CHAPTER 3
and CHAPTER 4 from “The Soviet Airborne Experience” (November 1984)
By Colonel D. M. Glantz
OPERATIONAL EMPLOYMENT: VYAZ'MA,
JANUARY-FEBRUARY 1942
The Soviets conducted two operational level
airborne operations during the Great Patriotic War. The first and largest in
scale and aim occurred during the Soviet winter Offensive of January-February
1942; It was designed to push German Army Group Centre away from
During this
first phase, the Soviets used a
tactical airborne operation west of Klin to facilitate the successful
ground advance by dropping an airborne battalion in the German rear
area near Teryaeva Sloboda. By Late
December, with Soviet forces approaching Rzhev, Volokolamsk, Mozhaisk, Medyn,
Yukhnov, and Kirov, the momentum of the Soviet offensive had ebbed.
Despite the loss of momentum, the Soviet
offensive had inflicted materiel
and psychological damage on German forces al German personnel and
equipment losses were heavy, and Soviet forces threatened
to break through the thinning German lines in three distinct sectors of
Yukhnov, and depleted units of 4th Army's 40th Panzer Corps
(19th and 10th Motorized divisions) attempted to plug the yawning gap between
Yukhnov and Sukhinichi.
At Maloyaroslavets, north of
Meanwhile, farther north, Col.Gen.I.S. Konev's Kalinin Front posed
the third serious threat to
Cal. Gen. Franz Halder, chief of staff of
the German army, recorded growing German desperation in his diary. Noting
that 29 December was "a very
bad day," Halder also
wrote:
. . . in AGp. [Army Group] Center,
however, the
enemy ' s superiority on the fronts of Second Army
and Second Panzer Army is, beginning to
tell. We
did succeed in sealing the penetrations, but the
situation on the overextended front, at which the
enemy keeps hammering with ever new concentrations,
is very difficult in view of the state
of exhaustion of our troops. . . .
For Halder, 30 December was again a hard day "
and 31 December was "`an arduous one," with Soviet forces pressuring 43d Army
Corps of 4th Army in the Yukhnov sector and 4th Panzer Army in
the Maloyaroslavets area. On 2
January, a `"day of vehement
fighting, Halder noted,
"In Fourth and Ninth Armies
... the situation is taking a
critical turn. The breakthrough north of galoyaroslavets has split the front and
we cannot at the moment see any way of restoring it again."
The Soviet 33d
Army break through between Maloyaroslavets and Borovsk, 50th Army's
penetration south of Yukhnov, and the Kalinin Front's thrust on German 9th Army's Left
flank were major threats to the coherence of
To restore momentum and to deliver the
coup de grace against the reeling German forces, Stalin and the Stavka
marshalled the remaining strength of the Soviet forces in a final, desperate
attempt to encircle
For his January offensive, Stalin massed
his under strength rifle divisions,
rifle brigades, and tank brigades
on a broad front to strike against the entire German line. On the main
directions, he assembled his
dwindling mobile assets, a handful of tank brigades, cavalry corps and divisions, and ski battalions, which, with rifle division support, would form the shock groups and mobile
groups for - converting tactical success into operational victory. Already weakened by the battles on the
close approaches to
Rifle
forces of the Soviet fronts had the
task of Attacking German forces and making initial penetrations through German lines. To guarantee successful encirclement of
German forces, mobile groups would
advance into these penetrations, racing to sow confusion in the German rear and
to seize key objectives before the
Germans could recover from the initial breakthroughs. As required, airborne
forces would go into combat either to assist rifle forces in making the initial penetrations or to reinforce the mobile
groups once they had advanced deep
behind German lines. With mobile
forces successfully
committed to the German rear, rifle
forces would follow to isolate
German units and destroy them piecemeal. To these ends, in the midst of one of
the harshest winters in
Stavka orders issued on 7 January1942
outlined the missions of those units participating in the general offensive on
the western direction. The overall objective was to encircle and then to destroy
On 8 January, the Soviet offensive began in the .Kalinin Front’s sector
and, during the next few days,
extended to other sectors. On the eighth, the 39th Army of the Kalinin Front smashed through German 9th Army defensive positions west of Rzhev and advanced fifty kilometres south toward Vyaz'ma. The 29th Army and the 11th
Cavalry Gorps rushed to exploit the penetration. The 11th Cavalry Corps raced 110 kilometers to the western outskirts of Vyaz'ma,
thus threatening the rear of German 9th Army. The right wing of the Western Front
joined the 10 January assault, with 20th Army, 1st Shock Army, and 16th
Army pushing German 9th Army units westward through Shakhovskaya toward Gzhatsk.
The same day, 5th Army and 33d Army of the Western Front joined the attack
threatened German 4th Panzer Army
units at Mozhaisk and Vereya.
Simultaneously with the advance of other WesternFront armies, the 43d,
49th,5Oth, and 10th armies(from
north to south) penetrated German
4th Army positions east of Yukhnov and Mosal'sk, moved on toward the critical
Moscow-Warsaw highway near Yukhnov, and drove toward Kirov, thus encircling
German forces at Sukhinichi, German 4th Army, with its north and south flanks
turned, withdrew toward Medyn. A
forty-kilometer gap, formed between 4th Army and 2d Panzer Army on 4th Army s
right.The 1st Guards CavalryCorps entered the gap to exploit across the
Moscow-Warsaw highway to south Vyasma.
