The Road to Berlin (75 page)

General Tolbukhin’s 3rd Ukrainian Front provided the other hook of the encirclement arm. In that first telephone talk on 15 July the
Stavka
, represented on this occasion by Antonov, evidently plumped for an all-out attack on Kishinev. As soon as the Front Military Soviet assembled on the morning of 16 July, Tolbukhin pointed out that this was not really feasible—it amounted to attacking once and then having to attack all over again. The Germans were expecting a Soviet attack from the Bendery bridgehead; with a pencil Tolbukhin traced the line of German fortifications on the map for the benefit of his staff gathered for the morning meeting in one of the peasant cottages that served as his headquarters. In the Tiraspol bridgehead area Tolbukhin suggested using Kitskan, where the Dniester bank was steep and the ground softened with swamp—a very unprepossessing site, but one that would guarantee surprise for the main attack. Though other axes were considered, the Military Soviet agreed to carry out a reconnaissance of the Kitskan bridgehead, an assignment given to Col.-Gen. Biryuzov (chief of staff), the Front artillery commander and the chief engineer. General Kotlyar, the Front engineer, was far from enthusiastic on surveying the swampland with its mass of rivulets: the problems would be formidable and he pointed out to Biryuzov that ‘we are not so rich in engineering troops’. Col.-Gen. Nadelin, the artillery commander, was nevertheless impressed with the possibilities of mounting a surprise attack from Kitskan and supported Biryuzov: ‘the enemy won’t expect us from this direction and that’s what matters’.

The selection of Kitskan signally affected the choice of the axis for the ‘main blow’: instead of making directly for Kishinev as the
Stavka
first insisted that Tolbukhin must, the Front command decided to slant the main attack towards Husi, lying on the western bank of the Prut. The bridgehead was undeniably small; movement would be difficult with the absence of good roads and the prevalence of swamps; the lack of high ground would inhibit observation and the engineers would have a massive job on their hands to position the tanks, artillery and troop carriers. But one advantage outweighed these drawbacks: an attack aimed from here could take the shortest route to link up with 2nd
Ukrainian Front in an encirclement operation. Such an attack could be launched without forcing the Dniester under heavy fire, and it would come as a complete surprise to the Germans. Having made his choice, Tolbukhin was not inclined to waver, and the use of the Kitskan bridgehead formed a major part of the provisional operational plan submitted to the
Stavka
, to which both Front commanders (Tolbukhin and Malinovskii) were summoned for a special conference on 31 July.

This conference confirmed the final form of the ‘Jassy–Kishinev’ operation; the results were then incorporated in the
Stavka
directive of 2 August. The two fronts were ordered to destroy German–Rumanian forces in the area of Jassy–Kishinev–Bendery, advance to a line running to Bacau–Leovo–Tarutino–Moldavka, with a view to striking on to Focsani, Galatz and Izmail. Malinovskii’s orders specified that three infantry armies and one tank army—27th, 52nd and 53rd Armies, with 6th Tank Army—would breach the enemy defences and move towards Jassy–Vaslui–Felcui. In the first stage of the operation it was imperative to seize Bacau, Vaslui and Husi, capture the crossings over the Prut in the Husi–Felcui sector and co-operate with the 3rd Ukrainian Front in eliminating the ‘Kishinev concentration’ of enemy troops simultaneously cutting their escape route through Barlad and Focsani. With this encirclement complete, Malinovskii was to drive for Focsani, securing his right flank with 5th Guards Cavalry Corps (which was to force the river Siret and advance on Piatra). Malinovskii’s main thrust was to go down the valley of the river Barlad, thus outflanking the German defences in the Siret: the capture of Jassy would open the road to Vaslui and the towns of Barlad and Tecuci, the latter little more than a dozen miles from Focsani. Once on the river Barlad, whose course began not far south of Jassy, Malinovskii’s mobile troops were then within a score of miles of the lower Prut at which Tolbukhin was also aiming.

The
Stavka
accepted Tolbukhin’s ‘Kitskan plan’ and abandoned the idea of a direct assault on Kishinev from the north; 3rd Ukrainian Front received orders to attack south of Bendery and, with three left-flank armies, to advance in the direction of Opach, Selemet and Husi (simultaneously protecting this assault force against attack from the south), to reach the Leovo–Tarutino–Moldavka line, and there to co-operate with 2nd Ukrainian Front in the encirclement. The second stage of the operation involved moving on Reni and Ismail to cut off the German line of retreat to the Prut and the Danube.

