“Choose your poison,” said Zhukov. “On the Voronezh Front, they are trying to pocket those armies we spoke of earlier. I suggest we attempt to extricate them, withdrawing through Burnurlinkova while we still can. The rail line south from there is already cut in at least one place. If not, then our entire line south of the Don in those bridgeheads will soon be under threat.”
“Do it. Save those troops. Cover your bridgeheads. They are the only force we have that can stage a creditable attack, the only eggs we still have in the nest.”
“And Volgograd?”
“Could you move some units from your bridgeheads to help defend the city?”
“It would take time,” said Zhukov. “We still hold the Don crossing at Golubinskaya. That road allows us to feed units into the defense north of Martinovka, easing the pressure on the city. I could send 4th Shock Army there instead of sending it to the Voronezh Front. Choose your poison, Mister General Secretary. I can do one or the other, but not both.”
Kirov rubbed his chin. “Berzin? Do you have an opinion on any of this?”
Berzin cleared his throat. “I know you have a strong psychological bond to Volgograd, and not just because half the city in the south has been renamed Novo Kirovka. But in my mind, the Voronezh Front is the more serious situation. If the German advance is not halted there, it will unhinge the entire line south of the Don, and foil the General’s plan for Operation Uranus as well. Send Yeremenko north.”
“Agreed,” said Zhukov. “Voronezh is the real crisis at the moment.”
Kirov shook his head. “And without 4th Shock Army, what chance does your Operation Uranus have?”
“A good offensive needs three things,” said Zhukov. “It needs mass, like water behind a dam. It needs shock to break that dam, and then it need speed to exploit the breach and penetrate as deeply into enemy territory as possible before he can react. With 4th Shock Army, Operation Uranus gets all three of those things. Without it, the battle becomes nothing more than a spoiling attack, just like Operation Mars.”
“Yet even that saw us get tanks as far south as Morozovsk.”
“For a day. Without support, they had to withdraw, and without 4th Shock Army, nothing would get that far in any case.”
Kirov had to decide. “Two balloons,” he said, prompting Berzin to look at Zhukov quizzically. But Kirov explained. “The first is this big group here, the armies south of Voronezh that we just pulled back over the Don. Now this German drive to the north threatens to pocket them. The second balloon is the big buildup you have labored to create in our Serafimovich Bridgehead. You say it is ready to strike, but now we stand here contemplating how best to minimize its chances by stripping Yeremenko’s troops away to send them north, or east to Volgograd. Well, we will do neither.”
“I don’t understand,” said Berzin. “We must do something, and quickly.”
“We will. Time to let the air out of both balloons. General Zhukov, those armies under threat south of Voronezh—pull them back as you have suggested. Form your line anew running from Voronsovka in the south, where Katukov is dealing with this infantry pincer. Then anchor it on Burnurlinkova, and run it up to Arkangelskoye. This will cover your Don bridgeheads and buy us time. It is mid-October. Winter must come soon, and god help us if it is late.”
“General Winter?” said Zhukov. “Oh, he is never late. In fact, he may arrive early this year. That volcano that erupted in the Pacific has had some rather dramatic effects on the weather. Very well, Mister General Secretary, I will do as you order. But the second balloon? Do I send 4th Shock Army north to stop Model, or to Golubinskaya to support the defense north of Volgograd?”
Kirov kept staring at the map. “General,” he said. “This operation you have planned for winter. Could it be launched early?”
Zhukov raised an eyebrow. “The ground in the south is still firm,” he said, thinking. “Mother Rasputista was not so generous there. So yes, the armies are ready, and I suppose I could attack at any time.”
“Haven’t the Germans strengthened their line after your abortive Mars offensive?”
“They have. The 14th Panzer Korps is in the Bouguchar sector, and one of their SS divisions has moved to the line south of Perelazovski opposite the Serafimovich Bridgehead.”
“Will it prevent this attack from succeeding?”
“It will be a rock in the stream, but the infantry on either side will be the target of our breakthroughs.”
