What can be cooked from squid: fast and tasty

The command staff of the Karelian Front, the Northern Fleet and the 14th Army. 1941
From the book: Zhurin L.V. Farewell, rocky mountains. - Murmansk, 2010

KARELIAN FRONT, an operational-strategic association of the Red Army during the Great Patriotic War, created on 09/01/1941 by the decision of the Headquarters of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of 08/23/1941 by dividing the Northern Front into the Leningrad and Karelian fronts. The front included the 7th and 14th armies, separate formations and units that fought in the Arctic and Karelia. It was operationally subordinate to the Northern Fleet. In September 1941, the 7th Army was renamed the 7th Separate Army and subordinated directly to the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command. In mid-1942, the 19th (see Nineteenth Army), 26th and 32nd Armies were formed on the basis of the Kandalaksha, Kemsk, Maselga and Medvezhyegorsk operational groups, and by the end of the year, the 7th Air Army was formed on the basis of the Air Force of the front. At the military council of K. f. the headquarters of the partisan movement was created, which coordinated and planned, in particular, the actions of the partisans of the Kola Arctic. In February 1944, the 7th separate army again became part of the Karelian Front.
The front lasted, in comparison with others, the longest time (3.5 years) and was the longest (about 1600 km from the Barents Sea to Lake Ladoga). In June-December 1941, he stopped the advance of German troops trying to capture the Arctic, forcing the enemy to go on the defensive. From January 1941 to June 1944, the troops of the front were on the defensive at the line Zapadnaya Litsa - Verman - Lake Onega - the river. Svir, having carried out a number of private offensive operations, bleeding the enemy and creating conditions for a general offensive.
Conducted 7 offensive operations:
1. Medvezhyegorsk offensive operation of the Maselga and Medvezhyegorsk defensive groupings of troops (03–10.01.1942).
2. Kestenga offensive operation of the 26th army (24.04–11.05.1942).
3. Murmansk offensive operation of the 14th army and the Northern Fleet (10.04–18.05.1942).
4. Svirsko-Petrozavodsk offensive operation of the 7th and 32nd armies (21.06–10.08.1944).
5. The offensive of the 26th army in the Kestenga, Ukhta, Rebolsk directions (09/05–27/1944).
6. The offensive of the 19th Army in the Kandalaksha direction (09/05–30/1944).
7. Petsamo-Kirkenes offensive operation of the 14th Army and the Northern Fleet (07–29.10.1944) with the liberation of the Arctic and Karelia and access to the state border with Norway and Finland.
Commanders: Lieutenant General, from 04/28/1943 Colonel General V. A. Frolov (09/01/1941–02/21/1944); Army General, from 10/26/1944 - Marshal of the Soviet Union K. A. Meretskov (02/22–11/15/1944). The front headquarters was located in Belomorsk (due to the occupation of Petrozavodsk by the Finnish army).
The consolidated regiment of K. F. opened the Victory Parade on Red Square on 06/24/1945. During the war years, 146 officers and soldiers of KF received the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. Human losses amounted to: in total - 420,260 people, of which 110,435 were irretrievable, and 309,825 were sanitary. Disbanded 11/15/1944. His troops became part of other fronts, and the field administration was transferred to the Far East.
See Soviet–Finnish War 1941–1944, Defense of the Kola Arctic.

Lit.: Karelian Front in the Great Patriotic War 1941–1945. - M., 1984; On both sides of the Karelian Front, 1941-1944: Documents and materials. - Petrozavodsk, 1995; Fronts, fleets, armies, flotillas of the period of the Great Patriotic War 1941–1945: A Handbook. - M., 2003; The Great Patriotic War of 1941–1945: The active army. - M., 2005, Dashchinsky S. N. Partisans of the Karelian Front during the Great Patriotic War // 55 years of victory in the Arctic (1944–1999): Materials of the regional scientific and practical local history conference. - Murmansk, 2000. S. 66–74.

What do we know about the Karelian Front? Yes, almost nothing. Only the amazing film by Stanislav Rostotsky “The Dawns Here Are Quiet…” comes to mind.

1941. Attack

Nine days after the attack of Nazi Germany on the Soviet Union, on the night of June 30 to July 1, 1941, Finnish troops crossed the USSR state border in a number of sectors. Finnish operational reports reported these events as follows: “6th Army Corps. City Olonets captured on September 5, at 20:00 they reached the northwestern part of Megregi. The promotion continues. invaded Nurmolitsa. There are fights. about half Olonets is on fire." Finnish officer M. Haavio made the following entry in his diary: “September 10th. This day became a holiday. In the morning there was a parade in Olonets, on Kuttuev Square. The parade was held in the same way as in peacetime in Helsinki in front of St. Nicholas Cathedral. The columns stood in straight rows. The orchestra played the march. General Paavo Talvela said: “Soldiers! Our brave troops occupied two days ago Olonets and turned the front towards Svir. Thus, a dream was fulfilled, which only a few dared to dream of and only the brave did deeds for.

Militias... In this word, one immediately hears something civilian, untrained, intellectuals hastily dressed in an overcoat with glasses appear. Meanwhile, the ranks of the Leningrad militia in July 1941 voluntarily, not by conscription, entered the real St. Petersburg elite: workers, scientific and educational, engineering and technical. So, the 2nd Primorsky and 2nd Vyborgsky regiments of the division were formed from students and teachers of the Polytechnic and Technological Institutes, the Forestry Academy, the Academy of Communications, workers and engineers of the famous factories and factories of the Vyborg side and the Primorsky district. In the ranks were veterans of the 1st Cavalry next to the green Komsomol members. Fathers went into the militia along with their sons, and Professor Zubritsky joined the division along with his students.

