by Unknown
As the Germans reconsidered, the Soviets and Allies continued their plans. In the East, the Soviet buildup around Kursk was occurring on a massive scale. Over 1.3 million, men and 3,500 tanks had been assembled in the Central and Voronezh Fronts to contest the coming assault. But the numbers were not the whole story. Each front had developed up to six defensive lines, filled with battalion defensive positions and antitank strongpoints. On the Voronezh Front alone the Soviets had dug nearly 2,600 miles of trenches, 300 miles of antitank obstacles, and laid over 600,000 mines. As an example, the 6th Guards Army, expecting an attack by von Manstein’s armor, had placed 69,000 mines and 327 pillboxes in its main line of defense, with 20,000 mines and 200 pillboxes in its second. Backing these armies were the front reserves, which included the 1st and 2nd Tank Armies, with the Steppe Front as the ultimate reserve. Also in support were three full air armies with 2,600 aircraft.
On the German side, the Zitadelle buildup continued. General Model’s 9th Army, scheduled to lead the northern assault, had built up to a force of some 330,000 troops, 600 tanks, and 425 assault guns. In the south, von Manstein’s main attack force, General Hermann Hoth’s 4th Panzer Army, had assembled 225,000 men and over 1,000 tanks and assault guns. Despite the massive buildup, however, there was rampant pessimism among the commanders about their chances, due to myriad delays and the evident Soviet preparations.
In the West, preparations for Sicily, called “Operation Husky,” continued as well. Ultra intercepts had indicated the Axis were expecting an attack on Sicily, so efforts were being made to confuse the issue with bombing and reconnaissance flights over Greece, Sardinia, and Corsica. The British suggested a more novel approach; in an operation they called “Mincemeat,” they planned to float a body ashore in Spain with letters from Alexander indicating Greece was the next target. Eisenhower turned down the suggestion as impractical.
Then, in early June, a major storm erupted between Germany’s opponents. Stalin had been demanding the Allies open a significant Second Front to take some of the pressure off his nation. Informed officially of Allied plans to invade Sicily and postpone a cross-Channel attack until 1944, he exploded. He told Churchill and Roosevelt that their delay was creating grave difficulties for his people, making them feel alone in the battle against the fascists. He pointed to the horrendous casualties suffered by the Red Army and called Allied losses “insignificant.” Operation Husky, in his opinion, was wholly inadequate. He needed an attack that would divert a significant number of the 200-plus German divisions facing him. The comment struck a sore point with Churchill, who had been stunned when the Husky planners informed him they could not guarantee success if more than two German divisions were encountered. Despite reassurances from both Roosevelt and Churchill, Stalin remained implacable, accusing the West of deliberately allowing his nation to destroy itself while defeating fascism.
Map 10. Plans for Kursk
In June the Western Allies took steps to neutralize a threat to their Husky plans. The targets were the small islands of Pantelleria and Lampedusa which stood between Malta and the Tunisian shoreline. Both had Axis airfields and listening posts that threatened the security of the Husky transport fleets. Pantelleria was considered the primary threat and a difficult obstacle because fifteen battalions of coastal guns in pillboxes and 12,000 entrenched troops defended it. On June 7-11 over 5,400 tons of bombs were dropped on the island, blasting emplacements but causing only about 130 casualties. However, as the British brigade assigned to assault the island approached, the garrison surrendered, ostensibly because of the lack of water. Lampedusa surrendered the next day.
The fall of the two fortresses showed the Axis that Sicily would be the next target—and indicated to the Germans how well the Italians would defend their own soil. Once again Hitler had to switch his attention to the Mediterranean from the East.
On the island of Sicily, the only German division had been redesignated the 15th Panzergrenadier Division, built around three rather than the normal two Panzergrenadier regiments. But it was also integrating another Panzer battalion into its organization, which in effect would make it a very strong Panzer division (shortly renamed the 15th Panzer Division). Its troops were virtually all veterans, as were their leaders. In Italy, the Hermann Göring Panzer Division was nearly finished regrouping after its Tunisian withdrawal, regaining its infantry strength to complement its strong Panzer regiment. It received orders to transfer to Sicily. Two other divisions were rebuilding in Italy—the 29th Panzergrenadiers and 26th Panzer. Farther north, Rommel had collected the 1st Panzer Division, but only one of the promised eight other divisions, to hold in readiness for Operation Alaric.