“And the aim of this operation?”
“To get to the main road and rail lines along the River Chir. All their supplies are in depots there—Morozovsk, Oblivskaya, Surovinko. If we take those, or even any one of the three, we cut Steiner’s offensive off at the root.”
“Can’t he get supplies from Volkov’s territory south of Volgograd?”
“He might get some gasoline, but Volkov does not manufacture the ammunition and equipment he needs to sustain his operations.”
“Very well, then attack. Use 4th Shock Army as you have already planned. The best defense is a good offense. I see no merit in dissipating the power you have labored so hard to build up there, so attack, General, and may God go with you.”
* * *
Katukov’s defense on the southern pincer against the German 17th Army was masterful. He contained the breakthrough, and was counterattacking when the retreat order was given to pull those five armies out of that imminent pocket. The men fell back under a protective artillery barrage, dragging any guns and equipment they could move through the mud.
To their north, the breakthrough by Model’s 2nd Panzer Army looked far more serious than it was. The German offensive was played out. They were advancing still because they had virtually nothing in front of them, though supplies and fuel shortages were already stopping units in the field, where they would sit for hours, sometimes days, waiting for the trucks to catch up and bring the gasoline.
The panzer divisions were all intermingled with one another, and losses had been very heavy with the constant fighting. 33rd Motorized Regiment of 4th Panzer Division, for example, was one of the better supplied in the Schwerpunkt. Out of 150 rifle quads in various sub units, it now had about 75 remaining, a staggering 50% casualty rate. Other regiments were much worse off. 26th Motorized Regiment in the 24th Panzer Division had 45 squads left. Those in the 17th Panzer and 36th Motorized Divisions fared little better. Most of the panzer regiments were still at about 60% strength, but it was lack of fuel, munitions, and the endless mud that was slowing their operations to a crawl. The men that remained were tired, and as worn out as their equipment.
In spite of this, Model was not yet finished. He had a plan.
Chapter 26
The stunning German drive east of Voronezh had been possible only because of the infantry coming up to hold the shoulders of the breakthrough. It mostly deployed along the southern shoulder, giving 2nd Panzer Armee the freedom to continue to attack. Hoth had to deploy on the northern shoulder, as infantry in his sector was now forced to encircle the city of Voronezh itself, where 16 Soviet divisions sat in a small pocket.
Even though his divisions were worn out, Model worked to keep his advance rolling, taking fuel from one division and giving it to another. 4th Panzer had been in the lead, under Heinrich Eberbach, “Willy Rubber Nose” as he was called. Model wanted to keep his spearhead sharp, and he gave Eberbach the gasoline to keep moving his division through the expanding gap in the front. He swung south, ironically toward another town called Kalach, about 70 miles north of Boguchar on the Don.
Willy could smell victory with that rubber nose of his, and he knew what the Russians were attempting to do. His lead regiment, the 33rd Motorized, stopped at the end of the day on October 15th, only 75 miles north of the Don. Just south of that were the bridgeheads that Zhukov had fought so stubbornly for, from which he had also launched his abortive Operation Mars. The armies massed there now included 2nd, 3rd and 4th Shock Armies, portions of the 24th Army, Volga Front Reserve units, and nume
rous independent rifle and tank corps that were now formed into the Don Army Group under Rokossovsky, a formation that had never been so named in the old history. The Rock had moved north at Zhukov’s order, turning over his command in the Donets Basin to another man.
The pieces on the board were different, but the game was still the same. This was the one strategic front that allowed the Soviets to attack. The divisions there, over 80 strong, had been resting, resupplying, and were waiting for the snow to herald Zhukov’s planned Operation Uranus.
Eberbach was through that gap, heading south toward those 80 plus divisions, while over his right shoulder, 36 more divisions were trying to withdraw to avoid encirclement that he alone was now striving to complete. No thought was given to what all those enemy units might do in response to his incursion. Willy Rubber Nose had the wind at his back, gasoline siphoned from his brother divisions, and he was heading south, a typical example of the audacity with which the Germans would conduct their mobile operations.
