Mannerheim<\/a>, ordered Talvela to report at the General Headquarters in Mikkeli on 6 December 1939. There, he was assigned a mission. The detachment established under Talvela\u2019s command was to defeat the enemy forces heading towards Korpiselk\u00e4 and Ilomantsi and from there advance towards Suoj\u00e4rvi. The General Headquarters intended to retake the Suoj\u00e4rvi area with Detachment Talvela and the IV Corps. Detachment Talvela was later renamed Group T.<\/p>\nMore troops were subordinated to Group Talvela, which was under the direct command of the General Headquarters. The troops in the Ilomantsi area were formed into Detachment A, while the troops in the Tolvaj\u00e4rvi area were formed into Detachment P.<\/p>\n
The Ilomantsi area<\/strong><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/talvisota.fi\/wp-content\/uploads\/11669.png\")
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Defenders of Ilomantsi from Jalasj\u00e4rvi in winter 1940. SA-kuva.<\/em><\/p>\nThree battalions and a mortar company from the Field Reinforcement Brigade were headed for the Ilomantsi area to serve as reinforcements in Detachment Talvela. Jaeger Officer, Colonel Per (Pelle) Ekholm was appointed commander of Detachment A, which was formed of all the troops in this area.<\/p>\n
The battles in the Ilomantsi area descended into trench warfare<\/strong><\/p>\nWhen Talvela took charge of the front in the Ilomantsi area, battles were being fought in the areas of M\u00f6hk\u00f6 and the Kallioniemi ferry. The commander of Detachment A, Colonel Ekholm, arrived in Ilomantsi on 8 December. The following day, he gave the troops battling in the M\u00f6hk\u00f6 area permission to retreat to Oinaansalmi. The units of the enemy division also attacked in the Kallioniemi area on 10 December. The enemy forces that had partly reached the defenders\u2019 rear were repelled. The counterattack started by Detachment A did not achieve significant success. The front in the Ilomantsi area stabilised at the Kallioniemi\u2013Oinaansalmi line.<\/p>\n
Detachment P achieved a significant victory in Tolvaj\u00e4rvi<\/strong><\/p>\nDetachment P launched its attack in Tolvaj\u00e4rvi on the morning of 12 December. Belyaev\u2019s rifle division (139th RD), which was preparing its own attack at the same time, began its withdrawal after the day\u2019s battles. For a time, the division was almost incapable of battle. Concentrated at the front in the withdrawal phase after the Battle of Tolvaj\u00e4rvi, the 75th Rifle Division took over the responsibility for the front from the 139th Rifle Division.<\/p>\n
Capture of \u00c4gl\u00e4j\u00e4rvi (Yaglyayarvi)<\/strong><\/p>\nDetachment P reached \u00c4gl\u00e4j\u00e4rvi four days later, on 17 December. The majority of the 75th Rifle Division and the troops of the 139th Rifle Division who were fit to fight took up defensive positions there.<\/p>\n
The fighting in \u00c4gl\u00e4j\u00e4rvi lasted for five days. The troops of Detachment P occupied it on 22 December. The following day, the detachment\u2019s offensive stopped at the enemy\u2019s defensive positions at Aittojoki, where the General Headquarters stopped the offensive. The front lines stabilised at this line until the end of the war.<\/p>\n
Both sides suffered heavy losses in the fighting<\/strong><\/p>\nAccording to the statements of the Soviet rifle divisions that participated in the Battles of Tolvaj\u00e4rvi and \u00c4gl\u00e4j\u00e4rvi, they suffered the loss of 6,490 men in the first month of the Winter War (30 November 1939\u22121 January 1940). The 139th Rifle Division lost 3,552 men, of whom 761 were killed in action, 1,715 were wounded and 1,076 were missing in action. The 75th Rifle Division lost 2,938 men, of whom 747 were killed in action, 957 were wounded and 1,234 were missing in action.<\/p>\n
According to the database \u2018Finnish War Victims in the Second World War\u2019 in the National Archives of Finland, a total of 517 men from Detachment P were killed in action between 30 November and 31 December 1939. The majority of these fatalities, 412 men, were from the 16th Infantry Regiment, which comprised three battalions and the regiment\u2019s other troops. The 112th Separate Battalion (112th SepBn) lost 49 men, the 7th Bicycle Battalion 34, the 10th Separate Battalion 10, the 9th Separate Battalion 6 and the III Artillery Battalion of the 6th Field Artillery Regiment\u00a0(III\/FAR 6).<\/p>\n
According to Detachment P\u2019s own statement, its casualties in the Battle of \u00c4gl\u00e4j\u00e4rvi between 17 and 23 December 1939 totalled 748 men, of whom 274 were killed in action, 445 were wounded and 29 were missing in action.<\/p>\n
Ari Raunio<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Edited map from the work Ari Raunio – Juri Kilin, Talvisodan taisteluja (Battles of the Winter War). 3rd edition. Karttakeskus 2010. Advance of the Red Army in the direction of Tolvaj\u00e4rvi (Tolvoyarvi) and Ilomantsi A rifle corps (1st RC) commanded by Brigade Commander Roman I. Panin attacked on the northern flank of the Soviet 8th […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":950,"parent":1637,"menu_order":4,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"custom-templates\/child-level.php","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1683","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/talvisota.fi\/api\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1683","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/talvisota.fi\/api\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/talvisota.fi\/api\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/talvisota.fi\/api\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/talvisota.fi\/api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1683"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/talvisota.fi\/api\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1683\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2930,"href":"https:\/\/talvisota.fi\/api\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1683\/revisions\/2930"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/talvisota.fi\/api\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1637"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/talvisota.fi\/api\/wp\/v2\/media\/950"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/talvisota.fi\/api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/live-talvisota.digiasites.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/ST1a_Tolvaj_eng-01.jpg\")
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