Normandy? Iwo Jima? Forget it! The Soviets achieved real mastery in amphibious operations a few years earlier:already during the Winter War with Finland in 1939.
The land operations in the war since November 30, 1939, are relatively well known. They can be summarized in a few words:total disgrace of the Workers 'and Peasants' Red Army. Less is being written about the actions of the Soviet Baltic Fleet already taken on the first day of the conflict. Meanwhile, her ships showed off like no other fleet in history!
A special team, under the command of S.S. Ramishvili was not a small one. At dawn on November 30, the following went to sea:5 transporters, 3 scarves, 8 tugs, 23 motorboats, 5 motorized barges, 1 leader, 6 destroyers, 3 caretakers, 13 minesweepers, 12 torpedo boats and 25 patrol boats. These units were supported by 70 fighters, 43 bombers and 26 reconnaissance aircraft. The aim was to carry out a lightning landing on two Finnish islands:Sejskari and Lawensaari.
The first skirmishes already heralded that things would happen. First, Soviet pilots spotted two ships and attacked them immediately. Only that they were not Finnish coastal defense battleships, but Bolshevik destroyers "Volodarskiy" and "Karl Marx". The aviators (for their own luck) did not show off their skills and never hit. The ship's artillerymen were just as inaccurate. Then, all day long, Soviet units chased alleged Finn submarines. 400 depth charges were wasted, hitting nothing but the bottom.
Companion companion?
Never mind the minor problems of the first hours of the war! What about the big landing party? "With bold actions, the troops swept the enemy, the red banners of the Union of SSR were raised over the islands of Sejskari and Lawensaari" - this is how the operation was described in the newspaper "Krasnyj Bałtijskij fłot".
And indeed - as Vitalij Dmitrowicz Docenko writes in "The Secrets of the Russian Fleet" - during the landings on Sesjakri and Lawensaari one could hear the whistling of missiles, bomb explosions and, of course, the sailor's "ura!" . The author further states: the islands were bombed by planes that dropped over 1,000 bombs. They were also fired upon by coastal artillery from 305 and 180 mm guns. Subsequently, the ships switched to direct artillery support. The landing party landed in accordance with all the rules of the art of war There was only one hitch in the action:there weren't a single enemy soldier on the islands. Ba! The command knew this well, because there had been a reconnaissance from the sea and from the air. There was an order, so the offensive was launched anyway… just in case.
The same happened during the capture of the islands of Bolshoi Tiuters (December 2) and Hogland (December 3). Soviet planes stubbornly fired at the troops only… their own, just landing on the shore. The amount of ammunition wasted on fighting with their own and with the air is astonishing: only the air force dropped 2,110 bombs with a total mass of 64.5 tons on these two islands, fired 95,465 machine gun rounds and 4,425 20mm SzWAK cannon rounds .
Of course, these (subsequent) minor misunderstandings did not discourage the Baltic Fleet. For example, the Finnish battleships "Ilmarinen" and "Vainamoinen" started to be chased. None of them were caught or even hit, but at least the Soviet arms industry had something to do for the next few months:3000 wasted bombs had to be replaced.
Disgrace after disgrace? Maybe so, but not for the great Soviet people. Prizes, orders and decorations poured in, and the generously treated soldiers preferred to leave to themselves the knowledge of the real course of landing and sea struggles.
Source:
Secrets of the Russian fleet will be published by the Erica Publishing Institute at the end of this year.