Hitler was delighted. All he could see were the arrows being drawn on the map to indicate the farthest on point of that advance. No one told him that, even at that moment, Katukov was dancing like an expert swordsman, executing a maneuver that would have made Hermann Balck proud to witness. He extricated his 1st Special Rifle Corps from its bridgehead containment operation, turning those positions over to the retreating rifle divisions. Then he made a night march on the road east through Kalach, a full 60 kilometers to Manino, where he ran head on into Eberbach’s 33rd Motorized Regiment. These two adversaries had fought the previous year on the road to Tula, and now they met again.
By dawn on the16th the Germans found themselves surround by the entire Corps, and the infantry adopted a defensive stance, its advance completely halted. Its fate would be sealed, for the mass of all those divisions withdrawing from Kirov’s first balloon was now forming a new line, and some were pushing up the rail line from the south. Hitler was reading his map, but it was lying to him. Things were not entirely as they seemed.
The German envelopment was quickly running out of steam, and grinding to a halt. Eberbach’s impudence had been answered by Katukov’s Special Rifle Corps, where Dimitri Lavrienko was still with Katukov’s force, and they had the very latest tanks Kirov’s factories could deliver. The two Guards Divisions took the 33rd Motorized Regiment in a vise, and then 4th and 11th Guards tank brigades went through them like knives. The Cavalry division finished off any that remained alive on the battlefield, the hardy Cossacks galloping through the sodden ground, sabers flashing. The regiment ceased to exist, Manino was retaken, and Eberbach, his HQ some 30 kilometers north, decided to call a halt to his premature encirclement. He was smart enough to know trouble on a battlefield when he found it, and radioed back to Model that it would be inadvisable for him to continue.
“But you told me you had already taken Manino,” said Model. “Push on to Kalach.”
“We did take Manino, but we just lost it, along with the entire 33rd Motorized Regiment! They’re gone.” There was a moment of silence on the line. Then Eberbach composed himself and continued. “We need to consolidate and reconnoiter. Something is going on. They brought up reinforcements from the south.”
“Alright, perhaps you are correct,” said Model. “The Infantry is finally moving up to relieve Hoth on the north shoulder of the breakthrough zone. That will put some fresh life in the offensive. He’ll take the lead while we reorganize and resupply. These rains are going to become sleet and snow soon, and I don’t have to tell you what the winter was like last year.”
“Lucky for me that the frostbite couldn’t do anything to this rubber nose of mine,” said Eberbach. “Tell Hoth to move quickly. They’re planning a counterattack. I can smell it.”
Eberbach’s nose, what was left of it after taking a bullet years ago, did not betray him. By dawn the Russians sent his men up in the wake of Eberbach’s cautious withdrawal, a cold storm blowing in on the point of the German breakthrough. They were aiming to seal the breach, and buy that time Zhukov desperately needed so he could unleash another storm to the south in Operation Uranus.
Like a fullback seeing trouble ahead, Model would now throw the ball laterally to Hoth, who was already forming up the first of two shock columns of his own, centered on his fresh 12th Panzer Division. Everything was in motion again, the long months of stalemate broken by the mass, shock, and speed of the German attack at Voronezh. Now it would be answered by another attack, born before its time, and hoping to redeem the laurels Operation Mars had first delivered, until Hermann Balck appeared on the scene to work his military magic and halt the advance. This time, Balck’s 11th Panzer Division was far away, down near Rostov where he had consolidated his position to wait for infantry support. It was no good sending his panzers into the urban mass of Rostov. That was work for infantry, and he had been promised the fresh 336th Division, but it was slow in coming.
