Operation RV-3

'RV-3' was a Soviet combined air and sea operation against the German convoy routes round the extreme north of German-occupied Norway (10/26 April 1944).

The operation began with an unsuccessful attack by the aircraft of the 46th Ground Attack Regiment in three waves with 19 Ilyushin Il-2, 16 Curtiss Kittyhawk, 14 Bell Airacobra and six Yakovlev Yak-1 warplanes on a German convoy. At Kirkenes two German freighters were damaged by near-misses from low-flying aircraft.

On 12 April the submarines S-14, S-103 and M-104 departed their base in the northern USSR, followed on 13 April by S-104 and M-105, and on 20 April by M-119. On 18 April M-105 attacked a freighter off the Syltefjord but without any useful result.

In an attack by motor torpedo boats, including TKA-13 and TKA-203, on a German convoy off the Petsamofjord on 22 April, the Soviet craft launched their torpedoes too early and their targets were therefore able to evade them.

On 23 April the 46th Ground Attack Regiment’s aircraft attacked a convoy, losing the regimental commander.