By the end of the month, the battalion had about 1,000 men. It was renamed the Finnish Volunteer Battalion of the Waffen-SS on 13 September and additional volunteers arrived over the next several months to bring its strength up to around 1,180 men. The unit was sent to the front at the beginning of January 1942 where it was attached to the SS-Regiment Nordland of the SS Division Wiking, serving as its third battalion.[2] The battalion participated in the Battle of the Caucasus in mid-1942 and the subsequent Third Battle of Kharkov in early 1943, after the German defeat during the Battle of Stalingrad in late 1942 forced the Germans to evacuate the Caucasus.[citation needed]