The Road to Berlin (40 page)

The guerrillas fought both the German and Soviet authorities, but fighting it out with the Red Army was impossible. To maintain their struggle the
UPA
turned to attacking Soviet lines of communication and
NKVD
units, though in one action, however, they inflicted deep hurt on the Red Army. To complete preparations for the March offensive General Vatutin had arrived in Rovno on 29 February (after stopping at Pukhov’s 13th Army
HQ
); his small convoy of three light cars then set out for Slavuta, Chernyakhovskii’s 60th Army command post. Branching off the Rovno highway, the road ran through dips and hollows, out of which a burst of fire suddenly ripped into Vatutin’s car, setting it alight. Another burst sent a second truck with Vatutin’s escort up in flames. From the snow-covered fields a force of a hundred guerrillas closed in on the burning vehicles, but machine-gun fire from the dozen men in the escort party drove them back. Vatutin categorically ordered a staff officer to withdraw, taking the operational orders and one machine-gunner with him for protection. Vatutin himself refused to leave. At sunset the General’s party set about disengaging, when Vatutin was severely wounded. The least badly damaged truck, punctured by bullets, refused to start. Under covering fire Maj.-Gen. Krainyukov and a staff officer carried Vatutin along the road, lighting finally upon a peasant with two horses; the officers put Vatutin, heavily soaked in blood, into a sledge and drove for the Rovno highway, where in a wayside hut a regimental doctor supplied emergency dressings for the General’s mangled right leg. Though transferred to Kiev, Vatutin never recovered from his wounds; on 15 April at the age of forty-two he died, following his brothers Afanasii and Semyen who had been killed in action the month before.

Marshal Zhukov from 1 March assumed full command of the 1st Ukrainian Front.

At 0800 hours on the morning of 4 March, as massed artillery battered the German defences, Marshal Zhukov launched the Guards armies of the 1st Ukrainian Front upon their major offensive. Exercising direct command in place of Vatutin, Zhukov made few alterations in the operational plan for the front. Late in February armour and infantry moved up steadily from the left flank
towards the right, 3rd Guards Tank on to Shimsk, 1st Guards and 60th Army almost entirely redeployed, 4th Tank Army to the west of Kiev. Chernyakhovskii’s 60th covered the final deployment of 3rd Guards and 4th Tank Army. On the eve of the attack, fuel stocks for the armoured formations dropped alarmingly to less than two days’ supply, but Zhukov ordered operations to begin on time, arguing that by the third day of operations the tanks would get their fuel (as indeed they did).

Chernyakhovskii, as professional and as nimble as any German commander facing him, took the lead; the moment 60th Army broke into the German defences Zhukov hurled 4th Tank and 3rd Guards Tank Armies into action, and within forty-eight hours Soviet tank and infantry armies had broken through on a 100-mile front to a depth of twenty-five miles, a wide front running from Ostrog in the west to the river Slutch in the east, with Shepetovka and the railway line to Tarnopol providing the central axis. Zhukov exerted formidable pressure at the centre, throwing in his tank armies and motorized infantry, their mobility much impeded but never eliminated by the mud over which the broad-tracked tanks and Studebaker trucks ploughed and gouged their way. The large bodies of Soviet riflemen did fall behind, marching stolidly through the mud, manhandling equipment amidst the ooze and fighting repeated infantry actions against German troops trapped in the soft squelching country lanes or immobilized in the glutinous fields. But by the evening of 7 March three Soviet armies-60th, 3rd Guards Tank and 4th Tank—were closing on the Tarnopol–Chernyi Ostrov line, while 1st Guards Army moved up to Staro Konstantinov (covering the approaches to Proskurov). With the capture of Volochisk, midway between Tarnopol and Chernyi Ostrov, Soviet tank columns had already cut the Lvov–Odessa trunk railway line, while the full force of Zhukov’s blow fell on the junction of Fourth and First
Panzer
Armies. In this first Soviet onrush, three
Panzer
and eight infantry divisions had taken a fierce battering, but more German divisions now moved up to hold the Tarnopol–Proskurov sector and to push Soviet troops away from the trunk railway. As German resistance stiffened, the Soviet advance slowed down, but Marshal Zhukov ordered the outflanking of Tarnopol from the south and an extension of the offensive eastwards, in the direction of Proskurov.

Between 11 and 13 March the
Stavka
confirmed Marshal Zhukov’s operational intention to sweep southwards on to and over the Dniester, with Chernovitsy as the main objective; this deep lancing of the German front would cut off First
Panzer
and slice into the remaining communications between German forces in Poland and those in southern Russia; Zhukov’s left flank would strike out for Kamenets–Podolskii, the Dniester and the Soviet frontier, with 1st Tank Army moving towards Chortkov–Chernovitsy, and 4th Tank towards Kamenets–Podolskii. Two rifle armies, 18th and 38th, received fresh orders to take Vinnitsa and Zhmerinka and then to move on Kamenets–Podolskii. To extend the offensive in a westerly direction, Pukhov at 13th Army on the right flank had orders to advance to the Berestechka–Brody–Zalozhtsy line.

