The German Northern Theater of Operations 1940-1945 [Illustrated Edition] by Earl F. Ziemke

Author:Earl F. Ziemke [Ziemke, Earl F.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pickle Partners Publishing
Published: 2015-11-06T00:00:00+00:00

Encirclement at Kayrala-Mikkola

On 3 August the XXXVI Corps ordered its divisions to tie down the enemy opposite them and to create favorable conditions for resumption of the advance after reinforcements arrived. That order was immediately superseded by an army order instructing the XXXVI Corps to prepare to resume its offensive with the main effort on the southern flank (Finnish 6th Division) and stating that reinforcements could not be counted on for the time being.{436} During the succeeding days, the XXXVI Corps several times renewed its requests for added forces. Feige argued that the Army of Norway main effort logically belonged in the XXXVI Corps sector since there alone was the movement of supplies by road and railroad assured and since it was necessary to take and hold Kandalaksha in order to maintain a German occupation of Murmansk. Cutting the railroad at Loukhi, he believed, could have no decisive effect because the Russians would still hold the vital Kandalaksha-Murmansk line and would have contact with Arkhangel’sk by way of the White Sea.{437} The Army of Norway, on the other hand, despite the fact that it wanted the XXXVI Corps to resume its offensive, saw the best chance for immediate results in the attack on Loukhi’ and the best future prospects in the planned Mountain Corps Norway offensive. Therefore, the two fresh regiments which Feige wanted—and thought he had been promised—were given to the Mountain Corps Norway. To a large extent, no doubt, the Army of Norway was influenced by the peculiarity of its mission which made the Murmansk Railroad less a strategic objective than a matter of prestige, with the result that the cutting of the railroad as soon as possible and the early occupation of Murmansk became goals worth striving for even at the expense of sound tactical procedure.

Encouraged by the withdrawal of the armored elements of the 1st Tank Division, the Army of Norway wanted the XXXVI Corps to execute a deep envelopment reaching up to the road and railroad immediately west of Allakurtti.{438} That, the XXXVI Corps insisted, was impossible, both because of the terrain and because of insufficient forces. It set, instead, Nurmi Lake and Nurmi Mountain, about halfway between Kayrala and Allakurtti, as the easternmost objectives. The XXXVI Corps intended “to stake everything on one card”—the thrust of the Finnish 6th Division to Nurmi Mountain. The 169th Division front would be stripped to an absolute minimum of strength in order to gain enough troops to take over the Finnish 6th Division defensive positions, provide approximately one German regiment as corps reserve (in addition to one Finnish regiment), and form a combat team of two battalions plus six companies of mixed SS-, engineer, and construction troops. The combat team, crossing the Nurmi River behind the left wing of the 169th Division, would push southeastward toward Nurmi Lake as the right arm of the envelopment. The Finnish 6th Division would direct its main force, one regiment with two regiments in reserve, toward Nurmi Mountain where it would block the road and railroad.

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