The Road to Berlin (36 page)

But Poland, over which a major row began to rumble in January, was altogether different. Stalin pushed his own preparations with gathering speed. During the night of 1 January the
Krajowa Rada Narodowa
, the ‘National Council of the Homeland’, the ‘supreme underground organ of democratic elements [in Poland]’, with Bierut on its council, suddenly sprang into existence. At once the
KRN
set about building up its own armed forces, the
Armija Ludowa
, which had centralized partisan detachments under its own control within a few weeks, weeks in which Soviet regular troops drew closer and closer to the old Polish frontier and Soviet partisan brigades operated more extensively in eastern Poland, backed by Soviet agents hard at work undermining the authority of ‘the London government’. Perhaps the ‘Cairo report’ was of little real significance, as Stalin himself said, but in ‘the Polish question’ nothing was insignificant.

On Christmas Eve the Red Army resumed its offensive operations. Massed artillery on the Fastov sector south-west of Kiev fired off’ a fifty-minute barrage in the morning, battering a passage for Vatutin’s 1st Ukrainian Front assault divisions—three infantry armies (1st and 3rd Guards). Vatutin planned to split the German front, to sweep away German tanks and infantry from Kiev once and for all and then to move his Front into position to co-operate with Koniev’s 2nd Ukrainian Front, both fronts then driving deep into the German rear. To mask the Fastov attack Vatutin instructed Chernyakhovskii (60th Army) and Pukhov (13th Army) on the right flank to ‘demonstrate’ vigorous offensive preparations, as if to show that the main Soviet attack would develop in the Korosten area. Korosten was certainly one of Vatutin’s objectives, but his present intention was to drive along the Zhitomir highway and the Fastov–Kazatin railway line. By the evening of 24 December the tank divisions of the assault force had driven up to twenty miles into the German defence, 3rd Guards Tank passing through 18th Army and 1st Tank through 38th Army, the T-34s finding passable going in the thin snow and shallow mud. That night the going was still good when the tracks took on a coating of frost, but the next day the rain came and the artillery had to provide the real weight behind the attack, which expanded as 40th Army joined in to operate with the motorized infantry of 38th Army. On 26 December Chernyakhovskii’s 60th on the right attacked at noon; both right and left flanks of 1st Ukrainian Front were now engaged. Rybalko’s 3rd Guards tank units pushed on for Korostyshev, a large village on the Zhitomir highway, where Russian artillery finally broke up a German armoured counter-attack.

In the last hours of 1943 the northern wing of Army Group South slithered nearer disaster. Zhitomir was almost encircled. On 29 December Chernyakhovskii’s 60th had taken Korosten and outflanked Zhitomir from the north-west, severing the Zhitomir–Novograd Volynsk road and rail links. The next day Kazatin, the rail junction with lines leading to Kiev, into Poland and south to Odessa, fell to Soviet troops; Poluboyarov’s 4th Guards Tank and 18th Army were moving from the south-east cutting the road and rail links between Zhitomir and Berdichev; 1st Guards outflanked Zhitomir to the east. On 31 December Zhitomir was cleared, the units involved receiving ‘Zhitomir’ as a battle honour. With the fall of Kazatin, the fate of Berdichev was sealed. Two Soviet battalions had already broken into the town, but 1st Tank Army and 18th Army could not follow through, and not until 5 January did Soviet units link up with the beleaguered battalions, clearing Berdichev completely.

Vatutin’s infantry and tank armies broke out to a depth of fifty miles on a 150-mile front. The shortest road and rail communications linking Army Group South with Germany were now cut. On 2 January, Vatutin submitted fresh plans to the
Stavka:
13th, 60th, 1st Guards and 18th Armies would drive on to the Rokitno–Goroditsa–Novograd Volynsk–Lyubarkhmelnik line in the next five days; 3rd Guards Tank Army would strike for Zhmerinka after eliminating enemy forces in the Berdichev area; and the left-flank armies (38th, 40th and 1st Tank
Armies) would advance south and south-west on Yanov, Vinnitsa, Ilintsa and Zhaskov. Katukov’s 1st Tank Army was assigned a special role, to strike towards Khristinovka, there to link up with Koniev’s 2nd Ukrainian Front, thus fusing the flanks of 1st and 2nd Ukrainian Fronts.

