[4] At the time of the operation, Stalin was personally interested in taking Estonia, viewing it as a precondition for forcing Finland out of the war.

The 2nd Shock Army expanded the bridgehead in the Krivasoo swamp south of Narva, temporally cutting the railway behind the Sponheimer Group.

Breaking through the Narva Isthmus situated between the Gulf of Finland and Lake Peipus was of major strategic importance to the Soviet Armed Forces.

The success of the Estonian Operation would have provided an unobstructed advance along the coast to Tallinn, forcing Army Group North to withdraw from Estonia for fear of becoming encircled.

[1] Army Group North's removal from Estonia would have exposed southern Finland to air and amphibious assaults coming from Estonian bases.

The prospect of an advance to East Prussia through Estonia[5] appealed even more to the Soviet Main Command, as it appeared to bring German resistance close to collapse.

[5][10] General Major Romantsov ordered an air and artillery assault on the village of Auvere with the 64th Guards Rifle Division seizing it in a surprise attack on 13 February.

While the 2nd Shock Army artillery placed near Auvere failed to begin their attack at the agreed time,[11] in seven and a half hours of fierce fighting, the Soviet beachhead was annihilated.

They were to defend the line against the 378th Rifle Division, the 340th Machine-Gun Battalion, and the 803th Zenith Artillery Regiment at the Riigiküla Bridgehead seven kilometres to the north of Narva town.

[5] As this was the main Soviet direction of attack for the moment, the Estonians frantically fortified the line with minefields, barbed wire covered by a large number of artillery pieces across the river north of the bridgehead.

[3][14] After a heavy artillery strike on 15 February, the Soviet 45th Rifle Guard Division broke through to the railway 500 metres to the west of Auvere station, but a powerful attack by German Junkers Ju 87 dive bombers pinned them down.

The Narva–Tallinn railway, supplying the III SS Panzer Corps around the city, was cut in two places, threatening to encircle the German detachment.

Instead, "rolling" tactics learned by officers in the Estonian National Defence College before World War II were applied.

[12] The II.Battalion, 2nd Estonian Regiment, and the German artillery appeared as if committing a direct assault while a platoon of the 6th Company threw themselves into the Soviet trenches.

The newly arrived army attacked westwards from the Krivasoo bridgehead south of Narva and encircled the strongpoints of the 214th Infantry Division and two Estonian Eastern Battalions.

The resistance of the encircled units gave the German command time to move in all available forces and to stop the 59th Army advance.

The SS Panzergrenadier Regiment 24 Danmark took Siivertsi cemetery, attacking from the northern suburbs of Narva,[1][3] but they could not destroy a Soviet machine gun strongpoint inside a massive granite monument erected in honour of the perished soldiers of the White Northwestern Army during the Estonian War of Independence.