Operations
At the start of the war, Finnish ground troops quickly isolated Hanko and its 25,300-man Soviet garrison. Though Mannerheim initially declared that liberating Hanko would be a primary goal of the war, Finnish troops in the area did not receive authorization to attack the base. Instead, as the Finns had built the Harparskog line on the border of the leased area during the Interim Peace, they moved to occupy these positions. The front remained mostly static, with action consisting mainly of artillery strikes and some limited probing or patrol activities on both sides. Small scale naval and amphibious actions took place in the surrounding archipelago. Finnish forces surrounding the base initially consisted of the 17th Division, the 4th Coastal Brigade, and supporting units. By the end of the summer, the 17th Division, which had made up the bulk of the besieging force, was transferred to East Karelia.
Finnish efforts to blockade the base from the sea were less successful, due both to strong Soviet resistance, and to equipment failures (such as torpedoes used by Finnish submarines, which often failed to detonate on impact). Minefields laid on the sea lanes leading to Hanko and the surrounding waters were more effective, claiming several Soviet supply vessels. These problems, in addition to the rapid German advance on the southern shore of the Gulf of Finland, caused the base to lose its importance and made it an untenably heavy burden for the Soviet Baltic Fleet. In autumn 1941 the order was given to evacuate Hanko. Base personnel, troops and most of their light equipment and supplies had been removed by December 1941. Heavier equipment which couldn't be readily moved was sabotaged or destroyed in place. Soviet naval forces performing the evacuation suffered heavy losses from minefields.
The Soviet base at Hanko, its accompanying coastal fort at Osmussaar, and the minefields laid to protect the Soviet Baltic Fleet had hindered Finnish and German naval activities, and had made it problematic for freighters to reach the Finnish ports of Helsinki and Kotka. As Finland lacked the resources to transport enough goods over land this caused severe logistical problems, with material stuck in seaports on the Western coast. Finnish and German minesweepers had opened a sea-lane through the minefields outside of the gun range of Russarö to allow freighters to reach even the Eastern ports, but it wasn't until the Soviet evacuation that they were able to clear the more secure coastal sea-lane, allowing safer passage.
Read more about this topic: Battle Of Hanko (1941)
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