Several dozen young Spaniards, grown-up children of the defenders of the republic, evacuated to the USSR in the 1930s, also joined the division. From the commander, lieutenant colonel Kvyatkovsky wrote: “In terms of combat, the fighters are growing before my eyes, literally every hour. The Spanish guys formed the core of the reconnaissance company. Jose Ortes, Ignacio Moro, Marcelino Peña distinguished themselves with bold attacks. Angel Madera was captured by the enemy and brutally tortured. Heroism was massive, and they had to fight against an enemy who had become adept at forest battles, with three-rulers against Suomi assault rifles. The militia division found itself in a difficult situation. The enemy pushed her back to the north of the Ilyinsky Zavod road - Olonets. From Nurmolitz she tried to break through to Olonets and connect with other units, but the enemy blocked her path to the south and forced a battle near the village Nurmolitsy. Heavy, bloody battle lasted two days. From the militia's diary: “September 5 (76th day of the war). The first regiment of the division of the people's militia, right from the march, entered the battle near the village of Novy Bor, on the way to Dyatlitsy. During the day, the militias fought off three enemy attacks. The fierce battle of the second and third regiments Nurmolitsy". Throwing large forces against the division of the people's militia, the enemy thereby weakened the pressure on the units of the 67th and 314th divisions. They crossed the Svir almost without loss, and the 3rd Marine Brigade entrenched itself on the northern bank of the Svir. The commander of the division of the people's militia Alekseev decided to move away from Nurmolitz east to the area of ​​the Tarzhepol station of the Kirov railway and then north to Petrozavodsk. We had to overcome about 150 km along forest paths. The division moved on. Went 11 days. The division had no communications. People ate mainly pasture - mushrooms, berries, potatoes not harvested from the fields. On September 16, the division entered the railway between the stations of Tarzhepol and Ladva. She left in perfect order, retaining artillery and wagon trains. In the course of five months of fierce battles, the 7th Army, with limited forces, exhausted and bled the Finnish Karelian Army and stopped its advance in all directions. After December 8, 1941, the troops of the Karelian Front took up a strong defense in a vast area from the Rybachy Peninsula to the Svir River. Neither the Finns nor the Germans managed to advance a single step.

An occupation

The occupation policy of the Finnish authorities assumed different approaches to local residents depending on their origin. Ethnically related to the Finns, the Karelians and Vepsians were to remain on their territory and become future citizens of Greater Finland. Ethnically not related to the Finns, local residents, the bulk of whom were Russians, were considered as immigrants, foreign nationals who had to leave Karelia forever after the defeat of the USSR. To isolate foreign nationals, by order of Marshal Mannerheim on July 8, 1941, concentration camps were created in the occupied territory. Local residents were forbidden to have any weapons and radio equipment, to be on the street from 21 to 6 in the morning, to appropriate or damage the remaining state property, to store or distribute prohibited books. Violation was punishable by death. An integral part of the Finnization policy was also the renaming of settlements. So, Petrozavodsk began to be called Aanislinna, Olonets- Aunuslinna.

1944. Retaliation

By the middle of 1944, the enemy had created an exceptionally powerful and deeply echeloned line of defense. There were 4-5 bunkers and dozens of bunkers per 1 km of the front of the fortified area. On the morning of June 23, 1944, the Ladoga Flotilla landed troops in the interfluve of the Tuloks and Vidlitsa in the rear of the Finnish defense to assist the troops advancing from the front. With the support of ships and naval aviation, the paratroopers were supposed to cut the railway and highways coming from Olonets to Pitkäranta. The landing was successful. The Finns urgently sent units of the 15th Infantry Brigade and a separate Jaeger Battalion to the landing site. With strong counterattacks, the Finns tried to drive the troops into the lake, but they failed. The next day, the 3rd Marine Brigade also landed here. The Ladoga flotilla supported the paratroopers with the fire of their artillery. All Finnish attacks were repulsed. The landing of a large landing in the rear of the Finnish troops and bypassing their main line of defense created a real threat of encirclement of the 5th and 8th Finnish infantry divisions. Therefore, on the night of June 24, the enemy command was forced to withdraw its units to the western bank of the Vidlitsa. Pursuing the retreating Finns, on June 25, units of the 37th Guards Corps occupied Olonets, and the next day Nurmolitsy. And already on July 21, 1944, the advanced units of the 176th Infantry Division reached the state border of the USSR. Lieutenant Koshkarov recalls: “We stopped at the junction of the borders of three states - Russia, Finland and Norway. After the end of the war, I continued to serve in the training company of Captain Turishchev. The battalion commander was Major Putin. At first, our unit was in the village Nurmolitsy, and then the battalion was transferred to the city of Lahdenpokhya. This is where I got demobilized.”
And finally - a message on one of the forums on the Internet: “I went to my wife’s homeland, to Karelia, and during a trip for mushrooms to the area of ​​the village. Nurmolitsy in the forest, unexpectedly for myself, I recognized in what I previously considered ordinary mossy pits - dugouts, artillery positions, trenches and funnels without counting ... ".

It is considered the most bloody for the Soviet people. She claimed, according to some reports, about 40 million lives. The conflict began due to the sudden invasion of the Wehrmacht armies on the USSR on June 22, 1941.

Prerequisites for the creation of the Karelian Front

Adolf Hitler, without warning, gave the command to launch a massive blow to the entire front line. The USSR, unprepared for defense, suffered one defeat after another in the first years of the war. 1941 was the most difficult year for the Red Army, and the Wehrmacht was able to reach Moscow itself.

The main battles were fought on the Stalingrad, Moscow, Leningrad and other directions. However, the Nazis also tried to conquer more northern regions. To prevent this from happening, the Northern Front was created, to which the Karelian Front was subordinate.