Apart from the military aspects, the political climate in Italy would have been humorous had the impact not been so significant. German intelligence began picking up bits and pieces of a wide variety of conspiracies against Mussolini, all highly vocal but totally disorganized. However, the German ambassador to Italy, Hans von Mackensen, reported one coup was serious, but also told Berlin that one of Italy’s more extreme fascists, Roberto Farinacci, had offered to lead a countercoup against plotters in Mussolini’s own Fascist Grand Council.5 The Germans began to take the political problem seriously.
On June 18, a week after the island of Pantelleria fell, Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW), the German Armed Forces High Command, recommended to their Führer that Zitadelle be cancelled in order to keep strategic reserves free to respond to any threat. Again Hitler chose not to make a decision, still torn between needing the reserves and needing a victory over the Soviets.
But less than a week after OKW made its recommendation, the choice was taken away from the German leader. Two separate spy sources reported to Stalin that Zitadelle was no longer planned. “Werther” reported that “OKW does not wish to provoke a large scale Russian offensive in the central sector under any circumstances.”6 The Soviets had put their fronts on alert for the German assault three times in May and once in June, just prior to the spy reports. Some of the commissars were pushing for Stalin to attack first. But the Soviet leader had demurred thus far. He knew the risk of attacking where his strength was concentrated—he would be driving right into the fresh, unbloodied troops the German had amassed—but he also knew that if he were going to attack anywhere, it would have to be where he had planned. To move his attack troops elsewhere would take reserves from the potential German attack zone and make him vulnerable if the Germans again changed their minds. With the spy reports now in hand, Stalin decided to wait no longer—against Zhukov’s advice, he ordered the Red Army to attack.
The Battle in the East
On June 24, 1943, the Soviets opened their offensive with two diversionary attacks. From the Southern Front, reinforced reconnaissance battalions crossed the Mius River and clashed with German outposts. That night, following a heavy barrage, the 5th Shock and 28th Armies attacked along a twelve-mile sector of the German 6th Army’s defensive line toward Stalino. The same day, the Southwestern Front sent its reconnaissance battalions across the northern Donets River, followed by the 1st and 8th Guards Armies, with the 23rd Tank Corps for exploitation.
Both attacks made slow progress against strong German defenses, developing small bridgeheads across the rivers but failing to penetrate much past the first defensive lines. But the attacks succeeded in their main purpose. Von Manstein dispatched most of his III Panzer Corps, the 6th and 19th Panzer Divisions, plus the 168th Infantry Division, south to deal with the threats to their southern flank.
Then it was the Soviets’ turn to be surprised. Their plans had called for a ten-day delay between the diversionary attacks and the start of Operation Rumiantsev, their main attack toward Kharkov, to allow the Nazi reserves to commit to those areas. However, as they waited, intelligence came in that made them alter their plans even further. Partisans around Bryansk reported that the Germans were building a new defensive line near the city and were pulling stockpiled supplies out of their forward supply dumps near Orel. I
t appeared that they were preparing to withdraw from the Orel salient that was the target of Operation Kutusov, the follow-on attack to Rumiantsev. In fact, Army Group Center had no orders from Hitler for any such withdrawal; its commander, Generalfeldmarschall Günther von Kluge, had ordered the preparations of what he called the “Hagen Line” started as he and 9th Army’s General Model organized their arguments in favor of a withdrawal. Such a withdrawal would shorten the German line significantly, making more reserves available. To Stalin, however, such a withdrawal meant that the 2nd Panzer Army and 9th Army would escape his trap. This was unacceptable to him, and he ordered Kutusov implemented immediately.
