Torment at Tormua ETO (id:#62356)

(ASL 14 - Hakkaa Päälle! ID: 164)   [next]   [previous]

Tormua, Finland 1940-01-11 (0 others)

Overview:

Finnish Group Wolf was directed to attack those remnants of the 163rd Ukrainian Division that had managed to escape from the Soumussalmi pocket. The Soviets were dug in at Juntusanta, 5 kilometers south of Tormua. All three battalions of Wolf would participate; only its headquarters, with some support units, would remain at Tormua, near Lake Kiantajärvi. But the Soviets were also planning an offensive. A Ukrainian ski battalion, supported by three T-26 tanks, tried to seize Tormua, a position which threatened the Soviet right flank. The advancing formations of both sides passed each other unnoticed in the dense forest. The fighting at Juntusranta had already begun, but at the Finnish HQ in Tormua, just as Colonel Paavo Susitaival was about to drink his morning coffee, it was all too quiet. Only a few Finnish units – the supply platoons with their horses, a sissi squad, and engineer squad of the 22nd Motorized Engineer Company, some messengers, medics, and the field hospital staff – were at Tormua when the Soviets attacked. Task Force Jyrava, with its two captured anti-tank guns, defended the Tormua-Juntusranta road.

Defender: Finnish (Group Wolf Headquarters and Task Force Jyrävä, 9th Division)  

Errata (source)