History of creation

Svir-Petrozavodsk operation

In the summer of 1944, the fighting intensified again after a lull since 1943. The Soviet troops, who had already practically ousted the Wehrmacht forces from the territory of the USSR, carried out the Svir-Petrozavodsk operation. It began on June 21, 1944 and continued until August 9 of the same year. The attack on June 21 began with massive artillery preparation and a powerful air strike against the enemy's defensive positions. After that, the overcoming of the Svir River began, and during the fighting, the Soviet army managed to seize a bridgehead on the other side. On the very first day, a massive attack brought success - the forces of the Karelian Front advanced 6 kilometers. The second day of hostilities was even more successful - the Red Army units managed to push the enemy back another 12 kilometers.

On June 23, the 7th Army launched an offensive. The massive attack developed successfully, and the Finnish armies began a hasty retreat the very next day from the start of the operation. The Finnish units were unable to hold the offensive on any of the fronts and were forced to withdraw to the Vidlitsa River, where they took up defensive positions.

In parallel, the offensive of the 32nd Army developed, which managed to capture the city of Medvezhyegorsk, which was not achieved in 1942. On June 28, the Red Army launched an offensive against a more strategically important city - Petrozavodsk. Together with the forces of the Red Army fleet, the city was liberated the very next day. Both sides suffered significant losses in this battle. However, the Finnish army did not have fresh forces, and they were forced to leave the city.

On July 2, the Karelian Front began to attack enemy positions on the Vidlitsa River. Already before July 6, the powerful defense of the Nazis was completely broken, and the Soviet Army managed to advance another 35 km. Fierce battles were fought until August 9, but they did not bring success - the enemy held a tight defense, and the Headquarters gave the order to go over to the defense of already captured positions.

The result of the operation was the defeat of the enemy units that held the Karelian-Finnish SSR, and the liberation of the republic. These events led to the fact that Finland received another reason to withdraw from the war.

Petsamo-Kirkenes operation

From October 7 to November 1, 1944, the Red Army, with the support of the fleet, carried out the successful Petsamo-Kirkenes operation. On October 7, a powerful artillery preparation was carried out, after which the offensive began. During the successful offensive and breaking through the enemy defenses, the city of Pestamo was completely surrounded.

After Pestamo was successfully taken, the cities of Nikel and Tarnet were taken, and at the final stage, the Norwegian city of Kirkenes. During its capture, the Soviet units suffered significant losses. In the battle for the city, Norwegian patriots provided significant support to the Soviet troops.

The results of the operations

As a result of the above operations, the border with Norway and Finland was restored again. The enemy was completely driven out, and battles were already being fought in enemy territory. On November 15, 1944, Finland announced its surrender and withdrew from World War II. After these events, the Karelian Front was disbanded. After that, his main forces became part of the 1st Far Eastern Front, which was entrusted with the task of conducting the Manchurian offensive operation in 1945 to defeat the Japanese army and the Chinese province of the same name.

Instead of an afterword

It is interesting that only in the sector of the Karelian Front (1941 - 1945) did the fascist army fail to cross the border of the USSR - the Nazis did not manage to break the defense of Murmansk. Dog teams were also used in this sector of the front, and the fighters themselves fought in the harsh northern climate. During the Great Patriotic War, the Karelian Front was the largest in length, because its total length reached 1600 kilometers. He also did not have one solid line.

The Karelian Front was the only one of all the fronts of the Great Patriotic War that did not send military equipment and weapons to the rear of the country for repairs. This repair was done in special parts at the enterprises of Karelia and the Murmansk region.

We drove through an area unknown to us through unfamiliar stations and cities, and in our car no one could guess where we were being taken. There was talk about the Northern Front and the Baltics. After more than 2 weeks of driving, we unloaded, it seems, at the Oyat station and ended up on the Karelian Isthmus on the Svir River, along the left bank of which the front line of the Karelian Front passed.

This front was considered the longest - its left flank began at Lake Ladoga, and the right ended in the Arctic on the northern border with Finland, resting on the Barents Sea. Finland was an ally of Germany, fought with us since 1941, and Finnish troops were on the right bank of the Svir. Apparently, she took the side of Germany because of the Soviet-Finnish war, which she lost in the winter of 1939-1940. Having provoked artillery shelling on the Finnish-Soviet border, the Soviet Union at the end of November 1939 declared war on Finland and began to advance with its troops on the Finnish defensive "Mannerheim Line" and on the city of Vyborg.

In the conditions of a very cold winter and in poor uniforms (the Red Army men were dressed in overcoats and wore cloth helmets - "Budyonovka"), our troops suffered heavy losses of the wounded and frostbite, storming the "Mannerheim Line", the approaches to which were carefully mined. At first, the troops did not even have mine detectors and the fighters died, undermined by mines. Even in our remote Belarusian city of Mogilev they knew about this, and two large schools in the city were occupied by hospitals for the wounded and frostbite. Despite our overwhelming numerical superiority, only by the beginning of February did the troops approach the Mannerheim Line and, having broken through it, began to move towards the Vyborg fortified area. Vyborg was taken in the first days of March, and on March 13 hostilities ceased, and the Soviet-Finnish war ended. According to the peace treaty, the city of Vyborg and part of the Finnish territories were ceded to the Soviet Union. Therefore, Finland fought with us on the side of the Germans, hoping to return their territories.

