Original: John Erikson
Translator: Xia Kefeng Li Yan
On June 22, 1941, 16 hours after the start of Operation Barbarossa, the Germans had effectively broken through the defenses of the Northwest and Western Fronts. The 11th Army, located at the junction of the two fronts, was fragmented, and the 8th Army on the left (attached to the Northwestern Front) and the 3rd Army on the right (attached to the Western Front) were isolated and reduced to lambs to be slaughtered. German armored forces had crossed the Dobiza River to the north of Kaunas and the Neman River to the south. On the left flank of the Western Front, the Soviet 4th Army was poorly positioned for effective defense, and its own ill-secure posture in turn threatened the flank of the 10th Army in the center of the Western Front, and the right flank of the 5th Army of the Southwestern Front, and the German offensive between the 5th and 6th Armies had threatened both fronts. Soviet armies covering the border areas are being interspersed.
It seems that the "central authorities" are still ignorant of the nature and extent of this catastrophe. The People's Commissariat for National Defense and the General Staff are painstakingly piecing together fragmented information. However, at the end of this terrible day, Timoshenko issued his last order, Command No. 3, at 21:15, ordering three Soviet fronts to attack. The aim was to decisively repel the Germans by launching a huge offensive. The North-West Front and the Western Front, each with their infantry divisions and 2 mechanized corps, launched a coordinated operation from Kaunas to Grodno to burn the enemy's land, encircle and destroy the enemy by June 24, and occupy the Suvałukki area. The Front's offensive would be supported by the Long-Range Bombing Aviation Corps (ADD). The Southwestern Front was ordered to use the 5th and 6th Armies, supported by "several" mechanized armies, to destroy the enemy forces on the Vladimir-Volensky/Kristinopol line with a "centripetal attack" and to occupy the Lublin area before sunset on 24 June, guarding the border with Hungary while keeping an eye on The direction of Krakoff and "protecting itself". On the flanks of the Soviet-German front, the Red Army strictly carried out "defensive tasks", covering national borders and preventing enemy invasions.
In Ukraine in June 1941, a German infantryman approached the body of a Soviet tanker next to a burning BT-7 fast tank. The turret of this Soviet tank may have been hit by a 37 mm shell and the fuel tank was set on fire.
The Commanders of the Front, who were struggling to maintain the cohesion of the army, were forced to prepare for this major offensive, and Order No. 3 called for a 50-75 mile advance. All three commanders used their mechanized corps as a lifesaver: Kuznetsov of the Northwestern Front planned to strike the flank of the 4th Panzer Group northwest of Kaunas; Pavlov, who had already imagined sending "assault groups" to attack, planned to use his mechanized forces south of Grodno and near Brest; Kilbonos, realizing that his main panzer force had not yet been assembled, decided to immediately use the forces at hand (mechanized 15th and 8th Armies) against the German spearheads. Unfortunately, they face many difficulties. The aircraft supposed to cover the build-up of troops had long since been crushed on the ground. Artillery, like many infantrymen, is immobile due to lack of means of transport; artillerymen with transport vehicles, like many tanks, are unable to move due to lack of fuel; artillery with fuel has no ammunition. Even if these requirements are met, they will not have time.
Night finally fell. Lieutenant General Borgin and many soviet officers and men who were surrounded or fighting watched as the night sky was illuminated by "the tens of millions of rays of light from the raging fire, the tracer shells fired by machine guns, and the shells and bombs that exploded around them." Under the cover of night, the commanders tried their best to convey the orders to the troops. The few pieces of food and ammunition salvaged from the burning warehouses were distributed. Borgin knew that Pavlov would undoubtedly lose, but nevertheless hoped that Hatskelevich's mechanized 6th Army and the 36th Cavalry Division would be able to hold the enemy back.
Before nightfall, the forces of the 10th Army began to take over the defensive positions of the mechanized 6th Army behind the Nalev River, and tanks and motorized infantry would assemble before dawn in the dense forests northeast of Białystok. The Mechanized 29th Division[16] planned to return from Slonim to Sokulka to cover the build-up of the 6th Army, borgin tried to attack Grodno, and he counted on The Mechanized 11th Army in Mostovenko to have already begun fighting. Golubev slowly deployed his mechanized 6th Army, dismantling his tanks and using them as infantry to defend the Narva River crossing. As a result, protaturchev's (mechanized 6th Army) Tank Division was laborious for a long time without success. Even so, Hatsklevich's army was different from the mechanized 13th Army, which was supplemented with a large number of T-34 and KV tanks (despite lack of fuel and bullets). The divisions under the army were under-staffed, and Borgin, struggling to make up for the time Thatubiev had wasted, could not wait. Finally, completely unaware of the whereabouts of the mechanized 11th Army and the disastrous 36th Cavalry Division, Borgin launched an offensive.
