This week, 70 years ago, the combined Finish and German assault on the northern Soviet Port City of Murmansk was beginning to loose steam.  
    In addition to the four-pronged Axis attack on the Soviet Union by Army Groups North, Center, South and Antonescu and the Slovakian Expeditionary Army Group, targeting, respectively, Leningrad, Moscow, Kiev and Odessa, the Axis also launched an offensive, in the far north, against Murmansk, located above the Arctic Circle. Murmansk is located on the Kola Bay on the northern shore of the Kola Peninsula, seven miles from the Barents Sea, close to the Russian borders with Norway and Finland.  It currently has a population of just over 300,000.  With temperatures that range from an average low of 7 degrees in the winter, to an average high of 63 degrees in the summer, it is no wonder that the City has lost more than 150,000 inhabitants in the last ten years.  However, it remains the largest city north of the Arctic Circle.  The city is less than 100 years old, having been founded in 1917 to provide the Russian Empire with an ice-free port in the western part of the country that would not be as easy for its enemies to blockade, as the Baltic Ports and St. Petersburg.  It served that function well and for that reason became a target of the Wehrmacht and the Finns.  
    The other northern port, Arkhangelsk, during the war, was inaccessible during the winter months due to ice. It is located on the mouth of the Dvina River on the White Sea.
    The effort to capture Murmansk was known as Operation Silverfuchs (Silver Fox).  Plans for Operation Silver Fox had been discussed amongst the Finnish and German staffs for months prior to the war.  It was divided into three sub-operations.  During Operation Renntier (Reindeer) the Norwegian Mountain Corps, under the command of General Edward Dietl, occupied the Petsamo area of Finland. The Corps consisted of the Second and Third Mountain Divisions under the command of, respectively, Ernst Schlemmer and Hans Kreysing. Operation Renntier commenced on June 22nd. The 2nd Division occupied the area around Liinakhamari while the 3rd Division occupied Luostari.  Liinakhamari was important because it was, at the time, Finland’s only ocean harbor.  After the war it was incorporated into the Soviet Union and Finland lost its access to the ocean.  The Petsamo area was important because of its nickle production. The balance of Silverfox was divided into two operations - Operation Platinfuchs (Platinum Fox) and Polarfuchs (Arctic Fox).  The Soviet Northern Front, commanded by Lt.-Gen Markian M. Popov opposed the Axis attacks.
     Platinum Fox was launched on June 29th.  The attacking force consisted of the two German Mountain Divisions and the Finish Ivallo Border Guard Battalion under the command of General Dietl. The 3rd Division advanced in the north and in the first hours secured the neck of the Rybachy Peninsula, while the 2nd Division penetrated Soviet lines at Titovka Valley and captured the bridge over the Titovka River.
    The Northern Front’s 14th Army commanded by Lt. Gen. Valerian A. Frolov was headquartered in Murmansk. General Frolov tasked General Feodor Sabinev with meeting the Axis attack with 14th, 52nd, and Polyarnye Divisions. The Red Army was supported by the Soviet Northern Fleet, based in Polyarnye, on the northern coast of the Kola Peninsula. It was under the command of Admiral Arseniy G. Golovko.
    Also based at Polyarnye was 72 Composite Aviation Regiment, whose most famous aviator was Boris Safonov. Before his death, on May 30, 1942, he would record 17 victories over the German invaders - 14 of them during the first three months of the war in an inferior I-16 - with his first coming just three days into the conflict. He had painted on one side of his plane “For Stalin” and on the other “Death to Fascism.” By the time of his death, he was a Hero of the Soviet Union, receiving the honor in September 1941. He was also a recipient of the Order of Lenin and three classes of the Order of the Red Banner. After being shot down flying cover for convoy PQ-16, in the Barents Sea, he was posthumously awarded a Hero of the Soviet Union gold star, becoming the first person to receive it a second time. A monument was erected in his honor, on August 19, 1945, in Aviagorpdok.