During the initial phases of the new
offensive, the Soviets launched two tactical airborne assaults to assist the
advances of ground forces. On 3 and 4 January, to assist the advance of 43d and
49th armies, battalion-size airborne assaults secured objectives in German 4th
Army Is rear area at Bol'shoye
Fat’yanovo, near Myatlevo,
and in the Gusevo area north of Medyn. Both airborne forces eventually
joined forces with advancing Soviet armies. A second airborne assault occurred on 18
January in the Zhel-an'ye area west of Yukhnov, where a regimental-size force
dropped to assist 1stGuards Cavalry Gorps in crossing the Moscow-Warsaw highway
southwest of Yukhnov. This assault was successful, and airborne troops linked
up with 1stGuards Cavalry
forces, with whom they would
continue to operate.
Despite initial successes, the advance had slowed by Late January.
Soviet units were tired and nearly out of stock. Although mobile forces had penetrated
into the German rear on at
least three axes, they lacked the
strength to secure their
objectives. Compounding these difficulties, German counterattacks had
delayed the advance of main frontal forces and cut off communication between these mobile forces and main front units. Originally threatened by strategic and operational encirclements, now the Germans threatened to encircle
the exploiting Soviet mobile units.
Marshal A. M. Vasilevsky, then a member af the Stavka, described the
situation:
At
the beginning of 1942, having correctly assessed front conditions as
favourable for a continuation of the offensive, the High
Command inadequately took into
account real Red Army capabilities. As a result, the nine
armies at the disposal of the Stavka were almost
evenly divided among all strategic
directions. In the course of the winter offensive, Soviet forces expended all reserves created with such difficulty in the fall and the beginning, of winter
Assigned missions not achieved.
Vasilevsky referred to the deteriorating
situation of late January (see map 4).By then, the Germans had
halted the main advance and
launched violent counterattacks against forward Soviet positions. The Kalinin Front offensive ground to a halt short of Rzhev, Sychevka, and
Vyazma. Renewed German
counterattacks southwest of Rzhev
threatened the overextended front's
shock group of29th and 39th armies.
Northwest of Vyaz'ma, 11th Cavalry
Corps (lath,24th,and 82d Cavalry divisions and 2d Guards Motorized Rifle
Division) harassed German forces but
was unable to cut permanently the
Map 4. Situation Facing the Western Front, 25
January 1942, and Concept of the
Airborne Operation
On 19
January, German 9th, ,4th Panzer and 4th army’s occupied positions
running from north of Rzhev, Zubsov
and Gshatsk, to east and south of
Yukhnov. The 4th Panzer Army's 9th,
7th,and 20th Army corps defended from northeast of Gzhatsk to twenty-five kilometres
north of Medyn. The 4th Army's
12th, 13th,57th, and 43d Army corps defended along the
and rear
service units of 43d Army Corps
tried to halt the Soviet 50th Army advance toward the critical Moscow-Warsaw highway and the
Vyaz'ma-Bryansk rail line. German control of the Rollbahn well as the
Moscow-Minsk Rollbahn (from Vyaz'ma to
In the face of these developments, the
Stavka issued new orders. It believed a large airborne operation in the Vyazma area would reinforce
advancing Soviet mobile forces,
destroy the cohesion of German 4th Panzer and 4th armies, and enable Soviet forces to take that
city.
Simultaneously,
the main Soviet fronts would resume offensive operations to support the advancing mobile
groups. The Stavka gave priority to 33d and 43d armies attacking toward Vya'zma from the east and to 50th
Army attacking with 1st Guards Cavalry
Corps toward the
Moscow-Warsaw highway and Vyaz'ma from the southeast.
Operational
Planning
On 15 January1942,the Stavka made the
decision to insert Maj. Gen. A. F.
Levashemth AirborneCorps into the
area southwest of Vyaz'ma. It was a bold decision because it involved a series of night parachute drops
conducted in the harshest of winter
conditions with temperatures well below
zero. The 10.000-man 4th Airborne Corps (8th, 9th, and 214th Airborne brigades)was
then based near
The staff of the air borne forces, in close
coordination with the air force,
planned the operation with particular
emphasis on operational objectives,
unit missions, force composition, aviation and combat support, and logistical
considerations. Unfortunately, hey
paid little attention to the conduct of ground operations, specifically
to a coordinated linkup with front forces.
Participating agencies shared
responsibilities for the operation. The commander of airborne forces, Maj. Gen.
V. A. Glazunov, supervised preparation of
the airborne force. The air force commander handled the timing of the
drop, while the Western Front commander,
General of the Army 6. K. Zhukov,
had operational control of the forces after landing. The air force commander had overall control of the operation from his
On 17 January, General Glazunov assigned specific Missions to
General Levashev of4thAirborne
Corps. The 4th Corps would cooperate with the Kalinin and Western fronts to encircle and
destroy
Only fragmented German forces were in the area west and southwest of
Vyaz'ma. These forces sought
shelter from the snow and bitter cold in
villages along the Moscow-Minskand Vyaz'ma-Yukhnov roads. Garrisons of up to battalion size
defended populated point salon the major communications routes. Smaller units
defended supply and maintenance
installations in villages up
to twenty kilometers off the highways.
By mid-January, 11th Panzer
Division had general responsibility for security of the Rollbahn west of
Vyaz'ma beyond the
The Soviet airborne landing was scheduled to begin with daylight drop of a battalion-size
forward detachment. It would secure landing sites by the end of the first day for the
corps's main force. The main drop would occur during darkness to minimize the
risk of enemy attack. Originally,
the operation was to begin on 21 January, but slow movement of the corps into
the staging area had forced a postponement of the drop until 26-27 January. The corps moved to
On 24 January, General Zhukov dispatched
the following cryptic warning order
to General Levashev:
"To
comrade Levashev--
The
order was posted on a 1:100.000 map Indicating corps
areas and summarizing airborne
force objectives.