The Karelian front arose in the first months of the 1941 war, when the Germans began to advance on Leningrad from the Baltic states and from the southwest, and the Finns from the north and from Karelia. In November 1941, at the final stage of the encirclement of Leningrad, Finnish troops were supposed to cross the river. Svir, to close with the German units on the Karelian Isthmus, helping the Germans create a second blockade ring around Leningrad. However, the Finnish command refused to take part in blocking Leningrad. By December, the stubborn resistance of our troops stopped the German offensive near the city. Volkhov and Tikhvin, and Finnish - along the Svir River. On the Volkhov and Leningrad fronts, battles with the Germans for the liberation of the Leningrad region and the lifting of the blockade continued in the subsequent war years. But, as the German Field Marshal E. von Manstein recalled, the Finnish command refused to take part in a joint offensive against Leningrad in August 1942. Such behavior of the Finnish command and moderate terms of surrender, which preserved the independence and social system of Finland, defeated in 1944. , cause bewilderment among military historians. Some of them suggest a secret agreement between the USSR and Finland, concluded no later than September 1941. And on the Karelian front from December 1941 until the summer of 1944, the troops were indeed on a stable defense. So we came to fight on the calmest of the fronts.

Our 37th Guards Airborne Corps joined the 7th Army, located along the banks of the Svir. This army participated in the Soviet-Finnish War, and along the coast, many trenches, dugouts and dugouts were dug, in which our infantry was located. The batteries of our division were located somewhat far from the coast, cutting down the forest for firing positions, but also prepared positions and shelters on the coast for direct fire. Our battalion control platoon was located in a dugout, and on the river bank they prepared an observation post (NP) of the battalion for firing adjustments. Personally, as gunners, we were armed with carbines (a shortened rifle), and the battalion was armed with 76-mm ZIS-3 cannons, which were attached to American Studebaker vehicles. These machines had 3 driving axles and a powerful winch in front of the radiator, capable of pulling the car with loads from deep road gullies. The Studebakers were very suitable for our front. And the front was really calm - somewhere in the distance a single shot from a cannon was sometimes heard, and the soldiers of the 7th Army in our sector calmly went down to the river with pots to draw water, and no one fired at them. The Finns walked just as calmly on their shore.

For two weeks we were preparing to cross the Svir, the width of which in our section was approximately 300 m. The authorities distributed duties, the order of crossings and cargo, which, in addition to personal equipment and weapons, everyone had to take with them. Observations were made from the NP, marking targets on the opposite bank of the Svir for artillery fire. The crossing was scheduled for June 21, on the eve of the 3rd anniversary of the war, and artillery preparation for breaking through the Finnish front began at 11:00. 45min. The shelling lasted about two hours, and the density of the fire was such that a curtain of clods of earth and smoke from explosions hung over the Finnish coast all this time. Such fire, apparently, so stunned the Finns that only an hour after the end of the artillery preparation, somewhere in the distance, some lone cannon of the Finns began to shoot. In our sector, the crossing of the Svir passed without the resistance of the Finns, and the commander of our intelligence department crossed in the 1st boat of the division, Junior Sergeant Sashka Laptev, who was awarded the Order of Glory for this and then immediately accepted into the party of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. In the army then it was a rule to immediately accept those who were awarded orders into the party. Then our entire control platoon, signalmen and scouts, also crossed over. Toward evening, quite a lot of infantry crossed to the Finnish coast, and sappers built a bridge and several ferries, along which tanks and our Studebakers with guns began to cross.

Crossing the river Svir. Karelian front.

Having crossed the Svir in the June heat, we decided to get rid of the unnecessary burden that prevented us from advancing further. Firstly, we didn’t need overcoats, since we were given raincoats. Secondly, in the artillery, a rifle was contemptuously called a “lushny”, and why carry a “lushny” with you if you can get a captured machine gun? Having neatly folded our overcoats and gas masks in some dugout, and also leaving carbines in it, we brought the foreman of the control platoon there and handed it all over to him. Of course, this greatly facilitated our military burdens - after all, everyone wore: a raincoat, a captured machine gun with cartridge horns, a duffel bag with soldiers' belongings and food, a bowler hat and binoculars. The general cargo of the reconnaissance department was a compass and a stereo tube with tripods, which they tried to carry in turn.

Having crossed to the Finnish coast, we began to advance after the infantry through the forest marshland, the roads of which were paved with thin fallen trees and heavily mined. Although sappers were ahead and cleared the road, mines lay in wait for us literally at every step. Somehow, before our eyes, a soldier was blown up by an infantry mine, who had gone off the road about 8 meters to recover “out of need”. Part of his foot was torn off, and he began to call for help, bleeding and afraid to move. But before the arrival of the sappers, no one dared to approach him, fearing to be blown up by mines. Sappers were called, who found two more mines near him, and, having provided assistance, sent the soldier to the medical battalion.

Once, on the road, along which many cars and soldiers passed and passed, the Studebaker of one of our batteries with a gun on the trailer ran into an anti-tank mine with its front wheel. The driver and junior lieutenant, the commander of the fire platoon, were killed in the cockpit. Seven soldiers of the gun crew, sitting in the back on boxes with shells, were saved only by the fact that the explosion occurred under the front wheel.

Military operations in this forest swampy area took place when the Finns retreated from one fortified area to another. When our infantry moved to a certain point along the forest road, in some place they were stopped by "cuckoos". "Cuckoos" were called Finnish snipers, disguised in the crowns of trees on specially prepared sites. Two or three "cuckoos" could sometimes hold back a whole battalion of infantry, and then the infantry called in artillery. If the artillery was close, then the cannons fired directly at the supposed place of the "cuckoo's nest". In other cases, cannons fired from covered positions across the area where the "cuckoos" settled. As a rule, artillery fire eliminated the "cuckoos" - either they were killed, or they hid in an unknown direction, and the infantry continued to move.

