Persecution of the enemy in Kandalaksha and Kestenga directions

Due to the characteristics of the highly rugged mountain-taiga area with a large number of rivers and lakes, the fighting in the northern part of Karelia during the Great Patriotic War was carried out in separate directions, isolated from each other, along highways or railways . The rest of the spaces were impassable for large masses of troops, there the fighting was carried out by separate small partisan or reconnaissance-sabotage groups and light-armed detachments. The front line, with minor changes, went along the lines reached by the Finnish-German forces during the summer-fall offensive of 1941 . Here, the German 20th Mountain Army (commander - Colonel General Lothar Rendulich ) and the Soviet Karelian Front (army commander - Army General K. A. Meretskov ) opposed each other.

In the Kandalaksha direction, enemy troops defended the line along the Verman River from the Upper Verman and Lower Verman Lakes to the Tolvand and Ariyarvi Lakes , about 50 kilometers west of Kandalaksha . On the Soviet side, the 19th Army (commander - Lieutenant General G.K. Kozlov ) defended the line as part of the 104th Infantry Division , 341st Infantry Division , 67th Infantry Division , 21st Infantry Division , 122nd Infantry Division , 38th Tank Brigade , individual units. The German side was defended by the 36th Mountain Corps (commander - Lieutenant General Emil Vogel ) consisting of the 169th Infantry Division , the 163rd Infantry Division , individual infantry battalions, 1 tank and 1 machine gun battalion, and separate units.

On the Kesteng direction, the front line also ran along the line, strongly fortified by both sides, between the lakes Yarosh-Järvi and Bolshoi Lagi-Järvi 13 kilometers east of Kestengi . On the Soviet side, the 26th Army (commander - Lieutenant General L. S. Skvirsky ) was defending here as part of the 205th Rifle Division , 83rd Rifle Division , 45th Rifle Division , and individual units. On the German side, the line was defended by the 18th mountain corps (commander - infantry general Friedrich Hochbaum ) as part of the 7th mountain rifle division , part of the forces of the 6th mountain division of the SS "Nord" , individual units.

In the most southern, Ukhta - Rugozersko - Rebolsky direction, relatively small groups opposed - the Soviet 132nd Infantry Corps ( 367th Infantry Division , 54th Infantry Division , 27th Infantry Division ) and part of the forces of the 6th SS Mountain Division Nord .

From the air, Soviet troops supported part of the forces of the 7th Air Army, Lieutenant General Aviation I. M. Sokolov .

By the autumn of 1944, on the Soviet-Finnish front of the Great Patriotic War, after almost three years of positional warfare , cardinal changes took place. After making sure that Hitlerite Germany was not able to defeat the Soviet Union, the most sensible part of the ruling circles of Finland began to look for ways out of the war. Since the beginning of 1944, secret Soviet-Finnish negotiations were conducted. In view of their obvious delay in the summer of 1944, Soviet troops carried out the Vyborg operation and the Svir-Petrozavodsk operation , in which they inflicted heavy defeats on the Finnish army and put Finland on the brink of a military catastrophe. In this situation, on September 2, 1944, Finnish President Marshal Gustav Mannerheim officially announced the severance of relations with Germany and demanded the withdrawal of German troops from Finnish territory. In late August, official Soviet-Finnish negotiations began, culminating in the signing of the Moscow Truce on September 19 .

Even before the negotiations ended, Mannerheim made a commitment that the Finnish army would ensure the evacuation or internment of German units in northern Finland. On September 3, he ordered the Finnish troops to be sent north to free the country from German troops. On September 5, Soviet and Finnish troops officially ceased hostilities against each other ^[1] .

The German command assumed such a scenario and was aware of the impossibility of warfare in northern Finland at the same time against the Soviet and Finnish troops. It was decided to concentrate all forces in the north of Norway and in the Petsamo area to retain nickel mines. In August 1944, preparations began for the evacuation of German troops to the north from the region of Kandalaksha, Kestengi and Ukhta , and in the last days of August the evacuation itself began, starting with the withdrawal of rear units and the removal of military equipment. These actions were immediately discovered by Soviet intelligence.