Within hours of the receipt of the
Stavka
directive the two Front commanders, together with their military soviets and army commanders, gathered at the junction of the two fronts for a conference devoted to detailed planning. Marshal Timoshenko, a figure from the seemingly far-off days of 1941–2 and one seen only infrequently on the battle-fronts, now re-emerged to act as
Stavka
‘co-ordinator’ for the Jassy–Kishinev operation: in this capacity he attended the special conference. Of the two fronts, Malinovskii’s was the stronger, with six infantry armies, one tank army, an air army in support and three independent corps; Tolbukhin disposed
of four infantry armies but only one mechanized corps—the 7th—and even that he had had to plead for. Malinovskii proposed to use four armies (27th, 52nd and 53rd Armies, and 6th Tank Army) plus one tank corps (the 18th) for his main attack in the stretch of land between the rivers Siret and Prut: his breakthrough was planned across a ten-mile sector between Targul Frumos and Jassy, a sector with only field fortifications. A rapid breakthrough here would mean outflanking the stronger defences and would put him on the shortest route to the Prut crossings, deep in the rear of the main forces of Army Group South Ukraine: he was thus striking at the junction of the Eighth Army and 4th Rumanian Army and also isolating Sixth Army, deployed in the Kishinev salient. The main attack would be secured by a supporting operation mounted by 7th Guards Army, with 5th Guards Cavalry and 23rd Tank Corps operating as a ‘cavalry-mechanized group’, holding off any German attack from the Siret. The immediate Front task was to advance to the Bacau–Vaslui–Husi line, capture the Prut crossings in the Husi–Felcui sector and link up with the troops of the 3rd Ukrainian Front. The second assignment was to eliminate the encircled enemy forces and also to push on to Focsani; for the capture of the ‘Focsani gate’ would open the route to central Rumania and provide full freedom of manoeuvre to the west and south. To accomplish this Malinovskii disposed of eight armies, four independent corps, fifty-five rifle and cavalry divisions, eleven artillery and mortar divisions and eight aviation divisions—over 11,000 guns and mortars, 1,283 tanks and
SP
guns and almost 900 aircraft.

Tolbukhin’s final operational plan was no less intricate. His main attack would come from south of Bendery, aimed at Husi to link up with Malinovskii; Lt.-Gen. M.N. Sharokhin’s 37th Army, supported by Gagen’s 57th and Shlemin’s 46th, was to make the main thrust, with two mechanized corps also committed to the drive on Husi, thus outflanking the main German force from the south. The destruction of the 3rd Rumanian Army holding the lower reaches of the Dniester was entrusted to a force from 46th Army operating with units of the Soviet Black Sea Fleet and the Danube Flotilla: the left-flank divisions of Shlemin’s 46th Army were to force the Dniester estuary at Akkerman, complete the encirclement of the Rumanians and seize the mouth of the Danube. Tolbukhin’s strength for these operations amounted to five armies (including an air army), two mechanized corps and a mechanized brigade, thirty-seven rifle divisions, two brigades of naval infantry, six artillery and seven aviation divisions, 8,000 guns, about 600 tanks and 1,000 aircraft.

Operations in the Dnieper estuary called for special planning and the co-operation of the naval command. At the beginning of August the Black Sea Fleet command began gathering light craft and aircraft in bases on the north-west coast of the Black Sea. The command itself moved to Odessa and set up a ‘co-ordinating staff’ to work with 3rd Ukrainian Front on the joint operations and to supervise naval actions against enemy naval forces. For the Dniester estuary assault, Rear-Admiral Gorshkov’s Danube Flotilla would operate with the left-flank
units of 46th Army, which were organized into a separate force under the command of Lt.-Gen. A.N. Bakhtin (deputy commander, 46th Army). General Shlemin, the army commander, planned to use three infantry corps and a mechanized corps in a right-flank attack designed to out-flank the Rumanian 3rd Army from the north-west: on the second day of these operations Bakhtin’s special left-flank units and Gorshkov’s Danube Flotilla were to attack the Dniester estuary and capture Akkerman, after which 46th Army would complete the encirclement of the Rumanians between the river Kogilnik and the Dniester estuary before advancing towards the Danube delta and the river Prut.