The nightfall temporarily relieved the headquarters on the border, and at 22:00 on 22 June, the Soviet General Staff also made an analysis of the first day's battle situation, without mentioning the criticality of the situation, smug and empty-eyed: "On June 22, the Regular German Army took military action against the Soviet border defense forces, and made insignificant progress in several areas. Half a day later, with the arrival of the red army field vanguard, most of the German troops in the border area were repulsed and suffered losses. ”
Artillery of various calibers and other military materiel captured by Army Group Center (above).
Over the next few hours, the "base camp representatives" set out from Moscow with their respective tasks to see for themselves what the so-called "insignificant progress" was like. Even the arrogant and uninhabited Kulik was taken aback by what he saw and heard on the battlefield. On the plane from Moscow to Kiev, the crew offered General Zhukov tea and sandwiches, who had no illusions about the situation, and after arriving at the Southwestern Front, Vatutin (now in charge of the General Staff) told him that on the evening of 22 June the General Staff lacked "accurate information" on the strength and actions of both the Soviets and the Germans, nor did they know the losses of both sides, and that Kuznetsov in the direction of the Baltic Sea and Pavlov in the western region could not be contacted. Moreover, Stalin solemnly insisted on Directive No. 3 and ordered Zhukov to sign it even if he was not present. In Kiev, Zhukov asked what Instruction Vatutin 3 said, to which he replied that it was conceived of "repelling the enemy in all main directions with a counter-offensive" and then entering enemy territory. Zhukov broke out when he heard this, and he reminded the Soviet high command that the Soviet high command knew nothing about the strength of the German army and the direction of the attack. Vatutin also sadly mentioned that an action order would be issued after dawn, but now that Directive No. 3 had been "decided", everyone had no choice but to implement it.
At midnight, the Southwestern Front received instructions, and Pulkayev objected in the strongest terms, but the order had to be carried out. Kilbonos and his staff were at least supported by Zhukov's skill and experience, and the armored counter-assaults on the southwestern battlefield achieved at least some success, hurting the Germans. But in other areas, the implementation of Directive 3 is a complete disaster. By 23 June, the breakthrough between the Soviet Northwestern and Western Fronts had been extended to nearly 80 miles, and the Various Soviet Armies covering the border area were on the verge of collapse, completely unable to stop the German advance.
This article is excerpted from "The Road to Stalingrad"
#pgc-card .pgc-card-href { text-decoration: none; outline: none; display: block; width: 100%; height: 100%; } #pgc-card .pgc-card-href:hover { text-decoration: none; } /*pc 样式*/ .pgc-card { box-sizing: border-box; height: 164px; border: 1px solid #e8e8e8; position: relative; padding: 20px 94px 12px 180px; overflow: hidden; } .pgc-card::after { content: " "; display: block; border-left: 1px solid #e8e8e8; height: 120px; position: absolute; right: 76px; top: 20px; } .pgc-cover { position: absolute; width: 162px; height: 162px; top: 0; left: 0; background-size: cover; } .pgc-content { overflow: hidden; position: relative; top: 50%; -webkit-transform: translateY(-50%); transform: translateY(-50%); } .pgc-content-title { font-size: 18px; color: #222; line-height: 1; font-weight: bold; overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap; } .pgc-content-desc { font-size: 14px; color: #444; overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis; padding-top: 9px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 1.2em; display: -webkit-inline-box; -webkit-line-clamp: 2; -webkit-box-orient: vertical; } .pgc-content-price { font-size: 22px; color: #f85959; padding-top: 18px; line-height: 1em; } .pgc-card-buy { width: 75px; position: absolute; right: 0; top: 50px; color: #406599; font-size: 14px; text-align: center; } .pgc-buy-text { padding-top: 10px; } .pgc-icon-buy { height: 23px; width: 20px; display: inline-block; background: url(https://lf3-cdn-tos.bytescm.com/obj/cdn-static-resource/pgc/v2/pgc_tpl/static/image/commodity_buy_f2b4d1a.png); }
【New Products In Stock】Road to Stalingrad ¥75.9 Purchase