14th Army (Soviet Union)

Infobox Military Unit
unit_name=14th Army


caption=14th Army troops man-handle anti-tank artillery
dates=1939-1945
country=USSR
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size=three to six divisions
command_structure=Front or Military District
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battles=Winter War, Petsamo-Kirkenes Operation
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notable_commanders=Valerian A. Frolov
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identification_symbol_4_label=The 14th Army (Ist formation) was formed in October 1939 in the Leningrad Military District. It participated in the Soviet-Finnish war, during which its 52nd and 104th Rifle Divisions fought in the Battle of Petsamo.

From 24 June 1941 the Army included [p.138, Lenskii]

:42nd Rifle Corps (Ist Formation 22 June 1941, disbanded 14 October 1941; was used to reinforce the Kandalksha operational group) [p.23, Perechen No.4 Headquarters of Corps, Soviet General Staff, Moscow, 1956] ::293 separate signals battalion::279 separate sapper battalion::104th Rifle Division::122nd Rifle Division:14th Rifle Division :52nd Rifle Division :1st Tank Division:23rd Murmansk Fortified Region:1st Mixed Air Division:a number of artillery and other units

The Army was initially subordinated to the Northern Front and conducted defensive operations on the Murmansk, Kandalaksha and Ukhtinsk directions as part of the Murmansk-Kandalaksha Defensive Operation (29 June 1941 - 19 September 1941) and in coordination with the 7th Separate Army, in the Defensive Operations on the Petrozavodsk, Ukhtinsk, Rugozersk, and Olonetsk directions (1 July 1941 - 10 October 1941). From the middle of July it was able to stop Finnish enemy forces advance, and subsequently until October 1944 (from 23 August 1941 as part of the Karelian Front) it solidly retained its sector positions, and conducted active offensive combat for the purpose of improvement in the position it occupied. In October 1944 in interaction with the forces of the Northern Fleet in the course of the Petsamo-Kirkenes Strategic Offensive Operation (7 October 1944 - 29 October 1944) it destroyed the opposing enemy and liberated the city Pechenga (Petsamo) and northern regions of Norway. Subsequently until the end of the war the Army defended the newly occupied territory and the state borders of the USSR with Finland and Norway.

Commanding officers:Lieutenant General V. A. Frolov (June - August 1941):Major General R. I. Panin (August 1941 - March 1942):Major General V. I. Shcherbakov (March 1942 - May 1945), from the end of April 1943 Lieutenant General.

On 31 July 1945 the Army HQ was disbanded and the personnel were used to fill out Headquarters Belomorsky Military District. The Army may have been re-established in 1947 with the 121st Rifle Corps [The "type" of this corps is not certain. May have been a Rifle Corps, Light Rifle Corps, or Light Mountain Rifle Corps. Previously with the 50th Army as part of the 2nd Belorussian Front in the Byelorussian Strategic Offensive Operation (3 October 1943 - 31 December 1943) Елисеев Е.П. На белостокском направлении. М., 1971; Максимов М. Д. Дорогами мужества. Изд. 2-е. Тула, 1968. Н. Т. Конашенко.] and 1222nd Artillery Regiment. According to some data, there were plans for its use in Chukchi Peninsula and, in the case of war, landing in Alaska. [Feskov et al 2004 and (Russian) http://www.kommersant.ru/doc.aspx?DocsID=191077] It was probably disbanded in the middle 1950s.

References

ources

*Lenskii, Ground forces of RKKA in the pre-war years: a reference (Сухопутные силы РККА в предвоенные годы. Справочник.) — St Petersburg, B & K, 2000