On our sector of the front, the Finns had neither aircraft nor tanks, but soldiers often died from mortar attacks. In soldier jargon, mortar attacks were ironically called "sobantuy", which meant some kind of Muslim holiday. The Finns shot the area well with mortars, and as soon as they assumed at least a small concentration of soldiers (for example, by the smoke of a fire), they fired a mortar volley at this place. Once one of our scouts got hold of trophy pasta. We are tired of eating cereals cooked from concentrates, and we decided to eat pasta. In a clearing with a small dugout, we made a fire and began to cook pasta. When the pasta was almost ready, we suddenly hear: “Pu! Pu! Pu! - the characteristic sounds of mortar shots. We rushed to the dugout and began to squeeze in through a narrow passage. There were 5 of us, and everyone slipped through when the mine exploded in the fire itself. But the last soldier, who happened to be in our company, had his heel cut off by a fragment of a mine, and he was sent to the medical battalion. And we saw our pasta hanging from the branches of fir trees surrounding the clearing.

After the capture of the city of Olonets, we got a trophy bicycle with a trunk on which it was possible to carry a stereo tube - it weighed 16 kg. A scout by the name of Kukla rode a bicycle, who also acted as an orderly of the division commander. Once, along a forest road, he was carrying a stereo tube and came under mortar fire. He was killed by fragments of a mine that exploded nearby, and the bicycle was all crumpled. Only the stereotube survived, and the scouts mourned the murdered comrade and cursed the stereotube, which again had to be carried around.

The unexpected death of soldiers on mines and mortar shelling seemed like a bad accident, which might not have happened. After all, every soldier who is being taken to the front hopes that he will not be killed, but someone else will die. But some incomprehensible law was at work. Why, for example, during a mortar attack on the road, a cook died, who brought a camp kitchen to the 3rd battery 2-3 times a day on a horse? After all, it was often several kilometers to the front line, and no one died in the battery at the front. It seemed that life and death were controlled not by chance, but by some Supreme Being.

Against the Finnish fortified areas, the positions of our troops were erected with trenches, dugouts and shelters, the front edge of which was occupied by infantry. And in the artillery, the scouts were mainly engaged in the creation of NPs for the commanders of their batteries, who corrected the shooting. Usually artillery NPs were located behind the forward edge of our troops, but within sight of enemy firing points. But the distances to the batteries of the division were often measured in kilometers. Then the batteries fired from closed positions, and the data for such firing were prepared at the OP by the commanders of the battery or reconnaissance platoon and transmitted to the battery by telephone. The topographic platoon, which carried out the "binding" of batteries and NP on the map, was of great help in adjusting the shooting. The longest distance to the Finns, at which our batteries once had to shoot, was 13 km.

The 2nd battery of senior lieutenant Romanenko fired best from closed positions in the division - he hit the target after one sighting shot. The goals were different: accumulations of Finnish troops, dugouts with firing points, mortar and artillery batteries, vehicles and much more. The foreman of this battery, a Jew by nationality, was very afraid to go to the NP - and the road is dangerous, and the NP is almost at the forefront. The battery commander knew this weakness of his and used it when the scout brought from the battery to the OP, the so-called "People's Commissar's ration", i.e. 100 g of alcohol. He called the foreman to the phone and said that they had brought little, and it would be necessary to add (the senior lieutenant liked to drink). The foreman replied that everything had already been distributed, but there was nowhere to get it. Then the commander ordered him to come to the NP for a conversation. After that, the foreman took the bowler hat and walked around the soldiers of the battery, persuading them to pour "in favor of the comrade battery commander." Since many soldiers, especially young ones, did not drink their portions, soon the foreman was gaining some amount of alcohol and joyfully reported on the phone: “Everything is in order, comrade senior lieutenant, I am sending a scout!” So he never appeared on the NP.

From closed positions, the 1st battery under the command of junior lieutenant Zubkov, who, apparently, had no education other than school, did not fire well. He understood this and located his NP near the Romanenko NP. When the latter loudly gave commands to the battery about sights, beads, levels, and so on, and the telephone operator repeated them loudly into the receiver, Zubkov listened to all this and memorized it. Then, taking into account the position of his NP and battery, he reported close data to the battery, allowing it to shoot tolerably well. He knew how to suck up to the authorities, and when he got drunk, he said: “I used to be a Ryazan shepherd, and now the country has entrusted me with 4 guns and 60 soldiers!” And the soldiers chuckled: “As he was a Ryazan shepherd, he remained!” When we arrived from the front, he was made deputy division commander for combat units.

We, the scouts of the control platoon, created NP for the division commander and the head of intelligence, helped to monitor the Finnish defenses and prepare data for firing. In addition, they played the role of messengers, if it was necessary to convey or bring something. Our NP was connected with all the battery NPs, and if the connection was broken, the signalman was sent to look for a break, and the scout was to transmit some order. Therefore, we can say that the scouts often "cruised" between the NP and the division, making many kilometers a day.

Once again, the front moved, and four of us - Sashka Laptev, Zhenya Klubnikin, Sultagazin and me - were sent to the new front line to mark a place for the OP and prepare something in advance. After looking at the map where to go, we first went along the road. The path was long, and we decided to cut it along the paths of the swamp. We walked along the paths, jumping from bump to bump, for about five kilometers, and suddenly there was shooting ahead of us. We began to bypass this place and again, having heard the shooting, we turned onto another path. This went on several times, and we realized that we were lost in this swamp. Hungry, we were afraid to build a fire and ate our concentrates dry, washing them down with swamp water. Then they began to pick blueberries over the bumps, and, having satisfied their hunger a little, they began to figure out on the map where we should “get out of the swamp”. Time was leaning towards night, which in summer in these places was short and was called "white". Having chosen the direction of movement on the map, we came to a rather dry place, where a small infantry unit was located in dugouts. The next day, we reached our front line on the road and began to build the NP.

While we were with the infantrymen, they told us about the tragedy that had happened to their unit. They occupied positions at the edge of the forest when our IL attack aircraft armed with rocket launchers flew over them. Some lieutenant from their unit “greeted our falcons” with a rocket launcher, not knowing the color of the rocket that marked the border of our forward edge. Since the color of the rocket was not the same, the pilots decided that this was the front line of the Finns' defense. Attack aircraft turned around and "processed" these positions from rocket launchers. So two battalions of our soldiers died because of the stupid enthusiasm of the lieutenant.

