Battle of Hanko (1941)

See also: Baltic Sea campaigns (19391945)

The Battle of Hanko (also known as the Hanko Front

Soviet passenger ship Iosif Stalin, used for evacuation of troops

from Hanko in November 1941, was damaged by a mine on 3
December 1941 and captured by the Germans.

1 Background
Remains of dugouts in the forest on the Hanko peninsula, just
east of the town of Hanko.

As part of the 1940 Moscow Peace Treaty which formally

ended the Soviet-Finnish Winter War, Hanko was leased
to the Soviet Union as a naval base. The civilian population was forced to evacuate before Soviet forces arrived.
The leased area included several surrounding islands, several coastal artillery sites (among them the important fort
of Russar), important harbor facilities, and an area suitable for an aireld, which the Soviets quickly constructed.
Troop transport rights from the Soviet Union to Hanko
and back put severe strain on Finnish-Soviet relations,
and played a part both in Finlands decision to allow German troops to transit Northern Finland, and later, to go
to war with the Soviet Union. Though Hanko had originally been leased as a naval base, ground forces were far
more numerous, with only a small naval detachment being present at the base.

Railway artillery gun TM-3-12. In JuneDecember 1941 they

took part in the defence of the Soviet naval base on the Hanko
peninsula.

2 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

or the Siege of Hanko) was a lengthy series of small battles fought on Hanko Peninsula during the Continuation
War between Finland and the Soviet Union in the second
half of 1941. As both sides were eager to avoid a major,
costly ground battle, ghting took the form of trench warfare, with artillery exchanges, sniping, patrol clashes, and
small amphibious operations performed in the surrounding archipelago. A volunteer Swedish battalion served
with Finnish forces in the siege. The last Soviet troops
left the peninsula in December 1941.
1

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 eorts 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).[2]
Mineelds laid on the sea lanes leading to Hanko and the
surrounding waters were more eective, 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 suered heavy losses
from mineelds.[2]

REFERENCES

assault against the Finnish island of Bengtskr, which

had a lighthouse and was thus an important observation post. The initial landing, performed in the middle of the night in foggy conditions, was successful, as
Finnish sentries believed the approaching boats to be
German minesweepers; however, the small garrison recovered quickly. Putting up erce resistance, the Finns
managed to retain control of the lighthouse while summoning help from nearby naval forces and coastal artillery. The ghting continued throughout the night. In
the morning Finnish reinforcements were able to force
the remaining Soviet raiders to surrender and drive their
naval support away.[5]

2.3 Evacuation

The evacuation of Hanko was performed in several

convoys, between October 16 and December 2, 1941,
which managed to transport roughly 23,000 troops to
Leningrad. The eet suered casualties from Finnish
mineelds and coastal artillery, losing 3 destroyers and
2 large transports (Andrei Zhdanov and Iosif Stalin) as
well as several smaller vessels. Finnish troops entering
The Soviet base at Hanko, its accompanying coastal fort the area found it heavily mined.[2][6][7]
at Osmussaar, and the mineelds laid to protect the Soviet Baltic Fleet had hindered Finnish and German naval
activities, and had made it problematic for freighters to 3 References
reach the Finnish ports of Helsinki and Kotka. As Finland lacked the resources to transport enough goods over [1] Mann, Chris; Jrgensen, Christer (2002). Hitlers Arctic
land this caused severe logistical problems, with matewar: the German campaigns in Norway, Finland and the
rial stuck in seaports on the Western coast. Finnish and
USSR 19401945. Ian Allan. p. 76. ISBN 978-0-7110German minesweepers had opened a sea-lane through the
2899-9.
mineelds outside of the gun range of Russar to allow
freighters to reach even the Eastern ports, but it wasn't un- [2] Kijanen, Kalervo (1968). Suomen Laivasto 19181968 II.
Helsinki: Meriupseeriyhdistys/Otava.
til the Soviet evacuation that they were able to clear the
[2]
more secure coastal sea-lane, allowing safer passage.
[3] Birgitta Ekstrm Sderlund.
Sotatoimet Hangossa
1900luvulla (Finnish)" (PDF). Retrieved 11 February
2011.

2.1

Amphibious operations

Both Finnish and Soviet coastal forces conducted numerous small-scale amphibious operations in the archipelago
surrounding the Hanko Peninsula. The rst of the these
clashes took place at the beginning of July 1941; active operations ended the following October. Fighting
on these small islands was often erce, and withdrawing
from them under re was extremely hazardous. In general the operations had little eect on the overall battle,
as territorial gains remained negligible.

2.2

Battle of Bengtskr

Main article: Battle of Bengtskr

After capturing the small island of Morgonlandet in July
1941, Soviet forces launched a small-scale amphibious

[4] S. I. Kabanov (Russian). VoenIzdat, 1971 (http://militera.lib.ru/memo/russian/kabanov_

si1/index.html)
[5] Kimmo Nummela (2007).
Battle of Bengtskr
26.07.1941. Retrieved 2010-05-23.
[6] Mannerheim, G (1952). Mannerheim, muistelmat, toinen
osa. Helsinki: Otava. pp. 370372.
[7] Evacuation of Hanko

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