Having received his mission, General
Levashev reviewed the situation and, at 1800 on 26 January, issued orders to the corps. The corps main force would land
southwest of Vyaz'ma near Ozerechnya, Kurdyumovo, and Komovo. After landing,
the corps would advance into the
forested area west of Vyaz'ma;
secure the villages of Yamkovo, Mosolovo, Pleshkovo, and Azarovo; cut
German communications routes; and prevent both German withdrawal from and
reinforcement of Vyaz'ma. Seven
smaller groups of twenty to thirty airborne troops would conduct
reconnaissance-diversionary operations near the landing sites. They would
establish contact with the 11th Cavalry Corps and Maj.N. L.
Soldatov"s airborne regiment, committed on 18 January in the Zhelan'ye
area (see chap. 6).
Levashev's order defined specific missions for his corps`s units. Lt.Col.
A. A. Onufriev's 8th Airborne
Brigade, preceded by a forward
detachment, would land near Ozerechnya to secure a line from Rebrovo through Gradino to Bereznikiand to block German
movement along the Vyaz `ma-Smolensk
and Vyaz `ma-Dorogobuzh roads. COP.
I. I. Kuryshev's 9th Airborne Brigade would land near Goryainovo and secure
a line from Goryainovo through Ivanikito Popovo to prevent the approach of German reinforcements from the west. Lt,Cal, N. Ye. Kolobovnikov's 214th Airborne Brigade, reinforced by the separate tank and artillery
battalions of the corps, would land and assemble in the Vysotskoye,
Pleshkovo, and Uvarovo areas and
act as the corps reserve 9 prepared either
to counterattack against German units should they penetrate airborne defensive
lines or to reinforce the defence of the 8th and 9th Airborne brigades. Corresponding to missions
assigned by General Zhukov, General Levasheves major consideration in decision
making was to secure the designated
objective by surprise and to hold it for two to three days until 33d Army and
1st Guards Cavalry Corps linked up with
the Airborne forces.
After receiving Levashev's orders, commanders
worked at assembling the airborne corps
and supporting aircraft. Planning designated the concentration of forty IS-84 and
twenty-five TB-3 aircraft to conduct
the lift. Although insufficient for
rapid movement of all airborne
forces into the drop area,
severe shortages in military, transport aviation had dictated using so few
aircraft. In fact, when the tardy concentration of aircraft was complete,
only thirty-nine PS-84 and twenty-two TB-3 aircraft were available, Similar
deficiencies plagued fighter over for the operation. Originally ,thirty
fighters were expected to cover the concentration areas, and one fighter
regiment (seventy-two fighters)
would protect landing sites. Only Nineteen fighters, however, we're
available to protect the operation.
Given these aircraft shortages, the plan necessitated that each aircraft crew
make two to three sorties a night to complete the movement ,in three or four
days. Planners ignored the weather, potential aircraft combat losses, and the
possibility of aircraft mechanical failures. In addition, the operation faced adverse aerial conditions because
German aviation was especially active in the sector and was familiar with the
Airborne units established liaison at the aviation commanders'
command posts at each airfield and
at the Western Front and air force headquarters to coordinate
aviation support. Within the airborne force, commanders created signal operation instructions and
special radio nets connecting
brigades to the corps. No
communications links, however,
existed between the airborne force
and combat aviation units.
Transport aviation did
coordinate well with the airborne
forces through out the planning phases.
The estimate of the situation did not, however,
provide data on an important consideration, namely, Information
concerning enemy strength in the drop area. There simply was no reliable
information on such German forces.
Neither partisan units (which proliferated in the area nor Major
Soldatov`s paratroopers were
close enough to Vyazma to provide
such intelligence. Soviet reconnaissance flights also
failed to detect German units.
Front headquarters optimistically
reported a wholesale enemy
withdrawal from the area when, in fact, none had occurred. On the
contrary, considerable numbers of German troops were near the drop area.
8th Airborne Brigade Assault
From 24 to 27 January, the overall situation on the Western Front seemed favourable for the airborne
operation. The 11th Cavalry Corps of the
Thus, at 0400 on 27 January, General Zhukov send the following
message to 4th Airborne Corps at
Think over
the techniques of communications and give the men instructions so that
there are no misunderstandings .
" Levashev responded and ordered the 8th Airborne Brigade into action. A forward detachment
consisting of the 2d Parachute Battalion
under Capt.M. Ya. Karnaukhov was ordered to land at Ozerechnya and, by
organizing all-round defences, the
area for further landings of
the brigade.
Karnaukhov's
battalion left the Zhashkovo airfield at 1430 on 27 January. Because of poor
pilot orientation over the drop
area, the aircraft dropped the
paratroopers at high altitude far
south of the planned drop zone. The paratroopers landed scattered over an area
of twenty to twenty-five
kilometers radius around the
The German
command was almost immediately aware of the airborne drop. The 4th Panzer Army
received two reports. The first was
that Soviet troops with machine
guns and grenade launchers were
along the Vyaz'ma-Smolensk highway near Yakushkino.The second, from 11th Panzer Division, was that t between 1600 and1700 (after dusk) on 27 January,
twenty transport aircraft had dropped about 400 paratroopers near Mitino
station, west of Izdeshkovo
(probably Group Aksenov). Subsequent reports spoke of Soviet attacks on an 11th
Panzer Division battalion and a
309th Infantry Regiment battalion at Izyakovo and at several other points along
the Rollbahn. Other reports said
the airborne forces at Mitino had with drawn south of the Rollbahn. The 4th Panzer Army alerted all units in the region to the new
danger.