In such a running around between the NP and the batteries of the division, basically, our front-line time passed. At the same time, the tension created by mortar shelling and road mines never left us. According to the memoirs of the commander of our front, Marshal K.A. Meretskova: "... on the roads from Lodeynoye Pole to Olonets, our sappers discovered and defused 40 thousand mines." And the front, despite the resistance of the Finns, inexorably shifted deep into Karelia. As the same author writes, at the beginning of July 1944 we were 80 km from the Finnish border of 1940, and on July 21 our troops approached it. There was a lull at the front, and in early August, one of the radio operators told us that the government had changed in Finland, and a truce should be expected. Soon the battalions and divisions of our 37th Guards Corps were ordered to return to the Lodeynoye Pole station and prepare for loading onto trains. It seems that in the middle of August 1944 the echelons took us to the south-west, as we thought, to another front.

To be continued.

Chapter 7. Karelian Front (winter 1942 - summer 1944)

As already mentioned, the position of the troops of the Karelian Front from the winter of 1942 to the summer of 1944 was exceptionally stable. Although both sides made several unsuccessful attempts to improve their position. In this regard, we will not go into a general description of the hostilities on the Karelian front, we will only note a few interesting points.

Let's start with the position of the German troops. In February 1942, the German troops operating in northern Finland and northern Norway were separated from the army "Norway" into the army "Lapland". On June 20, 1942, the Lapland Army was renamed the 20th Mountain Army.

In September 1941, the German 6th Mountain Rifle Division arrived from Greece to the Murmansk direction. In February 1942, the 7th Mountain Rifle Division, formed on the basis of the 99th Light Infantry Division, arrived from the Balkans in the Murmansk direction. As a result of these measures, the number of German troops in Finland by July 1, 1942 increased to 150 thousand people. In September 1942, the 210th stationary infantry division was formed in Norway, which was also sent to the Murmansk direction. Thus, from the end of 1942 to the beginning of 1944, the 20th Mountain Army was subordinate to the 163rd and 169th Infantry Divisions, the 2nd, 6th and 7th Mountain Rifle Divisions, the 210th Stationary Infantry Division and many separate regiments.

In 1941 - February 1942, the Karelian Front also received significant reinforcements. Among them were the 152nd, 263rd and 367th rifle divisions, eight marine brigades, fifteen separate ski battalions, a tank battalion and two divisions of rocket launchers (M-13 installations). A significant part of the newly arrived reinforcements - two divisions, four brigades of marines, eight separate ski battalions - were transferred by the Military Council of the front to the southern sector of the front - to the area of ​​the Maselskaya - Povenets station.

On December 27, 1941, the Military Council decided to create the Masel task force. On January 3, 1942, parts of the Maselskaya group went on the offensive. The 290th regiment of the 186th division attacked the village of Velikaya Guba without artillery preparation and took it on the move. Regiment commander Major N.V. Azarov skillfully used the 227th tank company subordinate to him for the duration of the operation. The tanks quickly burst into the village, followed by the infantry. The enemy was driven out of the Great Guba. However, half a kilometer west of the village, two heights remained in the hands of the Finns. From here, the Finns viewed the entire village and approaches to it from the east. On the same day, the 1046th regiment of the 289th division began to advance in the direction of Lake Pettel. The regiment advanced more than a kilometer, pushing the Finns back from the eastern shore of Lake Redu.

The 367th division moved from the 14th siding in the direction of Lake Kommunarov and, successfully repelling counterattacks, advanced 2-3 km on the very first day. The 65th Marine Brigade advanced on the village of Lisya Guba, but could not occupy it. Throughout the first day, the Marines fought a fierce battle, the enemy suffered heavy losses. On the night of January 3-4, the Finns brought up the nearest reserves and in the morning they launched counterattacks throughout the entire sector. On January 5, they brought into battle the second echelons of their divisions and the reserves of the II Rifle Corps. The 1st Infantry Division, which was in the reserve of the Karelian Army, moved from Kondopoga to the battle area. Intense fighting in the Masel direction continued until January 11.

The troops of the Medvezhyegorsk Operational Group launched an offensive on January 6. The artillery preparation before the offensive lasted 40 minutes. Then the 1-26th and 367th regiments of the 71st division crossed the canal and occupied the outskirts of Povenets. On the left flank, two regiments of the 313th division crossed the canal. In Povenets they met stubborn resistance from the enemy. The ski brigade, created from five ski battalions, on the night of January 5-6, reached Cape Gazhiy Navolok on the ice of the Povenets Bay. Having knocked out the enemy from the shore and leaving one company to cover the convoys and protect the coast, the skiers moved in the north with the task of cutting the Medvezhyegorsk-Povenets highway. They managed to advance from Cape Gazhiy Navolok by 2-2.5 km. A stubborn battle went on here on January 6 and 7. The enemy raided the covering company and the brigade's convoys.

After stubborn oncoming battles, on January 11, our troops were forced to withdraw to their starting lines in the Povenets direction. Parts of the Maselskaya operational group occupied the village of Velikaya Guba and improved their positions in a number of places. In general, the offensive of the Red Army can be assessed as unsuccessful. However, the Finns suffered serious losses, and the Finnish command abandoned plans for an offensive in 1942 on the Karelian front.

In March 1942, the troops of the Maselskaya and Medvezhyegorsk operational groups united into the 32nd Army. In June, F.D. became its commander. Gorelenko. The army headquarters was located in the forest near the village of Aita-Lyambi. Commander of the Medvezhyegorsk group, Lieutenant General S.G. Trofimenko accepted the 7th Army.