The prospect for this massive axe-blow to split the entire German southern grouping into two—one part pressed into Galicia and southern Poland, the other pushed into Moldavia and on to the Danube—was vastly increased by Marshal Koniev’s own ‘mud offensive’ with the 2nd Ukrainian Front. Koniev’s attack began on 5 March at dawn; yet another huge barrage followed at 0750 hours by tank and infantry attacks. Forward elements of 2nd Guards and 5th Guards Tank Army went in with the rifle divisions, the full strength of the two tank armies being committed that same day, and were even augmented with the introduction of 6th Tank Army. On the Gornyi Tikich, Rotmistrov’s tanks smashed up the German defences and swung towards the great base of Uman along a path littered with abandoned German equipment—200 Tiger and Panther tanks, 600 guns and 12,000 lorries. At the junction of Potash Soviet troops came upon more heavy weapons and supplies in abundance, but Uman itself—taken in one swoop on 10 March by 2nd and 5th Guards Tank Army with 52nd Army—yielded even greater booty: dumps crammed with supplies, outlying districts strewn with German tanks, armed and fuelled but awash to their track-guards in the mud. The
Panzer
divisions so recently involved in the break-in attempts at Korsun were moving back westwards when they were engulfed by Koniev’s sweep on Uman, and with the loss of Uman German hopes of holding off Koniev from the southern Bug slumped. Forward units of the tank armies forced the southern Bug off the march; Koniev ordered everything on to tracks, the artillery following in the wake of the tanks. Mobile groups of tanks, artillery, infantry and engineers made all speed for the southern Bug, where a lead brigade of 16th Tank Corps (2nd Tank Army) took the Dzhulinka crossing on the evening of 11 March, followed by 29th Tank Corps (6th Tank Army) at Gaivoron, with only hours between them. Within forty-eight hours Soviet units were across the river, having used all manner of boats and rafts, on a fifty-mile front.

At noon on 15 March the lead tanks of 16th Corps, with 156th Tank Regiment (6th Tank Army) in support, burst into Vapnyarka, a major junction on the Zhmerinka–Odessa railway line and not more than thirty miles from the Dniester. Maj.-Gen. Dubovoi’s 16th Corps pressed on towards Yampol and closer to the Dnieper, while to the left Rotmistrov’s 5th Guards raced on from the Bug to the Dniester. At 1300 hours on 17 March Lt.-Gen. Kirichenko’s 29th Corps (5th Guards Tank) reached the Dniester a little to the east of Soroki and at once put a rifle regiment across. One after another Koniev’s armies drew up to the Dniester—2nd and 5th Guards Tank, 4th Guards and 52nd Army fighting for the bridgeheads at Yampol–Soroki and further north at Moghilev–Podolskii. On the morning of 19 March a tank regiment from 5th Mechanized Corps (6th Tank Army) fought its way into the outskirts of Moghilev–Podolskii; that same evening the town was cleared and the main body of 5th Mechanized Corps moved up. The crossing of the Dniester began during the night of 20 March and shortly after noon on 21 March the entire corps was established on the western bank. The German front, running from Moghilev–Podolskii to Soroki,
had been split, First
Panzer’s
right flank had been pushed back to the north-west and Eighth Army’s left to the south.

With Marshal Koniev over the Dniester, Marshal Zhukov loosed off his powerful drive to the south, to Chernovitsy. Both marshals co-ordinated their operations tactically and strategically, fighting tactically significant actions to clear Vinnitsa and Zhmerinka (on Zhukov’s extreme left flank) as Koniev’s columns cleared Bratslav on the southern Bug. The clearing of Podolia, however, paled somewhat in significance beside the giant sweep southwards planned on a major strategic scale.

Malinovskii on 3rd Ukrainian Front had meanwhile developed his own offensive, which opened on 6 March, forcing in turn the Ingulets, the Visun and the Ingul; Pliev’s mobile group attacked Novy Bug off the march shortly after dawn on 8 March, clearing it completely in three hours. Cutting the Dolinskaya–Nikolayev railway line, Pliev’s columns drove on southwards, while on the Dnieper 28th Army took Berislav and closed in on Kherson, clearing it by 13 March. The last stretch of the Dnieper had been cleared of German troops. Pliev’s mobile columns moved out from Novy Bug on a deep out-flanking drive, while seven German divisions lay trapped in the Bereznegovatoe–Snigiriveka area between the Ingulets and the Ingul. Nikolayev, lying between the lower Ingul and the estuary of the Bug, held out almost until the end of March, but higher up the river Malinovskii’s armies pulled up to the southern Bug by 22 March. The road to Odessa lay open and on 11 March, in the fresh set of
Stavka
directives designed to increase the co-ordination of the three Ukrainian fronts, Malinovskii had received instructions to speed up his pursuit, to cut the German escape route to the southern Bug, seize river crossings on the Konstantinovka–Voznesensk–Novaya Odessa and Tiraspol, with his ultimate objective the Prut and the Danube—the Soviet frontier.