The original plan for Kutusov called for concentric attacks from the north, east, and south into the Orel salient. On the north face, the Western Front’s 11th Guards Army, along with two tank corps, massed over 700 tanks and almost 4,300 guns for their breakthrough. In addition the Soviets had planned to exploit this hole with their new 4th Tank Army, but the schedule change caught this unit still in transit. To the east the Bryansk Front’s 3rd, 63rd, and 61st Armies prepared a straight-ahead assault, with the 3rd Tank Army and its 730 tanks moving up to exploit. Finally, on the southern face, the Central Front had three more armies ready to attack, with the 2nd Tank Army ready to follow them. All told, the Soviets were to unleash 750,000 men in sixty-seven divisions and 2,300 tanks on the German forces in the Orel salient.
Three infantry corps of the 2nd Panzer Army, totaling some fourteen divisions, defended the line with the 5th Panzer Division in immediate support. Behind them stood Model’s 9th Army with its two full-strength Panzer corps. Von Kluge also had an additional five Panzer divisions in deep reserve. Aerial reconnaissance picked up Soviet troop movements to the east, allowing the troops some advance warning of the impending attack, but on the north face, the German defenders had no such warning.
Kutusov started on June 28 with the normal Soviet practice of sending their reconnaissance battalions into the German defenses to probe for weaknesses and redefine lines of advance. In addition to this activity, Stalin unleashed his “relsovaya voina” (war on the rail lines)—thousands of partisans armed with explosives attacked the rail lines leading in and out of the salient. Over 10,000 demolition charges went off, disrupting German movement and, Stalin hoped, pinning two German armies in the salient to be destroyed by his converging forces.
Early on June 29 the 11th Guards Army assaulted their portion of the line. Massing almost all their tanks and guns on a ten-mile stretch of the German defenses, the deluge devastated and overwhelmed two infantry regiments and the forty tanks that held that portion of the line. Despite counterattacks by the 5th Panzer Division, the assault penetrated almost six miles, just short of the German second line.
To the east, the Bryansk Front’s assault was far less successful. The German defenders, reinforced by corps antitank reserves, stalled the initial push by the 3rd and 63rd Armies, destroying over half their armor. The Soviet infantry barely gained two miles against these heavy losses. The commitment of the 1st Guards Tank Corps the following day also stalled quickly in the dense German defenses, and was stopped completely as the 2nd and 8th Panzer Divisions arrived to seal the penetration.
The second day of the attack saw the 11th Guards continue their success, committing the 1st and 5th Tank Corps to breach the second German line and gain another three miles. By July 1 three Panzer divisions, the 12th, 18th, and 20th, had arrived to blunt the advance. However, the success of the Western Front’s advance worked against it as its flanks were left open by the stalled drive coming from the east. The massed Panzers smashed the 5th Tank Corps and threatened to cut off the entire breakthrough. The Soviets countered by throwing the 50th Army into the breach, but it was not the mobile force they needed. The 4th Tank Army was still in transit.
On July 2 the Central Front opened its drive from inside the Kursk salient, with the 13th, 48th, and 70th Armies attacking. They met stiff resistance, even on their limited front, and barely made it through the first German line in a replay of problems farther north. The 2nd Tank Army, waiting for the breakthrough, was stalled in the open; Luftwaffe air strikes took a heavy toll on the waiting tanks. It took two full days for the Central Front’s infantry to hammer a hole large enough for the 2nd Tank Army to drive through. When it finally did, it ran into highly accurate antitank fire, mainly from the dug in 656th Antitank Detachment, made up of Elefant self-propelled antitank guns. These weapons—an 88mm gun in a turretless tank—proved deadly in long-range combat. The 2nd Tank Army’s 16th Tank Corps lost 75 percent of its strength—150 tanks—in a single engagement, while only killing three Elefants. As they reeled back from the losses, the Germans followed up with a counterattack by the remainder of the XLVII Panzer Corps.