Meanwhile ,
Soviet airborne commanders
continued the painstakingly slow assembly of their scattered forces. The
Battalion's reassembly around Tabory took considerable time. Of the original
648 men dropped, only 318 had assembled by evening. The next morning, the total
had risen to476 men, but virtually all
the unit's supplies had been lost in the snow-covered fields and forests.
Karnaukhov faced immediate dilemma. Unable to establish contact with either 4th
Airborne Corps or the other brigade commanders and able to contact 8th Airborne Brigade headquarters only long enough to report "`landed
all right" before communications
failed, the commander could not notify headquarters of his new location. Nor could he make a
drop zone visible from the air
without confusing the main force, which expected him to be at Ozerechnya.
Consequently, on the morning of 28 January, Captain Karnaukhov moved part of his force to Tabory and established a landing zone
equipped with signals, in case
other units of the 8th
Airborne Brigade followed his
battalion's course. With his main force, he moved to Ozerechnya to establish
the prescribed landing strip.
Karnaukhov arrived at Ozerechnyaon the evening of the twenty-eighth only to find it
occupied by a small German force .He reconnoitred the German positions, and, during the night, the small Soviet
force attacks the garrison. On the
third attack, the Soviets the village while inflicting heavy
casualties on the small garrison, a company-size rear service unit. During the remainder of the
night, Karnaukhov's men prepared a
landing zone, established defences,
and scouted German approach
routes into the area.
Meanwhile, at Kafuga, the commander of airborne forces, without information from the forward detachment,
ordered the 8th Airborne Brigade main force to begin its assault on the
night of 27-28 January. During the
night I two flights dropped Maj. A. G. Kobets's 3d Battalion, along with heavy equipment, ammunition, and supplies. As on the previous day,
the drop was inaccurate, with half
the units landing in the Taboryarea
and the other half around Ozerechnya. The 3d Battalion could not establish communications with corps
until late on the twenty-eighth.
Unfortunate events in the rear further
complicated the complex situation
at the front. Throughout 28 January
1 German aircraft, probably aware of the
Soviet airborne operations)
bombed the airfield at Zhashkovo. When the Soviets switched to
Grabtsevo and Rzhavets airfields,
German bombers followed suit.
Ineffective Soviet air defences at all three locations allowed German
pilots to destroy seven TB-3 bombers, one fighter, and several fuel dumps. Ultimately, because of German air attacks, flights
from all three airfields ceased.
To clarify the confused situation, General Levashev, on 28 January, sent his assistant chief of
reconnaissance, Sr. Lt. Al P. Aksenov, in a PO-2 light aircraft to find the 2d Battalion's
landing area and to determine its condition. Two attempts to find the
battalion failed. On the second attempt, however, the
aircraft, short of fuel, landed at
Vorontsovo, twelve kilometers
southwest of Alferovo. At Vorontsovo, Lieutenant Aksenov discovered small groups of Soviettroops, but not the airborne
headquarters. Having reported to corps, he gathered 213 men and successfully
attacked and destroyed the small
German garrison at Vorontsovo. On 1
February, using captured German fuel, Aksenov flew to 8th Airborne Brigade headquarters at Androsovo. His detachment remained in
the area south of Izdeshkovoto harass German garrisons in the area.
Despite dwindling air transport, the landing of 8th
Airborne Brigade continued . On the night of 28-29 January, aircraft dropped 500 skis, ammunition, and supplies at
Ozereehnya. But of the original
aircraft only ten PS-84s and two TB-3s
remained serviceable. Twelve aircraft were damaged by antiaircraft
fire, two were shot down, seven required repairs, and one disappeared
while on a mission.
The
Stavka ordered additional aircraft to continue the operation and,
by 20.00h on 29 January, 540 more
men had been airdropped. On the
evening of 29-30 January, however
German aircraft again bombed the
Bad weather (snow with temperatures of
-4O’C) and enemy aircraft activity
had limited the total drop on 30 January to a mere 120 men. The
following day, 215 men jumped, including
the8th Brigade commander,
Lt. Col A. A. Onufriev. He also brought desperately needed arms and ammunition. Onufriev
brought with him 174 rifles, 129 automatic weapons, nine antitank
rifles,twenty-two machine pistols, twenty 82-mm mortars, five 50-mm mortars,
and a radio station.While parachute drops continued, at 0530 on 29 January, the
4th Airborne Corps commander ordered the aviation group to
reconnoitre landing areas systematically to find his subordinate units. Only on 31 January did a clear picture
of airborne dispositions begin to emerge.
After having landed, Onufriev moved westward to Captain Karnaukhov's
position. Assisted by a platoon sent out by the 2d Battalion, the two forces merged on 31 January. Onufriev reported to both General Levashev and General Zhukov that the Germans
held the nearby road junction of Yermolino-Bessonovo, perhaps in
infantry Battalion strength supported
by tanks and armoured cars.
Smaller German units occupied the villages of Alferovo, Boromaya, and Yermolina
; the German garrison at Izdeshkovo
(units of 11th Panzer Division and
4th Panzer Army rear service units) numbered about 400 men. Out of radio contact, Onufriev's own brigade was dispersed in
the Ozerechnya, Androsovo, and Komovo areas.
While Lieutenant Colonel Onufriev
operated with the 2d
Battalion, Major Kobets’s 3d
Battalion sought to accomplish its mission. Onufriev's battalion had been scattered over a large area on
the night of 27-28 January, and Major Kobets had landed near Androsovo. Rather than wait for his forces to assemble, Kobets, with a detachment of
131 men, moved on his objectives,
the rail line and road west
of Vyaz'ma. After several days of
fighting, Kobets's detachment cut
German communications between Alferovo and Rebrovo and then slipped away from German infantry
reinforced by armoured trains sent
to destroy the pesky Soviet unit.