In between urging greater speed on Malinovskii, Stalin also issued fresh personal instructions to Marshal Koniev; with Koniev over the Dniester in some strength, Stalin proposed that part of 2nd Ukrainian Front forces turn south to move along both banks of the river, while the remainder drive west and south-west for the Soviet frontier. The southerly drive Stalin aimed at the line of retreat of two German armies (Sixth and Eighth) and one Rumanian army (the 3rd), trapping them between Koniev and Malinovskii. Koniev therefore set 40th, 27th and 52nd Armies on southern and south-western courses, using one rifle corps (51st) of 40th Army to attack towards Khotin and thus collaborate with Zhukov’s left flank in encircling German forces at Kamenets–Podolskii.

Koniev’s columns set out in this last phase of the Soviet offensive and by the evening of 25 March had reached the Prut, the Soviet frontier with Rumania; during the next twenty-four hours the main body of 27th and 52nd Armies drew up to the river along a forty-mile front from Lopatkina (south-east of Lipkany) to Sklyana (a few miles north of Jassy). Marshal Zhukov had meanwhile loosed his best armoured formations and crack Guards armies to the south along the valley of the Zbruch, the tanks roaring across the mud through Trembovla,
Gusiatino, Chortkov and on to the Dniester crossing at Zaleshchiki. German resistance between the Zbruch and the Seret was flattened, and by 27 March Zhukov’s armoured columns were only a few miles from Chernovitsy. Koniev’s right-flank army, 40th, duly struck out for Khotin, having forced the Dniester north-west of Moghilev–Podolskii; by 28 March 163rd Rifle Division, 240th Rifle Division and 4th Guards Airborne Division had closed off Khotin and blocked the way to the Prut. First
Panzer
was now trapped, locked into the Cheremovtsy–Dunaevtsy–Studenitsa–Kamenets–Podolskii rectangle by six Soviet armies—3rd Guards Tank and 4th Tank Army, 1st Guards, 18th, 38th and elements of 40th Rifle Armies.

Two Marshals of the Soviet Union seemed to have a
Panzer
army at their mercy. But the trap had not shut tight. On the encirclement front a ten-mile gap stared out between 1st Guards and 4th Tank Army, the latter worn down to a mere sixty tanks. Both 4th Tank Army and 30th Rifle Corps (put under tank army command) had run very low on fuel and ammunition. Three other Soviet armies, 13th, 60th and 1st Tank Army, held the external encirclement, keeping Fourth
Panzer
at bay. On 18th Guards Corps, subordinated to 60th Army, fell the full responsibility for holding the 75-mile sector from Zalozhitsy to along the Dniester as far as Mariampol; further south this task fell to 1st Tank Army, charged with the Stanislav–Storozhnitsa sector. As Soviet armies steadily compressed First
Panzer’s
area north-east of Kamenets–Podolskii, Marshal Zhukov prepared to meet the
Panzer
army break-out—convinced that it would come towards the south, aimed across the Dniester and into Rumania. Soviet radio intelligence reports seemed to confirm this. At 1400 hours on 28 March radio intelligence reported First
Panzer
HQ
installations, III
Panzer
Corps and at least two
Panzer
divisions operating behind the Dniester at Khotin. Other reconnaissance reported the preparation of crossing points on the Dniester. During the night of 29 March Marshal Zhukov transmitted warning orders that the ‘Dunaevtsy group’ was trying to force its way through Kamenets–Podolskii and on Skala–Zaleshchiki from the Lyantskorum–Gumentsy sector; all Soviet formations must proceed with the elimination of the trapped enemy forces and complete it by 31 March.

Within twenty-four hours it became unmistakably plain that First
Panzer
was breaking out to the west, not the south. From Stanislav to a point south-west of Tarnopol (where the encircled German garrison hung on so doggedly that the town had to be stormed), Manstein had built a new front from which he launched a powerful tank attack—with forces undetected by Soviet intelligence—on the external encirclement front which encased First
Panzer
. On 4 April two
SS Panzer
divisions fell right on 18th Guards Corps in the area of Podgaitsy. Soviet troops fell back on Buchach, where three days later the de-blockading
Panzer
divisions met up with the men of First
Panzer
fighting their way out westwards. North of Buchach the fighting went on until mid-April; Zhukov swung his two available tank armies, 1st and 4th, onto a westerly course to charge into the German relief
force and to meet heavy German attacks in the Stanislav area, but First
Panzer
inched its way out of the trap. Further north at Tarnopol,
SS Panzer
units tried to smash their way into the beleaguered garrison, but this rescue attempt failed: by 12 April only the centre remained in German hands, but five days of fierce street fighting followed before Tarnopol was finally cleared.