Ukrainian efforts in the north for the liberation of Norway
It is obvious that the majority of Ukrainians were summoned to the four Ukrainian fronts, but still the Ukrainians made a significant contribution to the liberation of Norway.
The Petsamo Churches' offensive operation was carried out by the joint forces of the Karelian Front and the Northern Fleet during October 7-29, 1944. The Red Army of almost 113,000 men from the Karelian Front, under the command of General Meretskov, started an offensive against the 60,000 strong German XIX Mountain Corps, which defends itself in prepared positions along the river valley Litsa northwest of Murmansk. Assisted by naval, air and land forces in the Northern Fleet, the Soviet 14th Army defeated the German forces in a three-phase operation lasting a total of 24 days.
Many Ukrainians, especially ace pilots, fought in the rank of the Red Army in the Soviet Arctic.
There were 6 Ukrainians among the 30 officers from the Karelian front, as well as 25 sailors from the northern fleet who were awarded the title "Hero of the Soviet Union" for the Petsamo-Kirkenes operation. From the Northern Navy Air Force, 6 Ukrainians were decorated as heroes of the Soviet Union, two of them for the Petsamo-Kirkenes operation.
The most vivid example of courage was demonstrated by Ukrainian Fedir Kompaniyets, who received the Golden Star Medal of the Hero of the Soviet Union. On October 25, 1944, during heavy firing, Kompaniyet crossed Bøkfjorden Bay and provided artillery support to the other units of the battalion that crossed the bay. Kompaniyets was the first of the Red Army soldiers to enter Kirkenes.
The description of the Company's heroic achievement was quoted from his recommendation for decoration. It is symbolic that the first man who entered Kirkenes was Ukrainian?
The story of the Ukrainian contribution to the victory over Nazism would not be complete if we did not mention some important facts: For Ukrainians, the war did not start in June 1941, but rather September 1, 1939. At the beginning of World War II, the Polish army together 1 million people, including about 120,000 ethnic Ukrainian officials. During the September campaign in the fight against the Nazis, 8,000 ethnic Ukrainian citizens in Poland were killed.
The Petsamo–Kirkenes Offensive was the last major offensive in an Arctic environment. Fedir Kompaniyets was injured twice in the fighting in the north. In 1945 he returned home to Ukraine. He died on November 24, 1976 and is buried in the Ukrainian village of Mefedivka.
He was never invited to any memorial ceremony in Norway and received never a "thank you".
(Info from: Yana Primachenko, Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Ukrainian History, National Academy of Science of Ukraine)
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