Wehrpaß – Norway Deployment – Rock Drilling Company 10

• Wehrpaß – Norway Deployment – Rock Drilling Company 10

Issued in Essen in 1940.

Complete with photograph.

Various entries and stamps.

• Section Group II of Fortress Pioneer Staff 23
• Rock-Drilling Company 10

Deployed in the Petsamo area (now Nikel, Russia; at that time part of the Finnish Arctic Ocean territory) and Kirkenes (northern Norway). There, the engineers constructed defensive positions such as ‘Fortress Kirkenes’ as well as bases to protect the nickel mines, which were vital to the war effort.

The unit was tactically attached to the local army (including the 20th Mountain Army) in order to blast fortifications, caverns and sheltered depots out of the rock in the extreme Arctic rocky terrain.

Following the armistice between Finland and the Soviet Union, the company withdrew, as part of Operations Birke and Nordlicht, together with the other German units via the Lyngen Line to northern and central Norway.