For the next five days, the Soviets hammered at the Germans, but the fresh and mobile Panzer divisions stalled virtually every threat, striking at the flanks and forcing the Soviets to defend their small gains. During this period, German intelligence was stunned when aerial reconnaissance photographs showed two large tank formations closing in on the Orel battlefield. In addition, despite defeating the Mius and Izyum offensives, they began seeing massed movement south of Kursk near Belgorod, indicating another Soviet attack pending. It was becoming obvious that the Soviets had been able to mass far more combat power than the Germans ever suspected.
On July 3 the main Soviet attack began as Operation Rumiantsev opened. There was nothing fancy about these plans, authored by Georgi Zhukov himself. He massed almost five complete armies (5th Guards, 6th Guards, 53rd, 69th, and part of the 7th Guards) at the point of the main attack, backed by two tank armies, the 1st and 5th Guards. Two days after this attack began, two more armies would attack on their right; three days after that, two more armies on the left. Overall, three Soviet Fronts—Voronezh, Steppe, and Southwestern—concentrated 990,000 men, 12,000 guns, and 2,400 tanks at the point of decision.
Opposing them was Horn’s 4th Panzer Army and Army Detachment “Kempf.” Well-rested infantry manned the front lines, with the 7th Panzer Division in immediate support. There were multiple defensive lines established—Kharkov had seven protecting it from the north and three lines to the east. Belgorod, closest to the front, was protected by defensive lines and fortified heavily. Backing the infantry up was the mobile power that had been assembled for Zitadelle—the XLVIII and II SS Panzer Corps. Army Group South was missing only the two Panzer divisions sent successfully to destroy the breakthrough on the Mius River. Additionally, the 3rd SS Panzergrenadier Division “Totenkopf” had been temporarily detached from the II SS Panzer Corps to operate against the Izyum bridgehead. Altogether, though, the Germans fielded 350,000 troops and some 900 tanks.
When Zhukov attacked, the disparity in strength at the point of attack was decisive. The guns opened fire at 0500, the infantry struck at 0800, and by noon, a six-mile hole had been torn in the first German line. Both exploiting tank armies plunged into the hole, and by the end of the day had driven some fifteen miles into it. Zhukov’s infantry, however, lagged the advance by some nine miles as they dealt with the German defenses. This gap would widen over the coming days and create an opportunity that von Manstein could exploit.
When the massive blow fell near Kharkov, Hitler had been considering Army Group Center’s suggestion to withdraw from the Orel salient. His initial impulse was to say no, as he had many times before, but the Tunisian disaster still hung in his mind. With the Kharkov front suddenly ripped open, the reserves he could have used to hold Orel were unavailable. On July 4 he gave permission to von Kluge to withdraw to the Hagen line. Six days later, when the Allies invaded Sicily, the permission became an imperative order.
To the north, von Kluge and his army commanders still had the problem of the continual Soviet pressure and the approaching armor. Fortunately for them, Stalin and his generals made it easy. They committed each tank army separately as it arrived, allowing the Germans to use their interior lines to counter each threat.
The 3rd Tank Army arrived first from the east and, rather than exploit the shallow breach made by the 3rd and 63rd Armies, its commander, Gen. P. S. Rybalko, decided to force a separate breach. The attack, on July 6, was generally successful, with the momentum of the shock force carrying it over seven miles through German defenses, but casualties in men and equipment were heavy. Diverging directives from Stalin and his front commander further split up Rybalko’s diminished combat power. The orders left the tank army vulnerable to counterattacks by the 2nd and 8th Panzer Divisions that stopped each piece separately.
By the time the 4th Tank Army arrived and went into action on July 13, it was apparent to the Soviets that the Germans were evacuating the salient. They tried to step up the pressure to eliminate as much of the enemy strength as they could, but Stalin’s primary mobile force, the 2nd and 3rd Tank Armies, had been devastated—from a strength of 450 and 730 tanks respectively, each army now fielded fewer than sixty tanks. Pursuit by infantry was too slow to be effective. Thus the 4th Tank Army was sent in virtually alone. It ran into an ambush of hidden tanks and assault guns and lost 50 percent of its strength on the first day.