The 3d Battalion occupied defensive positions on the southern edge of the forest north of Yeskovo and repelled a
German force dispatched from Alferovo. The next day, the 3d Battalion took Yeskovo, destroyed the garrison,
and cut the rail line. At first on 7 February, the Germans again attacked from
Rebrovo but were repulsed.
Subsequent heavy German attacks
finally drove Kobets's detachment into
the forests west of
Yeskovo, where it continued
to harass German communications and forced the Germans to provide heavy escorts
of tanks and armoured cars to protect their convoys and ensure their safe arrival. The Germans burned all villages in the
area to deny food and shelter to the Soviets. In mid-February, after repeated
unsuccessful attempts to reach 8th
Airborne Brigade,the 3d Battalion finally broke out of the German encirclement
south via Ugra station and met units
of 1st Guards Cavalry Corps and 8th
Airborne Brigade. The 3d Battalion's twenty-one-day raid, during which Major
Kobets was wounded three times, had considerable diversionary value. It had cut
the Vyaz'ma-Smolensk road and forced German 4th Panzer Army to commit
valuable forces to
reopen the army's lines of communication.
Major Kobets's battalion and other Soviet
airborne and cavalry units cut the Vyaz"ma-Smolensk Rollbahn repeatedly after 27 January,
causing the German higher command
considerable concern. On 31 January, Halder noted:
In Center, . . . the situation
remains tight.
More heavy fighting on the supply road to
Yukhnov. The enemy is moving new forces westward
through the gap between Fourth Army and Fourth
Panzer Army. The attack to seal the gap
has been
Postponed to 3 Feb. . . . Enemy air landings
continue. Highway and railroad lines between
Smolensk-Vyaz'ma still not cleared.
Condition of
troops ' Fourth Army is serious!. SUPPLY
. . difficulties.
Two days
later, Halder revealed his
impressions of the expanding
battle:
The enemy elements that infiltrated behind our
front are now being attacked by Fifth Armoured
[Panzer] Division. The scenes in this battle
behind the front are absolutely grotesque and
testify to the degree to which this war
has
degenerated into a sort of slugging bout
that has
no resemblance whatever to any form of
warfare we
have known.
The 4th
Panzer Army records confirm that the Rallbahn west of Vyaz'ma was closed continuously
for three days after January 28.
Meanwhile, despite the uncertain situation, landing
operations continued. Throughout
31. January, another 389 men dropped
into the area. Flights finally
halted on 1 February, for the overall military situation indicated the
hopelessness of continuing the
effort: For six days, from 27
January through 1 February,2,081 of the 3,062 men of 8th Airborne Brigade landed along with 120 automatic pistols, 72 antitank rifles, 20 82-mm mortars, and 30 light mortars.
Of those men, only 1,320 ultimately managed to join Lieutenant Colonel Onufriev's main force.
In
addition, seventy-six men of the 214th Airborne Brigade landed to establish
communications with 11th Cavalry
north of the diversionary
Vyasma-Smolensk road and to conduct diversionary operations. With these
few lightly equipped units, the 8th Airborne Brigade now had to cope with a new
operational situation.
As the drops proceeded, conditions on the Western Front were changing. The 11th Cavalry Corps failed to cut the Smolensk-Vyaz'ma
highway, and German forces
drove the cavalry units northwest
of Vyaz'ma. Lead elements of the 33d Army pushed into the area immediately east
of Vyas'ma, But German counterattacks threatened to cut these units off from
the remainder of the 33d Army. Farther south, Belov's 1st Guards Cavalry Corps
forced its way across the
Moscow-Warsaw highway southwest of
Yukhnov and joined Major Soldatov's
airborne force, only to find
that the Germans had slammed the trapdoor shut, cutting off Belov's retreat and separating him from his two rifle divisions and his artillery,
which remained south of the road.
With his own light cavalry force of the 1st Guards and 2d Guards Cavalry divisions, 57thand 75th Light Cavalry divisions,
and Major Soldatov’s airborne
force, Belov faced heavily armed German forces at Vyaz'ma.In these
circumstances and under incessant
German air attacks, further drops
of 4th Airborne Corps ceased. The
remaining airborne forces moved by
rail from
8th Airborne
Brigade Operations
Without
reinforcements, Onufriev's 8th Airborne Brigade operated with the 746 men who had assembled by 1300 on
1 February. For seven days, his
units attacked the small German garrisons south of Vyaz"ma, spreading chaos in the German
rear, but never seriously threatening any critical German installation.
All Soviet units in the Vyaz'ma area were in an equally
uncomfortable situation. In reduced
strength, 8th Airborne Brigade harassed German garrisons and dodged the blows
of German 5th and 11th Panzer divisions. Moving up from the south,1st Guards
Cavalry Corps encountered heavy German opposition near Tesnikovo, Maloshino,
and Kapustino while, in the
cavalry’s rear, a
strong German garrison held out at Semlevo. On 4 February, the western Front
commander ordered Belov to attack Vyaz'ma from the south, in coordination with
33d Army, east of Vyaz'ma, and 11th
Cavalry Corps, fifteen kilometers west of Vyaz'ma on the Moscow-Minsk
highway. The Germans repelled all of Belov's attacks and inflicted heavy
casualties on the cavalry units. Only the
Also on 6 February, German 5th Army
Corps received from 4thPanzerArmy
the missions of coordinating the defense of the Vyaz'ma-Smolensk Rollbahn and of maintain in contact with
4th Army alongthe Vyaz'ma-Yukhnov road. To this end, 5th Army Corps deloyed the 5th Panzer, 106th Infantry,
and 11th Panzer Divisions and south of the railroad and
highway running west from Vyaz'ma
toward
As German defences jelled, Belov
received a new order on 7 February:
Advance to the east with all forces of the 8th
Brigade and take Gredyakino, interdict
the
Vyaz'ma-Izdeshkovo rail line and
prevent the
movement of enemy trains. Enter into com-
munications with the 75th Gavalry
Division
advancing east of Gredyakino and with Sokolov
[llth Cavalry Corps] about which I wrote you
previously.