One of the most important tasks of the Karelian Front was to ensure the uninterrupted operation of the Kirov railway. After the front line stabilized, and the fighting took on a positional character, the enemy held in his hands a section of the railway 310 km long from the Svir station to the Maselskaya station. In the north, from Murmansk to Maselskaya (850 km), there were six independent operational areas. In the first half of 1942 alone, 15 thousand wagons (approximately 230-240 thousand tons) of imported cargo from Murmansk passed through Soroka - Obozersky to the center of the country. In total, several million tons of cargo were transported during the war. To combat the sabotage detachments of the Finns, who periodically penetrated the rear, the railway workers of the Kirov Railway equipped seven armored trains (seven armored locomotives and nineteen armored platforms).

Back in September 1941, Goebbels announced on the radio: "The Kirov road is disabled - it does not work and cannot be restored."

However, in December 1941 British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden arrived in Murmansk by sea and from there traveled by rail to Moscow. Returning to London, on January 4, 1942, he announced on the radio: “Due to the fact that the flight conditions were very bad, we went to Moscow by train. Part of our journey passed along the railway, which Goebbels says is cut. From my own experience, I can say that Goebbels is wrong - the railway is in perfect order, not damaged and runs smoothly, well.

In February-March 1942, the command of the Karelian Front received information that the Germans were preparing an offensive in the Kestenga direction, and decided to strike the enemy with a counterattack. After the bloody November battles of 1941, the 88th division was on the defensive in the Kestenga direction (in March 1942 it became the 23rd guards division). Its parts successfully carried out the tasks assigned to them. But now, in order to thwart the enemy’s offensive, the Front’s Military Council decided to transfer the 263rd and 186th divisions, two marine brigades and one ski brigade, formed in February 1942 from separate battalions, to the Kestenga direction.

The offensive from the main line of defense of the Soviet troops began on April 26 with artillery preparation, in which 33 batteries of 76-mm guns took part. But their shells could not destroy the long-term fortifications of the enemy, and there were no guns of a larger caliber there. On the same day, the 186th Division and the 80th Marine Brigade went on the offensive on the right flank. For two days they successfully advanced towards Kestenga, overcoming the resistance of the rear and reserve units of the SS division "Nord", which now and then turned into counterattacks. Stubborn battles went on here for several days. On the third day, the 307th regiment of the 163rd enemy division entered the battle. The Germans suffered heavy losses. They threw more and more battalions against our units, they threw them directly from the vehicles, not allowing them to rest and look around, not giving their commanders the opportunity to get used to the terrain.

Simultaneously with our offensive on the flank, the 263rd Division and the Marine Brigade launched several attacks from the front. The SS division "Nord" had been defending here for almost half a year. The Germans built long-term firing points, dug trenches in full profile. The fighting in the Kestenga direction lasted 10 days. The result was the same as in the January battles in the Masel and Povenets directions. Both sides suffered heavy losses and remained in their positions. The Germans seriously damaged the 163rd and 169th Infantry Divisions, as well as the SS Nord Division.

On April 27, 1942, units of the 14th Army went on the offensive in the Murmansk direction. The first two days the 10th Guards Division (former 152nd Rifle Division) advanced successfully. She forced the Germans to leave the first line of defense. The 14th division and the Marine Corps brigade were active in the coastal sector. The Germans strengthened their defense by pushing the second echelons to the front line. On the third day of the fighting, there was some hitch. The Soviet troops regrouped, and a marine brigade went on the offensive. The ships of the fleet opened intense fire on the enemy defenses. On May 2, 3 and 4, stubborn battles went on along the entire front of the 14th Army. Having moved forward several kilometers, units of the 10th Guards Division went into the flank of the Germans, who were defending the bridgehead on the banks of the Western Litsa River.

To develop success, the army commander decided to bring into battle the 152nd reserve division, which was concentrated 30 km from the front line. To overcome this distance, it was necessary to make a day's march. It was planned that on the evening of May 5, the division would approach its starting lines, rest for the night, and enter the battle on the morning of May 6. But these plans were not destined to come true. On the morning of May 5, a strong snowstorm rose in the tundra. The wind knocked people off their feet. Even cars couldn't move. They were ordered to dig holes in the snow, cover themselves with raincoats and sit out. The storm lasted six hours. As a result, the division became incapacitated. 1200 people had to be hospitalized. Many of those who remained in the ranks were also frostbite. Three people died.

The division had to be returned to the concentration area, where good dugouts were built, and put in order. The troops of the 14th Army were ordered to stop the attacks and retreat to the old lines. Only where the occupied terrain improved our positions did they begin to build new defensive structures.

By mid-May 1942, the Karelian Front had sufficient forces. The front-line reserve included two divisions, two marine brigades and three light brigades formed from separate ski battalions. In addition, the Military Councils of the armies had their own reserves. In March 1942, the commander of the Karelian Front, V.A. Frolov and the commander of the 7th Army F.D. Gorelenko were summoned to Headquarters. Stalin instructed them to think over an offensive plan to the south-west from Maselskaya station with the ultimate task of reaching the rear of the Finnish troops on the Karelian Isthmus and breaking through the blockade of Leningrad from the north with the forces of the 32nd, 7th Separate and 23rd Armies of the Leningrad Front. However, he warned that for the time being, the front headquarters should not be instructed to develop all the details of such an operation.

Note that the soldiers and commanders of the Karelian Front did everything they could to help the residents of besieged Leningrad. So, in March 1942, 300 of the best deer were selected at the Loukhsky reindeer-breeding state farm. Reindeer and two wagons of frozen fish were delivered by rail to Tikhvin. There, the deer were divided into two groups: one went on the ice of Ladoga in teams with fish loaded on sleds, and the other was sent in a herd. In re-ultat, not a single car was required until Leningrad itself. In March, 300 heads of deer (about 15 tons of meat) and 25 tons of fish were received by Leningraders in excess of what the road transport could deliver to the city along the ice road. This is more than a two-month official norm for 10,000 people.