By 5 January both Belaya Tserkov and Berdichev were cleared by the infantry of 18th and 38th Armies and Katukov’s tanks. That morning, in mist and low cloud, Koniev’s 2nd Ukrainian Front suddenly attacked near Kirovograd. On 20 December the
Stavka
had ordered Koniev’s front over to the defensive, using the breathing space to move up 300 tanks and 100
SP
guns; the Front command worked on its plans for an offensive designed to bring it into the rear of German forces holding Nikopol, the destruction of which would be accomplished in co-operation with the 3rd and 4th Ukrainian Fronts. Towards the close of December, however, Stalin had suddenly changed this plan: in view of Vatutin’s success, General Koniev received fresh instructions on 29 December to launch his main attack in the direction of Kirovograd–Pervomaisk, with a secondary operation aimed at Shpola–Kristinovka designed to encircle German forces in the Kanev–Zvenigorodka–Uman area (a joint operation with Vatutin). Koniev assigned 52nd and 53rd Armies to the supporting operation; his main striking force he split into two, Zhadov’s 5th Guards and Katkov’s 7th Mechanized Corps to outflank Kirovograd from the north-west, Shumilov’s 7th Guards and Rotmistrov’s 5th Guards Tank Army to move to the south-west. Koniev regrouped in great secrecy, forbidding all but verbal orders, banning radio transmission and issuing categorical instructions against telephone messages involving the offensive. The weather also lent its aid—light snow and light frost facilitated cross-country movement—though the overcast skies grounded Soviet aircraft.

The attack on Kirovograd got off to a flying start. Smashing down heavy German counter-attacks, the fiercest directed against Shumilov’s 7th Guards, Soviet infantry opened up paths for the tanks; during the cold, clear night of 7 January Kirichenko’s 29th Tank Corps (5th Guards Tank Army) broke into the southern suburbs of Kirovograd, with two rifle divisions following behind. At 0900 hours that morning Soviet columns had moved to the north-west cutting the Kirovograd–Novo Ukrainka road and railway line, while 18th Tank Corps swept round to the south. Kirovograd was cleared by 8 January and Soviet units pressed on some ten miles to the west of the town. Koniev’s swift and incisive movement caused Vatutin to submit an adjustment of his own plans to the
Stavka
on 9 January: on his right wing, he proposed to move up to the river Goryn, on to Slutsk, Dubrovitsa and Sarny; at the centre and on the left, to eliminate German concentrations in the Zhmerinka and Uman area, and to take Vinnitsa, Zhmerinka and Uman. The
Stavka
approved but could provide nothing in the way of reinforcement.

On his northern wing Vatutin pushed Pukhov’s 13th Army on to Sarny; forward elements reached the rivers Goryn and Styr by 12 January. Chernyakhovskii’s 60th made for Shepetovka, but both the 13th and 60th were running
into stiffer resistance. On
Stavka
instructions Vatutin brought these two formations to a halt. Moving across a very broad front, Vatutin’s armies were spread over some 300 miles; though the left wing was moving rapidly, gaps opened between the several armies. At Zhmerinka 8th Guards Mechanized Corps (1st Tank Army) was cut off by a German counter-thrust. Fuel and ammunition were running low in all the armies of 1st Ukrainian Front. On 12 January the
Stavka
issued orders to Koniev and Vatutin alike to wipe out the German salient at Zvenigorod–Mironovka by locking 1st Ukrainian and 2nd Ukrainian Front flanks at Shpola. This would secure the junction of the two fronts and position Soviet units for an advance to the southern Bug.

Neither Koniev nor Vatutin could push in the German salient which jutted between their fronts as far as Kanev on the Dnieper, the ‘Korsun–Shevchenkovskii’ salient, hilly country well suited for defence and held by twelve German divisions from First
Panzer
and Eighth Army. In mid-January, with the ‘Zhitomir offensive’ brought to a highly successful conclusion, 1st Ukrainian Front on
Stavka
orders went over to the defensive, to regroup, to reinforce and to allow supply lines to catch up; 47th Army (three divisions), 2nd Tank Army (two tank corps), 67th Rifle Corps, 6th Guards Cavalry Corps and 5th Mechanized Corps moved under Vatutin’s command. For the assault on the Korsun salient, Vatutin assembled a force on his left flank from 40th, 27th and 6th Tank Armies (the last, Kravchenko’s newly raised armoured army); Koniev assigned 4th Guards and 53rd Army, with Rotmistrov’s 5th Guards Tank Army held ready to exploit the breakthrough. Between them, 1st and 2nd Ukrainian Fronts lined up twenty-seven rifle divisions, four tank corps and one mechanized corps, almost 4,000 guns and mortars with 370 tanks, to crush the Korsun salient.

After twenty-two days of operations, Vatutin’s front began to slow up, outrunning its supplies and struggling in the mud, for the winter failed to come to the south. The ‘Zhitomir attack’ had been a conspicuous success, but the command decision to spread the Front armies amidst objectives running from Sarny to Vinnitsa and Zhmerinka has come in for certain criticism. These orders went out when the Front had spent its reserves: 1st Ukrainian could not reach the southern Bug, capture Vinnitsa and Zhmerinka and encircle German troops at Zvenigorodka. After the fall of Zhitomir, concentrating on the left flank—and closing with Koniev—might have been more productive. Vatutin’s mobile columns had swept down on Voronovitsy and Nemirov, outflanking Vinnitsa from the south, and were now moving on Kristinovka in the direction of Uman. Here Soviet armour bumped into the reserves Manstein gathered to cover Vinnitsa and Uman, whereupon Vatutin drew back temporarily to the Samgorodok–Pogrebische–Zhaskov line.