The 1,320 men of 8th Airborne
Brigade at Izborovo were now
subordinated to General Belov's corps, and he ordered them to attack east,
secure Gredyakino; and cut the railway line from Vyaz'ma to Izdeshkovo in coordination with 11th Cavalry Corps. The 8th Airborne Brigade would penetrate enemy defences from
Dyaglevo to Savino and attack along the road from Vyaz'ma to Dorogobuzh to secure Gredyakino. Initially, on 8 February,
the brigade had some success and captured Savino, Semenovskoye, and Gvozdikovo. The following day, the brigade pushed on to take
Dyaglevo and Marmonovo, where they
claimed to destroy the headquarters
of 5th Panzer Division, which was actually a battalion of the 106th Infantry
Division. But this success was
short lived because German
reinforcements counterattacked
Dyaglevo from Pesoehnya and
Staroye Polyanovo. Although repulsed, the
attacks cost the 8th Brigade
another 140 casualties.
German 4th
Panzer Army estimated Soviet strength in the German rear area at 12,000 men and
German strength in the same area at only 7,000 men.
At first light on the eleventh, elements of the German 106th Infantry
and 11th Panzer divisions attacked
south from Semlevo station and southwest from Vyaz'main force, driving the 8th
Brigade from Dyaglevo and
severing brigade contact with
1stGuards Cavalry Corps and Kobets's 3d Battalion. Although the 4lst Cavalry
Division had joined the 8th Brigade, Dyaglevo could not be retaken. By 13
January, the 106th Infantry
Division had reoccupied Marmonovo. On the fifteenth, Dyaglevo fell, and Soviet units withdrew
into the forests between Dyaglevo
and Semlevo. Belov ceased his attacks on Selivano, Stogovo, and Zabnovo in
support of the 329th Rifle Division
of 33d Army and the 250th Airborne Regiment and instead assisted the 8th Airborne Brigade in its attack
on Semlevo. The brigade commander
notified front headquarters of his
problems, and front ordered the
brigade to join Belov in his bypass
of Pesochnya to take Semlevo.37 Once Semlevo had fallen, the two units could
combine with 11th Cavalry Corps in an attack on Vyaz'ma from the
west. Such plans, however, were not grounded in reality.
Deep snow delayed the attack by 1st
Guards Cavalry Division and 114th
Ski Battalion on Semlevo. The 75th Light Cavalry Division reinforced the
attack and gained a foothold in
Semlevo, but no more. The 8th Airborne Brigade joined Belov at Semlevo just as major German Infantry and armour units
counterattacked on 15 February.
The
concentric German attack now
included elements of the 106th Infantry,11thPanzer, and 5th Panzer divisions.
Now down to forty-nine tanks, the5thPanzer Division Advanced through heavy snow
from Stogovo toward Semlevo. The 106th Infantry Division, with fourteen or fifteen tanks and
artillery, moved southward from
Semlevo, while a battalion of 11th Panzer Division advanced on Belomir to the west of 106th Infantry
Division.38 The German counter
attacks forced Belov's units to withdraw westward to strike the rail line in a
less well defended German sector. Belov left the 250th Airborne Regiment and 329th Rifle Division in the area
southeast of Vyaz'ma to continue harassing German forces. All attempts to
link up with 11th Cavalry Corps were in vain.
For more
than a month, 8th Airborne Brigade operated with1st Guards Cavalry Corps behind
German lines, first attacking the rail line west of Vyaz'ma and then, on 7 March, swinging
southeast in an attempt to relieve
the encircled 329th Rifle Division and 250th Airborne Regiment that was surrounded by German forces east of Debrevo and
Knyazhnoe at Perekhody .From 7 to 13 March, Soviet attacks failed to break the German encirclement, although
Major Soldatov did manage to penetrate the German cordon with
seventy-five ski troopers. By 14 March, 250 to 300 men from the 329th Rifle
Division finally broke out to join Belov, but no more.
The Germans referred to this encirclement
operation as the Andrejany Kessel (Andrejany Cauldron).
The 5th
Panzer Division and 23d Infantry Division (that arrived 24 February) reduced
the pocket. The 4th Panzer Army claimed 2,380 Soviet soldiers killed and 1,762
prisoners. MS no. P-116 states that Soviet losses were 5,000 killed and 700
prisoners.
The 8th Airborne Brigade continued to operate with 1st Guards Cavalry Corps
west of the rail line from Vyaz'ma to Ugra station until6 April. The next day, the brigade
rejoined its parent 4th Airborne
Corps, then fighting in the German rear
on the Yukhnov axis. Smaller
groups of the8th Airborne Brigade,
including the original seven
diversionary groups, continued
operations in a wide area southwest
of Vyaz'ma. Elements of 3d
Battalion and partisans operated near Dorogobuzh until they rejoined their
brigade on 8 March. A 1st Battalion group was active in the Yurkino area. A
large group supplemented by
partisans near Dorogobuzh attacked
and captured the town on the night
of 13-14 February. A 1st
Guards Cavalry Corps regiment
reinforced these units,
which for several months held
Dorogobuzh as a major base for Partisan operations.
