Operation Barbarossa
The formation was in position on the Norwegian–Finnish border by late June and as the invasion of the Soviet Union (Operation Barbarossa) started they were committed to the attack, in Operation Arctic Fox.
Involved in the battle at Salla, against strong Soviet forces they suffered 300 killed and 400 wounded in the first two days of the invasion.
The battle at Salla was a disaster: the thick forests and heavy smoke from forest fires disoriented the troops, and the units completely fell apart.
The Brigade got a new unit attached, SS Gebirgsjäger (Mountain) Artillery Regiment 6, and was now designated as a Division, the SS Division "Nord". In September 1941 SS Division "Nord" was attached to the Finnish III Corps under Finnish General Hjalmar Siilasvuo (this was the only time that an SS Division was under the command of a non-German officer), and took up new positions at Louhi, Kiestinki.
By the end of 1941, it had suffered severe casualties. Over the winter of 1941–42 it received replacements from the general pool of Waffen SS recruits, supposedly younger and better trained than the SS men of the original formation.
Read more about this topic: 6th SS Mountain Division Nord
Famous quotes containing the word operation:
“You may read any quantity of books, and you may almost as ignorant as you were at starting, if you don’t have, at the back of your minds, the change for words in definite images which can only be acquired through the operation of your observing faculties on the phenomena of nature.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)