The withdrawal of German troops from northern Finland was not unexpected for the Soviet command. On September 4, 1944, the Military Council of the Karelian Front issued a directive in which it warned the army commanders about the possible withdrawal of the enemy and demanded that the troops be put on full alert so that they could immediately go on the offensive by special order of the front. The regrouping of troops began and their exit to the starting lines. Thus, this battle was not previously planned by the parties; its plan arose spontaneously under the influence of previous events. Apparently, for this reason, in Russian historiography it is not considered as a military operation, but is called the pursuit of the enemy.

The outbreak of hostilities is considered September 5, 1944. However, in fact, on this day, Soviet troops had just begun to reach the designated lines for the offensive, only aviation forces began strikes on the enemy’s withdrawal routes and their concentration centers. To manage the battle, the commander of the Karelian front K. A. Meretskov arrived at the temporary command post of the front in Kandalaksha . On the same day, intelligence established the beginning of the withdrawal of German troops from the front lines of defense.

Meretskov understood that the terrain was convenient for the planned retreat along the only roads under the cover of strong rearguards that would harass pursuing troops at each defense-friendly line, and there are a lot of such lines in Karelia (narrow isthmuses between numerous lakes, numerous rivers, passages between densely overgrown taiga with stone hills). In the end, this is how the small Soviet troops exhausted and stopped the German-Finnish offensive in the summer and fall of 1941 in these same areas. Therefore, it was decided that the main method of hostilities would be to select a detour by specially created groups of defense lines from the flanks, creating paths for the movement of military columns in impassable terrain, with the goal of deeply bypassing the lines, and cutting the only supply and withdrawal routes of German troops by circumventing groups. Offensive along the front was reduced to pressure by firepower and fettering the enemy. In each of the directions, from 1 to 3 divisions were advanced to the flanks, bypassing marching columns reinforced by sapper units were formed in them. But since there were not enough of them, axes, engineer shovels, saws and crowbars were distributed in large numbers to the personnel of the advanced rifle units. Since the supply of bypass groups was very difficult, each of them received a significant supply of food and ammunition. These actions were certainly correct, but even the accelerated preparation of the troops for the offensive took several days. This time did not appear - the German command began the withdrawal of its troops earlier.

On September 7, the Germans left their frontier in the Ukhta direction and withdrew their main forces in the Kesteng direction, leaving only part of the cover at the front line. On the same day, Soviet troops in all three directions began the movement of bypassing groups.

In the Kandalaksha direction, hostilities were fought along the Kandalaksha- Alakurtti -Kuoloyärvi-old Soviet-Finnish border railway and further to Kelloselkä . Here the Soviet offensive began on September 7th. By September 9, the bypass group (67th and 104th rifle divisions) had traveled over 50 kilometers off-road, crossed the Tuntsayoki River and created a threat to the most important defense node in this direction in the village of Alakurtti. On September 12, the railway was cut west of Alakurtti, a significant part of the German troops was cut off. Some of them were destroyed (over 1000 killed and up to 100 prisoners), the rest threw all military equipment and only with small arms in the taiga went on foot to their own. On September 14, 1944, the village of Alakurtti was liberated, and the German troops did not even have time to disable the strategically important Alakurtti airfield (it captured 2 warehouse bombs, all airfield property, 1 faulty aircraft). However, then the German resistance here increased sharply - during September 16-19, the enemy managed to stop the Soviet troops with counterattacks and stubborn defense. Only by September 23, parts of the 19th army reached the Soviet-Finnish border. In the following days, they advanced up to 20 kilometers inland of Finnish territory. By the end of September, hostilities practically ceased due to the absence of the enemy.