On the lower Dnieper, Malinovskii’s 3rd Ukrainian and Tolbukhin’s 4th Ukrainian Front had tried to rush both Nikopol and Krivoi Rog in December. The attempt failed, whereupon the
Stavka
issued formal orders at the beginning of 1944 for these two strong-points to be taken, hinges that had to be lifted
before the German defence, well entrenched and secured both by rivers and ravines, could be toppled. Malinovskii faced the fortified river line of the Kamenka; Tolbukhin, the Dnieper. The 4th Ukrainian Front had already come to grief before Nikopol: in the first attempt to rush the town the 44th Army under Khomenko, an
NKVD
officer who had made good as a commander, was badly mauled. Khomenko and his artillery commander, S.A. Bobkov, driving to a forward
HQ
, took the one road that ran through German positions, coming under murderous fire: Bobkov was killed in the first salvo, and Khomenko sustained fatal wounds. The German radio announced the desertion of two senior Soviet officers. In a rage Stalin ordered the disbanding of 44th Army, its units to be distributed to other commands. Only later in 1944, on the interrogation of a German prisoner, did the truth come out. The remains of the two officers, interred as they were in packing cases used for weapons, were brought to Melitopol.

On 10 January 1944 3rd Ukrainian Front attacked in the direction of Apostolovo, the 4th Ukrainian two days later directly against the Nikopol bridgehead. Malinovskii’s assault suffered from lack of ammunition and a shortage of tanks. On Tolbukhin’s front, Lelyushenko’s 3rd Guards Army could not break into Nikopol. After one week of fruitless fighting the offensive was called off. At a session of the Military Soviet of 3rd Ukrainian Front, Marshal Vasilevskii,
Stavka
‘co-ordinator’ for 3rd and 4th Ukrainian Fronts, worked out a new plan of attack which was forthwith submitted to Stalin. Vasilevskii also required reinforcements from the
Stavka
for Malinovskii’s front, which carried the main weight of the assault. Malinovskii speedily acquired 37th Army from Koniev’s command, 4th Guards Mechanized Corps from Tolbukhin, 31st Guards Rifle Corps from
Stavka
reserve—also 64 KV and T-34 tanks, fuel and ammunition. The revised plan called for the main attack on Malinovskii’s front to be made by Glagolev’s 46th Army, Chuikov’s 8th Guards, and Tanaschishina’s 4th Guards Mechanized Corps in the direction of Apostolovo–Kamenka, to break to the Dnieper and to co-operate with Tolbukhin in the reduction of Nikopol. Tolbukhin assigned Lelyushenko’s 3rd Guards, Tsvetayev’s 5th Shock Army and Grechkin’s 28th Army (with Sviridov’s 2nd Guards Mechanized Corps operating in Tsvetayev’s area) to his attack on Nikopol.

On the morning of 30 January Lt.-Gen. M.N. Sharokhin’s 37th Army and Lt.-Gen. I.T. Shlemin’s 6th Army (3rd Ukrainian Front) opened the main and supporting attacks. At 0800 hours on 31 January three of Tolbukhin’s armies, 3rd Guards, 5th Shock and 28th Armies, started their offensive. Further north the massive Soviet attack on the Korsun–Shevchenkovskii salient was already a week old: at dawn on 24 January ‘hundreds of guns’ had opened fire, the prelude to Koniev’s savage attack, joined two days later by three armies of Vatutin’s left flank. On Vatutin’s right, 13th and 60th Armies were loosed on 27 January on a new operation to clear German forces from the Lutsk–Rovno–Shepetovka area, preparation for a further drive to the west and to the south.

North-west, south-east and south of Kiev, where Marshal Zhukov acted as
Stavka
‘co-ordinator’ for the 1st and 2nd Ukrainian Fronts, operations of mounting strategic significance were building up by the end of January 1944. At this juncture a great deal hung on the fate of the Korsun salient, the great wedge stuck between the junction of 1st and 2nd Ukrainian Fronts, akin to a cork stoppering the Soviet offensive, a position which the German command planned to hold in a bid to rupture the Soviet timetable and thereby frustrate the development of a massed offensive in the southern theatre. Since the salient jutted right back to the Dnieper, Hitler could feed his imagination on thoughts of reconquest; the reality was much grimmer and was to involve the fate of many thousands of men held in this ransom to time and space. For the moment, however, Soviet armoured thrusts in the direction of Uman and Vinnitsa were held, though to the north-west, on the left flank of Army Group South, Soviet columns of light tanks and lorried infantry of Vatutin’s right-wing armies had already pushed across the old (1939) Polish frontier, a deep and potentially very dangerous outflanking move directed by Pukhov and Chernyakhovskii in the Lutsk–Rovno operation. Much further south the second Soviet offensive, directed against the German Sixth Army entrenched in the Dnieper bend, was already beginning to bite deeper into the heavily fortified arc fitted out between Nikopol and Krivoi Rog.