Operation Arctic Fox

Operation Arctic Fox (from the German Unternehmen

Polarfuchs) was the codename given to a campaign by
German and Finnish forces during World War II against
Soviet Northern Front defenses at Salla, Finland in July
1941. The Operation was part of a larger Operation
called Operation Silver Fox (Silberfuchs) which aimed
at capturing the vital port of Murmansk. The operation was conducted parallel to Operation Platinum Fox
(Platinfuchs) in the far north of Lappland. The principal
goal of Operation Arctic Fox was to capture the town of
Salla and then to advance in the direction of Kandalaksha
(Finnish: Kantalahti) to block the route to Murmansk.

Background

Salla was one of the areas occupied during the Soviet invasion of Finland in 1939. The German XXXVI Corps,
consisting of both German and Finnish troops, carried
out Operation Arctic Fox as part of the larger Operation
Silver Fox (Silberfuchs), which aimed at capturing the Soviet port at Murmansk.
This was part of the overall attack on the Soviet Union,
Operation Barbarossa, and was, for the Finns, part of the The original plan for Operation Arctic Fox
initial phase of their Continuation War (Jatkosota).

Kandalaksha and to cut the Murmansk line. For this the

Finnish 6th Division had to capture Alakurtti and Kyrl
from Kuusamo from the south of Salla. From the north
the 169th Division had to attack frontal against the Soviet
defenses at the Tenni River. The 6th SS Mountain Division had to advance along the Salla Kandalaksha road.
Further south, the Finnish III Corps with the Finnish 3rd
Division supported the attack. The Finnish III Corps
units were placed under German High Command for the
operation. The ultimate goal for the Finnish forces was to
cut the Murmansk supply-lines at Loukhi and Kem. For
this the Finnish 3rd Division was split into two forces,
Group J and Group F. Group J was ordered to advance
from Kuusamo and take Kestenga, while Group F was to
attack from Suomussalmi and capture Ukhta.[6]

Preparation and plan

In the preceding Operations Blue Fox 1 and Blue Fox 2

(Blaufuchs I and Blaufuchs II) the German units were
transferred into the Arctic. The 169th Division was
shipped directly from Stettin to Oulu and then on to
Rovaniemi by train. The SS-Infantry Kampfgruppe Nord
was created as a mixed unit of the 6th and 7th Motorized SS Infantry Regiments, two artillery battalions and
one reconnaissance battalion. This unit was mostly untrained and more a police unit and therefore unsuited
for harsh arctic warfare.[3] The unit was later renamed
to 6th SS Mountain Division Nord and led by General
Demelhuber. While the unit was transferred, a transport
ship caught re killing some 110 troops.[3] Attached to
the German and Finnish force were 2 small Panzer units: 3 Arctic Fox
The Panzer-Abteilung 211 which consisted of captured
French tanks[4] and Panzer-Abteilung 40 which consisted The oensive commenced on 1 July 1941 with the
mainly of Panzer I's and Panzer II's.[5]
Finnish 6th Division crossing the border at midnight.
The goal of the operation was to take Salla and then Several hours later the 6th SS Mountain Division Nord
to proceed along the railway eastwards, to capture started its frontal assault against the Soviet line, but was
1

2
not able to make any gains. In the next days the SS Division tried repeatedly to break through the Soviet lines, but
all attempts failed.[7] It was not until the 169th Division
supported the attack, that the Germans broke through the
Soviet defenses on 6 July and captured Salla. A heavy Soviet counterattack drove them back out of the town, but
on 8 July a general Soviet retreat of the 122nd Rie Division allowed the Germans to capture the town again. The
Soviets had to leave most of their artillery behind and in
the heavy ghting some 50 Soviet tanks were destroyed.
Afterwards, the SS Division Nord pursued the 122nd Rie Division toward Lampela, while the 169th Division
turned toward Apa and the Lake Kuola.[7]
On 9 July the 169th Division reached the town of Kyrl,
but was thrown back by strong Russian counterattacks.
All three Soviet divisions now formed a formidable defense line around the lakes, as well as the towns of
Alakurtti and Kyrl. The German advance stalled, facing diculties with arctic forest ghting. On 16 July von
Falkenhorst, commander of Army Norway, arrived and
pressured Feige to renew the oensive. On 27 and 29
July, the corps made two separate attacks against the Soviets which led to nothing.[8]
While the German advance stalled, the Finnish 3rd Division in the south was making good progress. The Divisions rst opponent was the Soviet 54th Division. Group
F advanced very fast 64 km (twice as many as the Germans in the whole July) through rough terrain to the Vyonitsa River, where it destroyed several encircled Soviet
units from 10 to 19 July. Group J advanced to the canal
between the Lake Pya and Lake Top. On 30 July they
moved across the river and defeated the Soviet forces in
the region. On 7 August the Finns captured Kestenga (Kiestinki) after erce ghting. The Soviets transferred additional troops (the 88th Rie Division as well as the independent Grivnik brigade) into the region. Group Js advance east of Kestenga stalled, as well as Group Fs drive
on Ukhta. The German command now decided to support Group Fs thrust on Ukhta and transferred the SS
Division Nord south to support Group F of the Finnish
3rd Division. On 14 October it was decided to halt the
Ukhta-oensive and instead support Group Js advance
east of Kestenga. On 30 October the oensive began
and after two days a Soviet regiment was encircled. Instead of continuing the oensive, the Finns cleaned the
perimeter which lasted until 13 November. Until that
the Finnish 3rd Division had killed 3,000 Russians and
captured 2,600. Three days later, the Finns decided
not continue the oensive, because of an overstretched
frontline.[9]

