Talk:Battle of Rovaniemi

About
I've heard that the civilian population was evacuated by germans, and that the fire was started by ammo train which exploded on train station.

(Tsapluuna (talk) 23:14, 2 June 2008 (UTC)) There was an article about this subject in Finnish "Kansa Taisteli" war magazine. One German veteran of Lapland war told that the town was partly on fire and the Germans had ammunition train near some burning buildings. They had wounded soldiers nearby and they didn't want to risk that the ammunition train would kill their own soldiers if it caught on fire and blew up so they pushed the train away with tanks. The train had for some reason moved back to it's original position and it was caught on fire, exploding and setting many more buildings on fire. There was already fighting going on bethween the Finns and Germans so it was not possible to try to extinguish the fire at this point. I have heard the Germans tried to some extent to prevent the fire from spreading. It is probable that the fire started because Germans blew up some government buildings but setting the whole town on fire by purpose when it was occupied by own troops doesn't make sense to me.

Strength, casualties
I've tidied up the strength and casualty figures in the infobox, but I've no idea if they are correct. Can anybody verify them? Xyl 54 (talk) 17:10, 9 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Those figures are just a wild guess of someone with a good imagination. Finns had 20 tanks?; ) All figures should be removed. Riisipuuro (talk) 01:24, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Images
And I've removed two images: one was a fake; it was an image of a tank in the Ardennes, purporting to be a tank at Rovaniemi. Not only naughty, but a bit stupid. The other was from the same editor, so I've no idea if it's copyright-free, or even if it's what it says it is. Xyl 54 (talk) 17:13, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

The dates and participants of the battle
Lagus was not the only Finnish commander in Rovaniemi. For example Lieutenant Colonnel Halsti's Regiment arrived to Rovaniemi from south. It's said in the article that the battle dated from 12th to 13th of august. According to professor Jukka Nevakivi's booklet "40 vuotta Lapin Sodasta" published in 1984 the JP 5 (Inf. Battalion) of Group Lagus reached the Ounasvaara area 14th of august. Halsti's regiment and the separate battalion 13 of Group Pajari flanked to the Vennivaara area durind 17th of august cutting the road to Kittilä. Group Lagus had cut the road to the arctic sea in the north. The remaining germans, a SS-battalion in Korkalorinne broke thru Halsti's men later that day.

The germans did explode a ammunition train in Rovaniemi railway station on 13th of august and while retreating the germans burned over 90% of all buildings in Rovaniemi area.