Battle of Palva Sund

Battle of Palva Sund
Part of Finnish War
Date 18 September 1808 Location Finnish archipelago, near Velkua 60.452°N 21.661°E / 60.452; 21.661 Result Russian victory
Belligerents
Swedish Navy	Imperial Russian Navy
Commanders and leaders
Admiral Salomon von Rajalin	Admiral Alexey Efimov Myasoedov
Strength
31 Gunboats or yawls	70-80 Gunboat or yawls several larger ships
Casualties and losses
1 gunboats sunk 30 dead 54 wounded	1 larger ship sunk 3 gunboats sunk ~ 200 dead and wounded

The Battle of Palva Sund was fought between Sweden and Russia during the Finnish War 1808-09.

Battle

Battle of Palva sund on both sides of Lailluoto island

As the Swedish forces were performing landing operations further to the north a gunboats from the Swedish archipelago fleet were used to provide cover for the landing force. Commander of the force, Admiral Salomon von Rajalin chose the natural choke point at the Palva strait (Swedish: Palva sund) as the best place for stopping the numerically superior Russians. He split the force of the gunboats in two to both sides of the Lailuoto island. Approach Russian coastal fleet led by Admiral Myasoedov consisted of over 50 gunboats or their equivalents together with several larger ships. Myasoedov had planned attack against both of the Swedish simultaneously with force of 20 gunboats each and then have a small unit of 6 gunboats to flank the Swedes by rounding the island of Talosmeri while rest of the force would be kept in reserve. Myasoedov had planned his attack to start already on 17 September but strong winds and heavy waves prompted him to delay the attack with a day.

Fight started already at 0400 on the morning of 18 September with most of the battlefield still covered in fog and darkness. One hour later Swedes had already defeated the initial thrust and moved forward on their eastern wing to advance between Lailuoto and Vähämaa to prevent the Russian flanking operation. However unit of Russian gunboats had already managed to get through the narrows and attacked the Swedish western flank from the rear causing much disorder and damage to it which forced the Swedish western flank to withdraw. By 0900 Russians started attacking using their reserves and forced also the Swedes eastern flank between Lailuoto and Velkuanmaa to withdraw as well. Russian reserves managed to push Swedish gunboats to the narrows between Palva and Valkuanmaa but failed to rout them. Swedes tried later to reform in outside of Palva strait but Russian flanking maneuvers forces von Rajalin to start withdrawing further to the north.

Kahiluoto

After repairing the damages suffered against the Swedes Russians tried to advance further towards the Swedish landing sites but found all the narrows leading north to be manned by Swedes. On 1 October amids of heavy snowfall Russians tried to clear the Swedes from narrows near island of Kahiluoto but despite of artillery duel which continued until dusk failed to drive Swedes from the narrows. Since Swedish landing forces had already been driven back Myasoedov saw little point to continue the fight and retired back to Åbo for the winter. Swedish forces which had managed to hold the narrows was ordered to leave on 3 October since Russians were constructing artillery batteries further to the north blocking the sole escape route from the narrows of Kahiluoto.

Bibliography

• Mattila, Tapani (1983). Meri maamme turvana (in Finnish). Jyväskylä: K. J. Gummerus Osakeyhtiö. ISBN 951-99487-0-8. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help); Unknown parameter |trans_title= ignored (|trans-title= suggested) (help)