TheCodeBreakers
Finns to repulse both Russian attacks.
Crucial to Marshal Mannerheim's victory at Suomussalmi was the
information that the Russian 44th Division, a crack motorized outfit from
Moscow, was advancing from Raate. He immediately sent reinforcements
to Suomussalmi. Two days after his five battalions reached there, the
Finns, dressed in white and moving like the ghosts of the north, attacked
the Russian forces in the village, broke their resistance, and forced them
to flee across frozen Lake Kiantajarvi. The skiing wraiths then cut off the
retreat of the 44th Division, severed its column and destroyed it section
by section in fighting that continued into the
first week of 1940. Large quantities of stores were captured, but,
Mannerheim wrote, "The enemy's casualties could not be estimated, as
great snowdrifts over a large area covered the fallen as well as the
wounded who were frozen to death."
Temperatures during the battle dropped to 56 degrees below zero, and
annaabi.ee 