* * *
Near Volgograd, Steiner’s troops had finally reorganized for the next phase of the operation. The road they were on ran directly east into the new quarter of the city renamed Novo Kirovka, and then up to Mamayev Kurgan. That height dominated the center of the city, serving as an artillery observation point. Shelled almost daily by Volkov’s guns across the river, that was most hazardous duty, and observation details would trudge grimly up each night, waiting for dawn to peer through the morning haze and smoke. Their job was to observe the cross-river town of Krasnolobodsk, where elements of Volkov’s Guard Corps manned fortified bunkers all along the river. The morning artillery duel went off like clockwork, and Mamayev Kurgan would invariably receive a five-minute barrage.
Known as the Hill of Blood, the battles fought there in the old history left fragments of metal and human bone embedded in the ground for decades after. There, in modern times, two huge statues stand on that hallowed ground, one bearing the clarion call to battle: “Rodina Mat’ Zovyot! The Motherland Calls!” The woman, representing Mother Russia herself, stands all of 53 meters, wielding a sword that extends another 33 meters, reaching high overhead. The tip of that blade extended up to a height that doubled that of the statue of Liberty bearing her torch in New York Harbor and the history it commemorated was yet to be written in these altered states—the misery and madness that the world once called the Battle of Stalingrad.
That morning, General Eric Manstein had left his rear area headquarters at Morozovsk to come visit Steiner’s forward HQ at Surovinko, a town on the River Chir, about 50 Kilometers west of Kalach Bridge. The spearheads of Steiner’s attack, the Brandenburgers and Grossdeutschland, were already 40 kilometers east of that bridge, and now a conference would be held to determine the plan of attack on the city.
“At this stage of the operation,” said Manstein, “we were to have pulled out your entire Korps and the city fight should be turned over to the infantry.”
“What infantry?” said Steiner sarcastically.
“My point exactly,” said Manstein. “We got Freisner’s 102nd over just north of Kalach, but everything else in Hansen’s 54th Korps was pulled onto the line against the Serafimovich bridgehead. We are promised two fresh divisions soon, but who knows when they will ever get here. In the meantime, even though your troops are weary, we cannot just sit on our thumbs here, not while Halder is clucking over that big push east of Voronezh.”
“That’s where all the infantry is,” said Steiner. “What they sent us here was barely sufficient to hold that northern shoulder as we came east. We should have had enough in hand to push the Russians north of the Don, but their buildup there was steady and unrelenting, and as we have seen they have already demonstrated the threat those bridgeheads pose to our operations against Volgograd.”
“Balck gave them a good lesson or two,” said Manstein with a grin. “And that attack allowed me to wrangle away the 14th Panzer Korps.”
“Yes, but where is it now?” Steiner tapped the map. “It’s right on the line in the Boguchar sector, along with all the i
nfantry they gave us. I even had to put the 3rd SS on the line, which is one reason these last 40 kilometers were such a slog. If we had the infantry, I’d be in the city by now.”
“That is the last place I would prefer to see your divisions,” said Manstein. “This is the best mobile shock force in the army. It should be used in the breakthrough role, and then pulled out. Under the circumstances, as we have nothing in hand to relieve your troops, they will simply have to push on to the city. If we ever do get those two infantry divisions, they will relieve you. Now then, what is the plan?”
“Drive east on the road,” said Steiner. “They moved in a Guards Rifle division in front of the Brandenburgers. That will be my first order of business.”
Manstein looked at the map. “Steiner, that is the real problem. As long as they still have the rail lines leading north, and that crossing at Golubinskaya, they will be able to constantly feed in reinforcements. I would recommend that we strike north first and eliminate those supply corridors to isolate the city. You have 1st and 2nd SS holding the shoulder north of the road back to Kalach. Take Das Reich and attack north, then a little hook west to the river near Golubinskaya. At the same time, the 75th Infantry Division should begin an attack along the west bank of the Don, aiming at those crossing points from that side.”
“It won’t get through,” said Steiner stoically.
“Then reinforce it. What about the Wiking Division? It’s been sitting at Oblivskaya for nearly two weeks.”
“They were worn out,” Steiner explained. “That division forced the crossing and took the bridge at Kalach. I’ve been resting and rebuilding those regiments.”
Tigers East (Kirov Series Book 25) Page 22