gunboats (, , and ) Seven motor torpedo boats (two , one , four ) One minelayer () Eight minesweepers (six , two ) One training ship On Lake Ladoga, the Finns operated: One icebreaker (Aallokas) One gunboat (Aunus) One minelayer (Yrjö) One tug (Vakava) Two motor boats (S 1 and N. K. af Klercker) The navy also had several auxiliary warships, icebreakers and patrol boats from the coast guard. Winter War When the Winter War broke out the Finnish Navy moved to occupy the de-militarized Åland Islands and to protect merchant shipping. In the first month of the war, battles between Soviet ships and Finnish coastal batteries were fought at Hanko, Finland, Utö and Koivisto. At Koivisto and Hanko, the batteries forced Soviet battleships to retire with damage. Finnish efforts to use submarines ( and ) to sink Soviet capital ships failed. In December 1939 the ice became so thick that only the icebreakers could still move. The two coastal defence ships were moved to the harbour in Turku where they were used to strengthen the air defences of the city. They remained there for the rest of the war. Continuation War Before the Continuation War five more torpedo boats were ordered from Italy. The base that the Soviets had acquired after the Winter War at the Hanko Peninsula divided the areas where the Finnish Navy would operate in two. This included the coastal artillery positions at Russarö and Osmussaar, which guarded the minefields blocking the entrance to the Eastern Gulf of Finland. Large mine fields were laid down in cooperation with the German Kriegsmarine when the war began. The coastal defence ships bombarded the Soviet base at Hanko until the Soviets evacuated Hanko in December 1941. Between 1941 and 1945 some 69,779 mines and mine sweeping obstacles were laid in the Gulf of Finland by Finnish, Soviet and German naval forces. The Soviet Navy laid 16,179 mines and 2,441 mine sweeping obstacles, the Finnish navy 6,382 mines, and the German navy's vessels, submarines and aircraft laid some 45,000 mines, of which 3,000 were magnetic mines. The last mine sweeping season was held in 1957, but the mine danger continued for some 10 more years, and there are still hundreds of World War II-era mines in the Baltic Sea. The greatest loss of the Finnish Navy occurred on 13 September 1941 when ran into a mine and sank. 271