ORDERS OF BATTLE

o its eld dumps.[2]

During the successful advance of the Finnish forces in
the south, XXXVI Corps also prepared for a new attack.
At the beginning of August 1941, the Finnish 6th Division headed the renewed drive of the XXXVI Corps.
The 169th Division followed. In the face of the new German thrust, the Soviets retreated to the Tuutsa River, lost
Alakurtti and later withdrew to the Voyta River, where
the old 1939 Soviet border fortications were situated.
On 6 September XXXVI Corps made a frontal assault
against the Soviet lines, but made only slow progress.
The Soviets now formed a strong defense line from Lake
Verkhneye Verman to Tolvand the so-called VL or Verman Line. The Soviets also received massive reinforcements, while XXXVI Corps was exhausted after months
of constant warfare. The German casualties were heavy
and the attack was nally called o at the end of September. With the Finns stopping their oensive in the south
on 17 November too, this marked the end of Operation
Arctic Fox.[10]

4 Conclusion
During Operation Arctic Fox the Germans and Finns
were able to make some ground and took Salla as well
as Kestenga, but overall the operation failed in terms of
its strategic goals, as neither Murmansk nor the railway
at Kandalaksha was captured. The XXXVI Corps was
unsuited, ill-trained and unprepared for arctic warfare
and therefore made only small progress while suering
heavy casualties. The Finnish units, especially the 6th
Division of the III Finnish Corps, made good progress
and inicted heavy casualties on the Soviet forces, but
due the limited resources and an overstretched frontline
the Finnish commander Hjalmar Siilasvuo ordered to not
proceed with the oensive, possibly after consultation
with Mannerheim not to get too deeply involved in Germanys war.[11]

5 Orders of battle
5.1 German XXXVI Corps
169th Infantry Division
SS-Division Nord (mot)
Finnish 6th Division

In addition, a Finnish jaeger (jkri) battalion was in Two Finnish jaeger (jkri) battalions[1]
serted into the largely unoccupied 240 km (150 mi) area
Panzer-Abteilung 211
between the Murmansk and Kandalaksha directions of
advance and was able to cut the sole railway connecting
Kandalaksha with forward Soviet positions at the Nyam 5.1.1 Finnish III Corps (under German Command)
station. This meant that, for two weeks, the Soviet 122nd
Rie Division did not receive any supplies and had to live
Finnish 3rd Division

3
Panzer-Abteilung 40

5.2
5.2.1

Soviets
14th Army

122nd Division (Soviet Union) (occupying border

defences)
104th Division (Soviet Union) (located in Kandalaksha)
1st Tank Division (Soviet Union) (located in
Kandalaksha)[12]
88th Division (Soviet Union)
Grivnik brigade
5.2.2

7th Army

54th Division (Soviet Union)

Citations and notes

[1] Jowett, Snodgrass, Ruggeri (2006), p. 30

[2] Chapter 3, Part X, Shirokorad
[3] Mann & Jrgensen (2002), p. 87
[4] http://www.lexikon-der-wehrmacht.de/Gliederungen/
PanzerAbt/PanzerAbt211-R.htm
[5] http://www.lexikon-der-wehrmacht.de/Gliederungen/
PanzerAbt/PanzerAbt40-R.htm
[6] Mann & Jrgensen (2002), p. 88
[7] Mann & Jrgensen (2002), p. 89
[8] Mann & Jrgensen (2002), p. 90
[9] Mann & Jrgensen (2002), pp. 9093
[10] Mann & Jrgensen (2002), pp. 9395
[11] Mann & Jrgensen (2002), p. 94
[12] The division was known to have some new KV-1 heavy
tanks.

References
Boog, Horst; Frster, Jrgen; Homann, Joachim;
Klink, Ernst; Mller, Rolf-Dieter; Ueberschr,
Gerd R. (1998). Attack on the Soviet Union.
Germany and the Second World War IV. Translated by Dean S. McMurry, Ewald Osers, Louise
Willmot. Oxford: Clarendon Press. ISBN 0-19822886-4.

Jowett, Philip S., Snodgrass, Brent, Ruggeri, Raffaele, Finland at War 193945, Osprey Publishing,
2006
Mann, Chris M. & Jrgensen, Christer (2002),
Hitlers Arctic War , Hersham, UK: Ian Allan Publishing Ltd, ISBN 0-7110-2899-0
Shirokorad, A.B., Northern wars of Russia
( ) Moscow, ACT
publisher, 2001 (in Russian)

8 TEXT AND IMAGE SOURCES, CONTRIBUTORS, AND LICENSES

Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses

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Operation Arctic Fox Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Arctic_Fox?oldid=653270456 Contributors: The Anome, Bobby

D. Bryant, Ahoerstemeier, Jniemenmaa, Pedant17, Whiskey, Wwoods, Varlaam, Pavel Vozenilek, RJHall, El C, Alai, Axeman89, Carcharoth, Ardfern, Sango123, Ansbachdragoner, Manxruler, Chanheigeorge, SmackBot, Bluebot, Decltype, Niera, Robosh, Volker89,
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File:Flag_of_Finland.svg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bc/Flag_of_Finland.svg License: Public domain

Contributors: http://www.finlex.fi/fi/laki/ajantasa/1978/19780380 Original artist: Drawn by User:SKopp
File:Flag_of_German_Reich_(19351945).svg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/99/Flag_of_German_
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File:Silverfox1.jpg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cf/Silverfox1.jpg License: Public domain Contributors:
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