Operations
Naval Detachment K's primary task was harassing Soviet supply lines to Leningrad on southern Ladoga, where British and American food and munitions were delivered to the besieged residents of Leningrad. The unit also staged attacks on enemy bases and conducted limited landing operations on the shores of Lake Ladoga. Some smaller Soviet patrol boats and several barges delivering food to besieged Leningrad were attacked and sunk during 1942 and 1943. The Finnish Ladoga Flotilla had clashes with the Soviet Ladoga Flotilla, which operated in Lake Ladoga from June 25, 1941 through November 4, 1944.
The EFO suffered losses during a raid to destroy Soviet radio station, lighthouse and coastal artillery emplacement on the strategically important island of Sukho (Suhosaari in Finnish) 37 km from the Southern coast of Ladoga, at the main supply route to Leningrad. The idea of the operation was presented to the Germans by the Finnish Lieutenant General Paavo Talvela. The German-run operation, codenamed Operation Brazil (Einsatz Brasil) began on 22 October 1942. Though the radio station and the lighthouse were torched and the coastal artillery on the island was destroyed, the landing was eventually repulsed and, in a running battle, the flotilla was harassed by Soviet aircraft, torpedo-boats, and gunboats all the way back to its base along the northern shore of Lake Ladoga. When approaching Sukho island, one light ferry (SF 12) run aground and several other ferries went to assist it. However one of the light ferries (SF 22) was hit by Soviet coastal artillery fire and one heavy (SF 13) and one light ferry (SF 26) that had gone to assist the grounded ferry (SF12) also became grounded despite of the efforts to get them loose. Ultimately, all three had to be abandoned. During the return voyage one heavy ferry (SF 21) had to be scuttled when it started to take in water so badly that they would not have made it back to the base. Infantry boat (I 6) assigned to the ferry was also lost. Losses suffered by the EFO during the raid were heavy artillery ferries SF 13 (grounded) and SF 21 (damaged, later scuttled), light artillery ferries SF 12 (grounded) and SF 26 (grounded) and infantry boat I 6 - casualties for the naval and landing forces were 18 men dead, 57 wounded and 4 missing. One of the lost ferries was taken over by the Russians.
Read more about this topic: Naval Detachment K
Famous quotes containing the word operations:
“There is a patent office at the seat of government of the universe, whose managers are as much interested in the dispersion of seeds as anybody at Washington can be, and their operations are infinitely more extensive and regular.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“It may seem strange that any road through such a wilderness should be passable, even in winter, when the snow is three or four feet deep, but at that season, wherever lumbering operations are actively carried on, teams are continually passing on the single track, and it becomes as smooth almost as a railway.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Plot, rules, nor even poetry, are not half so great beauties in tragedy or comedy as a just imitation of nature, of character, of the passions and their operations in diversified situations.”
—Horace Walpole (1717–1797)