Thursday, March 26, 1942. The Battle of Suursaari

The Finns commenced an offensive in the Battle of Suursaari to retake two islands in the Gulf of Finland, Gogland and Bolshoy Tyuteers, which they'd earlier been forced to cede to the Soviet Union. They were successful in the effort in an offensive conducted over the frozen gulf.

They were clearly Finnish islands.  Bolshoy Tyuteers had been a center of fishing for centuries and had become a tourism destination prior to the war.  It reverted to Russian possession after World War Two but is abandoned, heavily mined and littered with abandoned German equipment and heavy weapons.  

Gogland remains a tourist destination, but is also a Russian possession today.  Given that Finland's entry into the war had specifically been aimed at recapturing the territories it had lost in the Winter War, the attacks on the island garrisons were probably not a surprise.

The Germans murdered over 1,000 Jews in Latvia in the second part of a ghetto clearing action.