Conclusions
For more than one month in German rear areas, 8th Airborne Brigade conducted a running fight with
enemy units around Vyaz'ma. What
had begun as a major airborne operation to assist in
the destruction of
It was evident early that planning had
been correct in outline, but weak
in detail. Initial bottle necks in
the availability of transport aircraft forced the corps to issue
fragmentary orders on the eve of
each drop. The failures of disoriented
air crews to drop their
cargoes of men and equipment in the correct zones disrupted planned deployment of forces forward and
hindered staff officers in keeping track
of force deployment.
Piecemeal delivery only compounded dispersion and resulted in "penny
packet' employment of the force after landing, On the ground, troops fought as
well as could have been expected,
but their numbers and armament were simply
not sufficient for the task, a deficiency planners should have foreseen.
As a result, the full drop of 4th Airborne Corps aborted, and 8th Airborne
Brigade, along with the units it
was supposed to cooperate with(1st Guards Cavalry Corps and 33d Army), was, by
the middle of February, surrounded
and fighting for survival. So, the Stavka committed a new and
larger airborne force to reinforce them in their struggle.
OPERATIONAL
EMPLOYMENT: VYAZ'MA, FEBRUARY-JUNE 1942
Operational Planning
Despite advancing up to 250 kilometers in
some sectors and making temporary
penetrations in others, the January
Soviet offensive did not achieve its objectives.
Operational gains came only at a prohibitive cost in
men and equipment and never translated into strategic victory. The most articulate
Soviet assessment reasoned that:
“the absence of large tank units, of powerful
aviation, of sufficiently strong artillery, of a
fresh flow of reserves, understrength forces,
large
deficiencies and difficulties in logistics
(first and foremost weapons and
ammunition)--all
that rendered impossible the decisive development
of success to the depth of the defence
after a
penetration of the enemy front was realized--
finally, the Western Front was capable of
conducting operations only in separate
sectors
with limited means.”
The great, surging Soviet
counteroffensive was over, but the Stavka
renewed its efforts to liquidate the Germans in the Yukhnov pocket and
link up front forces with Soviet forces
now trapped in the Vyaz'ma
pocket, namely, 8th Airborne
Brigade, 1st Guards CavalryCorps,
and four divisions of 33d Army. On
1 February, the Stavka appointed
General Zhukov to
coordinate those efforts as
supreme commander offorces on the
western direction, specifically the
The German situation had improved markedly by early
February (see map 11). The Germans
firmly held Vyaz'ma, and the Soviet threat of 11th Cavalry and 1st Guards Cavalry corps had
ebbed on both flanks. The right wing of 4th Panzer Army (20th Army Corps) had linked up with the left wing of 4th
Army (12thArmy Corps) and constructed an unbroken front east of the
the Germans
had surrounded 33d Army's four
advanced divisions southeast of
Vyaz'ma, threatening the Soviet divisions with piecemeal
destruction. The Gzhatsk-Yukhnov line remained firm, as did German positions facing westward
from Rzhev toward Sychevka. The
12th,13th, and 43d Army corps of 4th Army defended the northern, eastern, and
southern approaches to Yukhnov,
while 57th Army Corps and 10th Motorized Division of 4th Army worked
frantically to create a continuous defensive line to protect the Moscow-Warsaw Rollbahn southwest of Yukhnov. With the Moscow-Warsaw and Moscow-Minsk
roads under German control, Soviet forces of the Western Front's left wing (10th,
50th, and 49th armies) were contained the Moscow-Warsaw highway. The
Stavka understood that if left unchanged, this situation doomed the encircled Soviet forces near
Vyaz'ma.If those encircled forces
were crushed, the Germans would further
strengthen their front with units
presently tied down in
reducing the encircled Soviet
forces.
At the Stavka's direction, Zhukov agreed to a limited offensive designed to free
encircled forces, cut a gap in the
Moscow-Warsaw road, and, if possible, encircle the German Yukhnov Group. The Stavka
transferredthe4th AirborneCorps to
Western Front control to provide Zhukov additional strength. The corps
had the 9th and 214th Airborne brigades, plus the 1st
Battalion, 8th Airborne Brigade.
Its mission was to jump Into the Velikopol'ye, Shushman, and
Zhelan’ye areas and to
conduct operations toward
Pesochnya, Klyuchi, Tynovka,
and Leonovo, adjacent to the
Moscow-Warsaw road. In coordination with50th Army, it would also continue
operations against the Germans around Yukhnov.
Lt.
Gen .
The defences the Germans had just erected
along and South of the
Xoseow-Warsaw Rollbahn southwest of Yukhnov were tenuous. The 57th Panzer Corps
defended the sector that Belov's
cavalry corps had passed through two weeks earlier. The 19thG Panzer Division,
137th Infantry Division, one regiment of the 52d Infantry Division, and a portion of the 10th Motorized
Division defended a twenty-kilometer stretch of the road southwest of the
Also besieged by the cold and snow
north of the Moscow-Warsaw Rollbahn
and along the Vyaz'ma-Yukhnovroad were the rear service areas of 4th
Army's front-line divisions and
scattered army security and support units. These units would be the first obstacles for
the Soviet airborne force to
overcome. South of the projected
airborne landing area were rear
service elements of the 31st
Infantry Division in the villages of Pesochnya, Dertovaya, and Klyuchi and in nearby hamlets. East
of the landing site, at and around Zherdovka and Podsosonki, were elements of the 13lst Infantry Division. To the northeast, rear elements of the98thInfantry
Division and a 4th Army SS Police
Regiment garrisoned the key
Alarmed by the earlier airborne
operations of the 250th Airborne Regiment and by Belov's recent operations,
these small garrisons had erected all-round defences centred on the stone houses of the villages.
