Word: petsamo
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Norway, like Sweden, rushed reinforcements of arms, men and supplies to her northernmost positions, which would be threatened by the Russian capture of Petsamo. But with neither roads nor railways to the Arctic, Norway could do little to protect her iron mines at Kirkenes or her garrisons at Vadso and Vardo. From this territory civilians were evacuated and refugee Finns sent southward to be cared for by the Government...
...farthest north the fate of Petsamo was still in doubt while, to the west, one Russian column pushed southward for an enveloping attack...
These thrusts were as dangerous as they were daring. Although Finland might be cut in half laterally and Petsamo crippled as a supply base, the Finns in the south could still get supplies from Sweden by way of the Gulf of Bothnia. Meanwhile the Russian columns were in peril of being cut off from their own bases. The Blitzkrieg was becoming a war of supply lines...
They sank all ships bigger than a rowboat in Petsamo harbor, burned villages, slaughtered livestock, rather than let the Russians have them. Reported in flames were the Canadian-owned mining properties at Nickel City...
Dispatches did not mention any special snow equipment, such as motored sledges, on the Russian side. But the Reds did employ their famed parachute troops. At Petsamo, this technique apparently worked well at first. Later the parachutists were surrounded where they landed and shot up. On the isthmus, Finnish sharpshooters picked off all the first few men who floated down and the Reds quickly abandoned this tactic...