radio unit, a German minesweeper arrived at the docks on the eastern side of the island and demanded island to surrender. When the demand was refused Germans started to land troops which led to Finnish forces opening fire at 00:55 on 15 September 1944. German landing craft arrived to the docks forcing Finnish security force at the location to withdraw but not before torching the two trapped Finnish patrol boats (VMV 10 and VMV 14).
German forces made further landings at the northern part of the island as well as at a beach south from the docks on the eastern side of the island. Finnish troops were however capable of containing landings and even prevent further landing attempted on the island's western side. Finnish Navy reacted by dispatching several motor torpedo boats (Taisto class motor torpedo boats T-3, T-5, T-6 and G-5 class motor torpedo boats V-2 and V-3) to Hogland which started their attacks against German ships supporting the landing effort at 0330. While several explosions were witnessed from the initial attacks made under cover of darkness the later attacks made at dawn provided no further results. Germans lost only motor minesweeper R-29 to the Finnish attack since the old torpedoes used by the Finns did not have enough yield to sink larger minesweepers of which several were damaged.
Finnish efforts forced Germans naval forces to start moving to more protected western side of the island leaving the landing forces without effective artillery support. While the operation was underway 36 Soviet aircraft attacked the German forces destroying at least a landing craft. These made Germans withheld the deployment of the force of three destroyers and two large torpedo boats kept at readiness. Instead German naval forces started gradual withdrawal to Tallinn leaving several landing crafts and barges to the island when no contact with the landing force could be made. This prevented further waves of troops from being landed. The operation ended in a complete failure, with the Finns capturing 1,231 German prisoners (of which 175 were wounded) in addition to 153 Germans killed in action with Finns losing 36 KIA, 67 WIA and 8 MIA.
This operation marked the beginning of hostility between German and Finnish troops, known as the Lapland War. Finns benefit from the operation since it showed to the Soviet Union that Finns were prepared to use force against the Germans. It further damaged the German efforts in northern Finland since Finns ordered all shipping, including that leased to Germans, immediately to sail for Finnish or Swedish ports
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| Mr_J | Date: Monday, 2012-10-15, 8:29 PM | Message # 2 |
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| Is this a description of your map or just a raw suggestion?
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| Fritz-Kempf | Date: Monday, 2012-10-15, 8:47 PM | Message # 3 |
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FHSW Wikia Admin
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| Suggestion. Sorry forgot to say that. I can do it, but still i have problems with the editor42.
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