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The Finnish Navy in WW2 - Merivoimat

Finnish ww2 naval war ships.

 

Soviet Navy escaping Tallinn autumn 1941.

Soviet evacuation of Tallinn - Wikipedia





The Soviet evacuation of Tallinn, also called Tallinn disaster or Russian Dunkirk, was a Soviet operation to evacuate the 190 ships of the Baltic Fleet, units of the Red Army, and pro-Soviet civilians from the fleet's encircled main base of Tallinn in Soviet-occupied Estonia during August 1941-

In expectation of a Soviet breakout, the Kriegsmarine and the Finnish Navy had started on 8 August 1941 to lay minefields off Cape Juminda on the Lahemaa coast. While Soviet minesweepers tried to clear a path for convoys through the minefields, German coastal artillery installed a battery of 150 mm (5.9 in) guns near Cape Juminda and the Finnish navy gathered their 2nd Motor Torpedo Boat Flotilla with patrol boats VMV9, VMV10, VMV11 and VMV17. At the same time the German 3. Schnellbootflottille with E-boats S-26, S-27, S-39, S-40 and S-101 was concentrated at Suomenlinna outside Helsinki. German Junkers Ju 88 bombers from Kampfgruppe 806 based on airfields in Estonia were put on alert. On 19 August the final German assault on Tallinn began.

Twenty large transports, eight auxiliary ships, nine small transports, a tanker, a tug, and a tender were organized into four convoys, protected by the Soviet cruiser Kirov, with Admiral Vladimir Tributs on board, two flotilla leaders, nine destroyers, three torpedo boats, twelve submarines, ten modern and fifteen obsolete minehunters, 22 minesweepers, 21 submarine chasers, three gun boats, a minelayer, thirteen patrol vessels and eleven torpedo boats.

On 28 August Luftwaffe bomber wing Kampfgeschwader 77 (KG 77) and KGr 806 sank the 2,026 grt steamer Vironia, the 2,317 grt Lucerne, the 1,423 grt Atis Kronvalds and the 2,250 grt ice breaker Krisjanis Valdemars. The rest of the Soviet fleet were forced to change course. This took them through a heavily mined area. As a result, 21 Soviet warships, including five destroyers, struck mines and sank. On 29 August, the Luftwaffe, now reinforced with KG 76, KG 4 and KG 1, accounted for the transport ships Vtoraya Pyatiletka (3,974 grt), Kalpaks (2,190 grt) and Leningradsovet (1,270 grt) sunk. In addition, the ships Ivan Papanin, Saule, Kazakhstan and the Serp i Molot were damaged by I./KG 4, which also sank three more. Some 5,000 Soviet soldiers died.

Partial list of sunk ships

Juminda monument

Graves of men lost on Eestirand on Prangli Island where it was beached

• Russian passenger ship SS Vironia : hit a mine off Cape Juminda and sank in 5 minutes. 1300 people lost their lives.[8]
• Latvian Hospital ship Kalpaks : 1,100 killed, including 700 wounded.
• Latvian Icebreaker Krišjānis Valdemārs
• Soviet Submarine S 5 - 28 August 1941, Gulf of Finland[9]
• Soviet Submarine S 6
• Soviet Submarine Shch 301 - 28 August 1941, off Cape Juminda[9]
• Soviet Destroyer Yakov Sverdlov - 28 August 1941, off Mohni island[9]
• Soviet Destroyer Kalinin - 28 August 1941, off Cape Juminda[9]
• Soviet Destroyer Artem - 28 August 1941, off Cape Juminda[9]
• Soviet Destroyer Volodarski - 28 August 1941, off Cape Juminda[9]
• Soviet Destroyer Skoryi - 28 August 1941, off Cape Juminda[9]
• Patrol vessel Sneg - 28 August 1941, off Cape Juminda[9]
• Patrol vessel Tsiklon- 28 August 1941, off Cape Juminda[9]
• Gunboat I-8 - 28 August 1941, off Cape Juminda[9]
• Gunboat Amgun
• Minesweeper No. 71 (Crab) - 28 August 1941, off Cape Juminda[9]
• Minesweeper No. 42 (Lenvodput-13) - 28 August 1941, off Cape Juminda[9]
• Minesweeper T-214 (Bugel), off Cape Juminda
• Minesweeper T-216, off Cape Juminda
• Minelayer TTS-56 (Barometr)
• Minelayer TTS-71 (Krab)
• Minelayer TTS-42 (Izhorets-17)
• Netlayer Vyatka
• Netlayer Onega
• Guard (rescue) ship Saturn
• Submarine chaser MO 202
• Motor torpedo boat TK 103
• 25 large and 9 smaller merchantmen (most of them lost to mines), including:
  • Estonian transport SS Eestirand (VT 532) - 24 August 1941, off Prangli Island
  • VT -511/ALEV (1446grt) : Out of 1280 people, including 800 wounded, only 6 people were rescued.
  • VT-512/TOBOL (2758grt)
  • VT-547/JARVAMAA (1363grt)
  • EVERITA (3251grt) : Transportship with around 1,570 soldiers on board, sank a minute after the explosion. No more than ten people rescued.[10]
  • VT-518/LUGA (2329grt)
  • VT-512/KUMARI (237grt)
  • BALKHASH (2191grt)
  • JANA (2917grt)
  • VT -584/NAISSAAR (1839grt) : Up to 1000 passengers and crew were lost.
  • VT -537/ERGONAUTIS (206grt)
  • VT -530/ELLA (1522grt) : Soviet passenger ship struck a mine and sank in the Baltic Sea off Cape Juminda. Her Captain and 643 crew and passengers killed.[11]
  • AUSMA (1791grt)
  • Tanker TN-12 (1700grt).

Also, mines heavily damaged destroyers Minsk, Gordy and Slavny, minesweeper T-205 and other ships

 

Once the German Bf 109 got a 2 cm mg the Il2 started dropping like flies. It was so heavily armed normal mg´s would not drop it. BTW, the man in the back still usually died and often died anyway.. But usually he was a previous prisoner so "nobody cared".then again the Red Amy attacking was not cared. You die, and if you retreat you die anyway.

Interesting that the Red Army planes only tried to keep the army available for attack so they never had any strategic bombers like Lancasters etc.

 

Unit Kuhlmey summer 1944 Finland



Kurt Kuhlmey

 

Such a great looking aircraft...looks like it would fly by itself too...

 

That’s a great photo, love the color!

 

Hans-Ekkehard Bob



Adolf Galland!

 

Hans-Joachim Marseille.....

 

"Colorized" my arse, of course it is colorized...Shooting with colored film will do that.

That is a P-40E-1, handed over to New Zealand in early 1942, and flown as NZ3009. It passed through several owners, before winding up in England.

The photo was taken sometime after 2003, when NZ3009 was repainted in AVG colors.