The final planning of the amphibious assault began on 11–12 August at a special conference held at Tolbukhin’s headquarters. General Bakhtin opened with a review of the strength and role of the troops involved: the assault on the Dniester estuary was to begin on the second day after 46th Army’s main attack and would be made under cover of darkness, with two groups landed south-east and north-west of Akkerman. After pushing on to Moldavka to surround the Rumanians north-west of the estuary, the assault group would drive south-westwards to the river Kogilnik to complete the main encirclement in co-operation with the rest of 46th Army. The army men of the Front command then listened to Gorshkov, who arrived with his full military soviet, Captain Matushkin and Captain Sverdlov (chief of staff) as well as General Ermachenkov, air force commander for the Black Sea Fleet. Gorshkov did not waste words, and his terseness impressed the soldiers. The general naval plan called for the suppression of all enemy interference from the sea by using submarines, torpedo boats and naval aircraft to attack the bases of Constanza and Sulina, plus all surface targets. For the assault on the estuary Gorshkov was assembling a force of twenty-eight amphibious vehicles, thirty-five cutters and 450 boats for landing troops: the support consisted of six motor gunboats, two small craft equipped with mortars and three small minesweepers, together with sixteen guns from coastal artillery.

Both Front commands held operational reviews at which all army commanders, heads of arms and services (plus the naval personnel in Tolbukhin’s case) reported on their plans and received specific directions from the Front commander or the chief of staff, the armoured and artillery preparations coming in for special notice. The political administration of both fronts also found itself faced with a considerable task in dealing with the mass of raw recruits brought in by the mobilizations carried out in the recently liberated areas of the western Ukraine. The General Staff record shows that only 8,224 men reached 2nd and 3rd Ukrainian Fronts between April and August 1944, but in the same period the 2nd Ukrainian Front acquired no less than 265,000 recruits from the conscriptions in the liberated areas, all of them needing basic military training and political re-education after their years under German rule. Tolbukhin’s front received 80,000 conscripts. And for veterans and recruits alike the political administration prepared special political lectures to impress upon them that they were now abroad, on ‘foreign soil’, and must exercise the requisite ‘vigilance’; towards the Rumanian population
they must act in accordance with ‘Soviet dignity’, respecting the land and explaining to farmers that ‘when abroad the soldier must live only out of his own pack’.

Though Malinovskii’s men had been ‘abroad’ for some months after crossing the frontier, substantial forces of the Red Army were about to cross that great divide, the line between the communist and the capitalist world. The troops listened to hundreds of lectures on the aim of the Soviet invasion, the ‘criminal activities of the Antonescu clique’, the squalor in which the Rumanian peasants lived and the unjust oppression of the Rumanian working class, exploited by their German occupiers and native capitalists alike. Nor did the enemy escape the attentions of the political administration; the Rumanian lines were blasted with loudspeaker broadcasts urging the Rumanian soldiers to abandon their German allies and were showered with leaflets encouraging them to leave the front for their own homes.

The Soviet troops also trained. After the first phase of the Belorussian operations the
Stavka
issued on 6 July a special directive devoted to the shortcomings in Soviet organization—violation of the procedures for setting up staff headquarters and command posts (which were not to change positions until signal links with lower and higher echelons had been set up in the new site), the failure to exploit radio communication and the use of first-echelon troops for secondary tasks, thus slowing up the whole pace of the attack. On 9 July Malinovskii ordered staff training in all armies and independent corps until 25 July; at the end of the month a Front order prescribed training for infantry, artillery and tank crews, a 50-hour programme for the first echelon troops, 100 hours for second echelon units and 300 hours for armoured troops, with forty per cent of the training time taken up with night exercises. Tolbukhin’s command ordered a similar programme: Tolbukhin himself, with other army and corps commanders, took part in the exercises with 37th Army. Malinovskii supervised the two-day exercise with 2nd Ukrainian Front staffs devoted to the control of formations during the ‘manoeuvre stage’ of operations. Reconnaissance aircraft brought back air photos of the terrain along the line, of advance marked out for the armoured forces, material indispensable for Kravchenko with 6th Tank Army and for 18th Corps commander in planning their movement down the river valleys. In the estuaries near Odessa, where conditions resembled the Dniester estuary, the naval infantry also rehearsed their assault.