On the Kesteng direction, the offensive was carried out along the highway Louhi - Kestenga - Sofporog - Kuusamo . Here, the offensive also began on September 7th and, moreover, successfully in the early days - it was possible to knock down part of the cover from the occupied lines. September 7 were released on the first day of the offensive of the village of Sennozero, Okuneva Guba, Elet Lake. A bypassing group (205th Infantry Division) far surpassed the German line of defense, rounding from the north Eletozero . Having discovered this threat, the German command began to hastily withdraw all troops from Kestengi, disrupting their planned evacuation and abandoning all the property that they did not manage to withdraw. On September 10, without a fight, Kestenga, left by the enemy, was prepared, prepared for a long defense. September 12, and here the bypassing group entered German communications, cutting the isthmus on the border of the Sofporog River and the highway passing along it (here German losses amounted to 1000 people). After this defeat, the German command accelerated the withdrawal of its troops in this direction, abandoning all equipment. German troops managed to break away from the pursuit, the hostilities here almost ceased, and in the future, the enemy could not cause significant damage. Over the next 3 days, they managed to advance almost 100 kilometers to Lake Pistajärvi , and on September 17, units of the 26th Army crossed the Soviet-Finnish border. September 27 was occupied by the Germans and almost completely burned the village of Kuusamo .

In the Ukhta direction, the mass withdrawal of German troops began on September 11 and was carried out very quickly. It was not possible to inflict significant damage on the enemy: when the bypassing group entered German communications, there were no more German troops east of it. Further advancement of Soviet troops here met only insignificant focal resistance. On September 18, troops crossed the state border and occupied the villages of Yuntusranta and Anttila in Finnish territory. On September 21, a large village of Suomussalmi was occupied without a fight.

By September 30, hostilities had virtually ceased in all three directions: the troops had completed the liberation of Soviet territory in the entire offensive zone and entered Finland, the enemy had gone north and Finnish troops had already been transferred from the south to pursue it. After the arrival of the Finnish administration and the transfer of Finnish settlements to it, Soviet troops were withdrawn to the state border line. The official date for the end of the persecution is October 5, 1944.

When retreating, the German command strictly adhered to the scorched earth tactics . Almost all the settlements liberated during the offensive were burned to the ground (both on Soviet and Finnish territory), industrial buildings, railway and road structures were destroyed or badly damaged, the population was driven away.

The advance of Soviet troops amounted to 90 kilometers. During the persecution in the zone of the advancing armies, the territory of the Soviet Union was completely liberated, the liberation of the Karelian-Finnish SSR was completed . Two combined arms armies were liberated (at the end of the battle, the 26th army was transferred to Hungary , and the 19th army to East Pomerania ). The command of the Karelian front focused on the preparation of the Petsamo-Kirkenes operation . The units of the Finnish army were safely promoted to disarm German troops in Finland (see Lapland War ).

The enemy was damaged, especially significant in the material part. But almost all Germans evacuated manpower from the attack, transferring it to Norway. K. A. Meretskov in his memoirs explained the reason for this:

When I received the news that the 19th Army had straddled the road in the Kairala region, I immediately reported this to the first deputy chief of the General Staff, Army General A. I. Antonov, via direct wire. After listening to me and asking for clarification of some details, he said: “Wait for orders.” I was awaiting orders for battles to destroy the encircled enemy. But at night they brought me a telegram, which said: in no case do not get involved in heavy battles with the outgoing units of the enemy and do not exhaust our troops with deep detours; the destruction of the Nazis is mainly carried out by fire weapons, placed along the road along which they departed.

It was a new installation, and I, frankly, did not quite understand it. Therefore, I called Headquarters and asked for clarification of what caused the refusal of offensive actions to encircle the 36th German Army Corps. They answered me something like this: the most important thing now is to save strength to solve the priority task in the Arctic: to free the Pechenga region. The Far North is of great importance to Germany. There are nickel developments and important naval and air bases are located where submarines and aircraft are concentrated to operate on our maritime communications. The Germans are not going to leave from there. They will have to be expelled by force. The pursuit of the 36th corps will require the consumption of reserves, without which it will be impossible to start an operation in the Murmansk direction. “But can I not use the available reserves?” I asked. “No,” they answered me, “the Bet will not give you anything. On the contrary, the possibility is not ruled out that in the near future we will take away part of your forces for transfer to the Western direction, and it will be about those formations of the 19th and 26th armies that are now pursuing the Germans. ”

That was the military aspect of the problem. He did not need further clarification. Мы обязаны были сохранить силы, имевшиеся в центральном районе Карельского фронта, для других фронтов, а самим надо было думать о том, как бы поскорее перебросить 31-й стрелковый корпус из-под Кандалакши к Мурманску, чтобы освободить Заполярье до того, как туда подоспеют отступавшие по финляндским тылам силы немцев. Стратегическая разведка установила, что Берлин не собирается оставлять свои базы в Северной Норвегии и никелевые разработки в Северной Финляндии.