Needless to say, the command of the Karelian Front accepted the idea of ​​releasing Leningrad from the north with enthusiasm. On June 17, 1942, a member of the Military Council of the Karelian Front G.N. Kupriyanov reported to the Chief of the General Staff A.M. Vasilevsky, that it is supposed to break through the Finnish defenses in the Medvezhyegorsk direction and, passing north of Lake Ladoga, hit the rear of the Finnish troops on the Karelian Isthmus. In a straight line, this was 320 km. For the successful conduct of the operation, the front command requested that eight rifle divisions, three or four tank battalions, two large-caliber artillery regiments, five road-building battalions and two engineering brigades be allocated from the Stavka reserve.

However, due to the defeat of the Soviet troops near Kharkov and the subsequent German offensive on Stalingrad, the operation to unblock Leningrad was postponed. Moreover, in late June - early July 1942, the Stavka took the 71st and 263rd rifle divisions from the Karelian Front. The front command literally begged the Headquarters to leave the 71st division in place, and instead send the 289th division, since the 71st consisted of more than half of the Finns and Karelians and fought well in such difficult climatic conditions. But the 71st Division could have been taken a few days earlier, and that settled the matter. As a result, there were no major operations in 1942 and 1943 on the Karelian front.

The role of aviation in the combat operations of the Karelian Front in 1941-1944 was more modest than on other fronts of the Great Patriotic War. On June 22, 1941, the 7th Army had only a regiment of I-16 fighters (28 vehicles) and nine SB bombers. At the same time, seven SBs were lost in early July 1941 during a raid on the Finnish railway station Ionsu. The 14th Army had a little more aircraft. The aviation of the Northern Fleet had 49 fighters (28 - I-15bis, 17 - I-153, 4 - I-16), 11 SB bombers and 56 seaplanes (49 - MBR-2, 7 - GTS).

At the end of September 1941, the Karelian Front received a regiment of I-16 fighters, a regiment of Pe-2 dive bombers and 50 British Hurricane fighters specifically to cover Murmansk. On August 29, 1941, the Northern Fleet received 42 fighters and 19 DB-ZF bombers from the Baltic and Pacific Fleets. During 1942 and 1943, the aviation of the Karelian Front was replenished with Airacobra fighters and Il-2 attack aircraft, and at the end of 1943, Yak-7 and Yak-9 fighters. At the beginning of 1944, an air division armed with Tu-2 bombers arrived at the front. At the beginning of 1942, the Air Force handed over to the Northern Fleet the 95th Air Regiment armed with Pe-3 long-range fighters. On July 1, 1943, the Northern Fleet had 185 aircraft (including 104 fighters), on June 1, 1944 - 258 aircraft (of which 150 fighters). By the middle of 1943, Soviet pilots managed to gain air supremacy in the Murmansk region.

Among the combat operations of the aviation of the Karelian front, I would like to note two episodes. In November 1941, the fighter of Senior Lieutenant N.F. Repninov (152nd Fighter Aviation Regiment) died after ramming a Finnish plane. On the night of March 5, 1942, the PS-84 aircraft flew over all of Finland to the Gulf of Bothnia and scattered 200,000 leaflets near the cities of Oulu, Suomokalmi and Kemijärvi. If the Finns in March 1942 had carefully read the leaflets, then they would not have had to resent the bombing of their cities in 1944.

Despite the poor population of Karelia before the war and the evacuation of the majority of the population in the autumn of 1941, a partisan movement unfolded in the occupied territories. So, by October 10, 1941, 12 partisan detachments with a total number of 710 people were operating behind the line of the Karelian Front. By this time, the partisans had killed 500 Finnish soldiers, destroyed 45 cars and one armored car, blew up 66 bridges, burned 2 seaplanes on the water and interrupted the communication wires of the Finnish troops 15 times.

Scout Dmitry Yegorovich Tuchin can rightly be called the "Karelian Stirlitz." Before the war, 28-year-old Tuchin worked as the commandant of the building of the Council of People's Commissars in Petrozavodsk. In August 1941, "for systematic drunkenness" he was expelled from the party and expelled from work. "Repressed by the regime" Tuchin left for his native village of Gornoe Sholtozero. In October, the village was occupied by Finnish troops. A couple of days later, Tuchin became the headman of the village. He zealously took up his duties and often traveled on business trips. Detailed information about the movements of the Finnish troops went to the headquarters of the Karelian Front. In particular, it was thanks to the intelligence received from Tuchin that on October 5-6, the 272nd division was transferred from Kondopoga to the Voznesenye region by water, which played an important role in the battles at the source of the Svir.

In early 1942, Tuchin was invited to Helsinki to a meeting of the leadership of the occupied territories. After the meeting, Tuchin was received by Finnish President Ryti. They talked for a long time, and then Ryti awarded Tuchin with a medal.

In early June 1944, Tuchin formed a large partisan detachment. By plane, machine guns and machine guns were delivered to the detachment. On June 21, when the offensive of the Soviet troops on the Svir River began, and the Finnish troops retreated from Ascension through the Sholtozero region, Tuchin's detachment began hostilities. He destroyed a dozen cars with the retreating Finns, and liberated several villages in the Sholtozero region.

As of January 1, 1944, 1557 people were in the partisan detachments of Karelia. From February 1942 to June 1944, the partisans killed 1,364 Finnish soldiers, derailed 7 steam locomotives, 31 passenger and 107 freight cars, blew up 2 railway and 7 highway bridges.

Despite the fact that in 1943 and the first half of 1944 the Karelian Front did not conduct large offensive operations, it became clear to the Finns that the initiative had finally passed to the Soviet troops.