    Heavy Soviet counterattacks on July 7th halted the German advance. The German forces were then supplemented by a couple of SS Regiments and the offensive was resumed on September 8th, but made little progress in the face of determined Soviet resistance. On September 21st the offensive was finally ended.  
    In the meantime, to the south, Operation Polarfuchs had commenced on July 1st.  The attacking forces included the German XXXVI Corps under the command of Hans Feige, the SS Nord Division under the command of Karl-Maria Demelhuber and the Finnish III Corps under the command of Lt.-Gen. Hjalmar Siilasvuo. The goal of Polar Fox was to capture the town of Kandalaksha. It too is located on the Kola Peninsula at its southern base. It currently has a population of just less than 40,000.  But the railway from Murmansk, south, runs through the town.                   
    General Frolov opposed the Axis attack with one Tank and four Rifle Divisions. In August, the Northern Front was divided into the Leningrad and Karelian Fronts. General Frolov was promoted to Colonel-General and given command to the Karelian Front. Maj.-Gen. Roman Vavonovich Panin then assumed command of the 14th Army.  
    It took the Axis Troops a week to capture the tiny town of Sala which had been ceded to the Soviets following the Winter War. By mid-July the German part of the offensive stalled, not having made much progress. The Finns, however, were making relatively good progress. The difference, of course, was their familiarity with: 1) the territory; 2) the climate and 3) the terrain. However, eventually, by mid-August the Finnish advance had also stalled in the face of heavy Soviet resistence. The German part of the offense had ended in September while the Finns continued making progress until November 17th. The Germans had suffered heavy casualties while the Finns, as usual, had given far better than they got. The Finnish Third Division had killed 3,000 Soviets and captured 2,600.
    The problem for the Germans was that they were not trained to operate in the Arctic terrain, nor in the northern forests. If the Germans had devoted sufficient numbers of properly trained and equipped soldiers to the task of capturing the Arctic port, the outcome of the war might have been different. Vast quantities of weapons, food, vehicles and clothing was shipped, by the U.K. and U.S. to their Soviet ally. For instance, 95,000,000 pounds of wool clothing, 5,000,000 gallons of methanol, 5,500,000 pairs of boots, 2,600,000 pounds of water softeners, 218,000,000 pounds of butter, 530,000,000 pounds of pork, 3,300,000,000 pounds of canned meat, 50,500,000 pounds of oatmeal, 8,000,000 barrels of wheat, 1,000,000,000 boxes of sugar, 530,000,000 pounds of linseed oil, 4,000,000 pounds of paraffin, 1200 locomotives, 4,000,000 air compressors, 32,000,000 pounds of TNT, 11,000,000 pounds of dynamite, 500,000 two & 1/2 ton trucks and more than 5,000,000 wool blankets were shipped to our Soviet ally. This is just an example of the millions of tons of “stuff” shipped to our Soviet ally.
    On October 7, 1944, the 14th Army, now commanded by Maj.-Gen. Vladimir I. Shcherbakov, went over to the offensive and drove the Germans out of the area, capturing Petsamo within a week. The German commander, Lothar Rendulic, was tried, as a war criminal, at Nuremberg, and on February 19, 1948, was convicted and sentenced to 20 years in prison, which was later commuted to 10 years. He was released after three years.
    On May 6, 1985 Murmansk and Smolensk joined Leningrad, Stalingrad, Sevastopol, Odessa, Kiev, Moscow, Kerch, Minsk, Tula, Novorayssisk as Hero Cities.  
    Polyarny was named a “City Of Military Glory” on May 5, 2008. Arkhangelsk received the honor on December 5, 2009.

NEXT WEEK: SIEGE OF TOBRUK

Mr. Wimbrow writes from Ocean City, Maryland, where he practices law representing those persons accused of criminal and traffic offenses, and those persons who have suffered a personal injury through no fault of their own.