— Мерецков К. А. На службе народу. — М.: Политиздат, 1968.

Эти слова подтверждаются следующим документом:

ДИРЕКТИВА СТАВКИ ВГК № 220213 КОМАНДУЮЩЕМУ ВОЙСКАМИ КАРЕЛЬСКОГО ФРОНТА О ЗАПРЕЩЕНИИ ВЕДЕНИЯ НАСТУПАТЕЛЬНЫХ ДЕЙСТВИЙ ПРОТИВ НЕМЕЦКИХ ВОЙСК НА ТЕРРИТОРИИ ФИНЛЯНДИИ

12 сентября 1944 г. 02 ч 20 мин

Из представленного Вами за № 00112/44/оп доклада видно, что Вы ставите войскам фронта задачу разбить своими силами группировку немцев в Северной Финляндии. Это ваше решение неправильно. Согласно переговорам с финнами, выдворением немецких войск из Финляндии должны заняться сами финны, а наши войска будут оказывать им в этом только помощь.

Исходя из указанного, Ставка Верховного Главнокомандования запрещает Вам вести самостоятельные наступательные операции против немецких войск. В случае отхода немцев продвигаться вслед за ними, не навязывая противнику больших боев и не изматывая свои войска боями и глубокими обходными маневрами для того, чтобы лучше сохранить свои силы. Ставка требует от Вас точного выполнения её указаний и ещё раз предупреждает, что невыполнение указаний Ставки и Ваши попытки забегания вперед повлекут за собой отстранение Вас от командования фронтом.

Об отданных распоряжениях донести.

Supreme High Command Headquarters

И. СТАЛИН

А. АНТОНОВ

— Русский архив. ВЕЛИКАЯ ОТЕЧЕСТВЕННАЯ. ТОМ 16 (5-4). - Москва, «TEPPA»-«TERRA», 1999. - Стр.143.

Однако Мерецков и позднее, 18 сентября 1944 года, предложил в Ставку план глубокой наступательной операции в Северной Финляндии, с занятием города Рованиеми и с дальнейшим продвижением к Ботническому заливу ^[2] . В ответ ему было указано не продвигаться в глубину финской территории далее указанных Ставкой приграничных рубежей, а готовить наступательную операцию на Петсамо и Киркенес .

Потери советских войск в ходе преследования с 5 сентября по 5 октября 1944 года составили 2 500 человек — безвозвратные и 7 281 человек — санитарные ^[3] .

Данные о потерях немецкой стороны известны только из «Журнала боевых действий Карельского фронта» ^[4] . Командующий 19-й армией доложил в штаб фронта об уничтожении 7 159 солдат и офицеров противника, 53 орудий, 56 миномётов, 28 танков, и о захвате 203 пленных, 22 орудий и 32 миномётов ^[5] . Командующий 26-й армией доложил о потерях противника в 1 126 человек убитыми и ранеными, о захвате 29 пленных и 9 орудий ^[6] . Ещё некоторый урон враг понёс от действий советских ВВС.

• Мерецков К. А. На службе народу. — М.: Политиздат, 1968. — Глава «На Крайнем Севере».
• ДИРЕКТИВА СТАВКИ ВГК № 220219 КОМАНДУЮЩЕМУ ВОЙСКАМИ КАРЕЛЬСКОГО ФРОНТА О ПОРЯДКЕ ДЕЙСТВИЙ НА ТЕРРИТОРИИ ФИНЛЯНДИИ от 18 сентября 1944 г. Публикация в: Русский архив. ВЕЛИКАЯ ОТЕЧЕСТВЕННАЯ. ТОМ 16 (5-4). — Москва, «TEPPA»-«TERRA», 1999. — Стр.147.