Where possible, the Germans had
'built breastworks and, often, snow and ice barricades and ramparts.
Villages ithin artillery of
one another had prearranged
mutual defensive fires. Scarce armoured vehicles and transport vehicles had
been formed into mobile detachments
to patrol the snow-covered roads and to maintain tenuous
communications, especially along the Rollbahn and Vyaz'na-Yukhnov supply
arteries. In mid-February, with their attention riveted on the strained front
lines, the Germans endured the cold isolation and awaited the Russians' next move, scarcely suspecting it would again cane from the skies.
4th Airborne Corps Assault
The 4th Airborne Corps
staged from the Lyubertsy and Vnukovo airfields. Partisans of the 1st Partisan
Regiment operating in the Zhelanye area under Kirillov would assist the corps
landing and assembly of forces. The 4th Airborne Corps would drop from two
flights of aircraft on each of three nights. An aviation transport group of
forty-one PS-84s and twenty-three TB-3s would carry the paratroopers. Although
plans existed to drop radio crews before the operation, none were actually
dropped. Instead, partisan units lit bonfires to guide the planes to their
destinations. This tactic had limited success; however, for numerous fires
existed anyway because of the cold and the fog, and the Germans had lit
diversionary fires, Moreover German aircraft also guided on the fires.
On the night of 17-18
February, the first battalion from 8th Airborne Brigade dropped. As in the
earlier drop in January, instead of jumping, from 600 meters, the paratroopers
had to jump from 1,000 to 1,200 meters because of weather and fog. The wide
dispersion of men and supplies and the deep snow made reassembly difficult in
the severe terrain of the forested, road less region. Once again, many aircraft
lost their way and returned with their human cargo rather than risk dropping
them into enemy strongholds. Disrupted flight schedules prompted extra sorties
and required more time for the actual drop.
From 17 to 23 February, the
9th and 214th airborne brigades jumped into their drop zones. Misfortune struck
on the last evening of drops when German aircraft intercepted the transport
carrying the corps commander and staff officers. The damaged transport escaped,
but the German attack had killed General Levashev and wounded several staff
officers. The corps chief of staff,
The Germans noted the drop
but could do little to disrupt it beyond dispatching a few air sorties to
intervene. Since the dramatic, large-scale landing of the Soviet 250th Airborne
Regiment on 20 January, German 4th Army had recorded numerous small air
landings at Lugi and Velikopol’ye. Suddenly, on the nights of 19 and 20
February , the 4th Army war diary recorded a significant surge in activity when
the 52d Infantry Division reported that 145 aircraft had landed without interference
on brightly lit fields at Lugi and Velikopol’ye. Initially, the fatigue
of overworked German aircrews had prevented effective Luftwaffe interference
with the landings. Although air sorties were flown against the airborne forces,
4th Army regarded the efforts of the German air force as unsuccessful. Ground
reaction was similarly ineffective. Weather conditions and shortages of
ammunition for artillery pieces precluded resistance or offensive action.
Moreover, 4th Army lamented the inability of its units to prevent the airborne
forces from cutting the Vyaz’ma-Yukhnov road. Even the strongest German
garrison could do little to thwart the airborne landings.
Once over the initial
surprise, the Germans anxiously waited the paratroopers’ next move. The
long period of airborne assembly and regrouping caused the Germans to
underestimate the total enemy force and to wonder about Soviet intent. Russian
inactivity caused subsequent critics to question 4th Army and 43d Army Corps
estimates that 3,000 paratroopers had landed. In fact, more than 7,000 Soviet
troops had made the jump, and about 5,000 had successfully assembled.
While the Germans puzzled
over Soviet intentions, Colonel Kazankin, by the evening of 23 February, had
established communications with his 9th and 214th Airborne brigades, which had
reassembled at Svintsovo and Gryada, respectively. He had also contacted 50th
Army and learned that its units were locked in heavy fighting with the Germans
at Sapovo and Savinki near the
February, Offensive
Colonel Kazankin ordered
his forces to make a two-pronged attack southward toward the Warsaw road and
50th Army,13 From its jumping-off area at Glukhovo, 9th Airborne Brigade was
supposed to advance throughVyazovets, Kurak ino, and Klyuchi ; occupy
Preobrazhensk and Vyazovets ; and then destroy the enemy in the
Pesochnya,Klyuchi, and Tynovka strongpoints. One battalion (4th) with partisans
attached was to secure Ugra station. The 214th Airborne Brigade was supposed to
seize Ivantsevo and Tat’yanino and reach Novaya, Mokhnatka, and Leonovo
by the evening of 24 February. The 1st Partisan Regiment I subordinate to 4th
Airborne Corps, would cover the airborne forces’ rear along a line
through Gorodyanka, Svir idovo, Andr iyaki , and Bel’ dyugino against
German attacks from the direction of Znamenka and Vyaz’ma. Part of the
force was to cooperate with the 4tb Battalion, 9th Brigade, in attacks on Ugra
station. Three hundred men of the 4th Battalion, 8th Brigade, were reserves for
4th Airborne Corps. The remaining 250 men of this battalion had jumped into the
Yurkino area near Dorogobuzh to reinforce their parent unit. Almost all Soviet
movement and combat were to be conducted at night to capitalize on darkness and
to avoid detection and attack by German air units. Darkness provided security,
but it also meant slow movement through the deep snows of the rough terrain.
On the night of 23-24
February--which in peacetime would have marked the end of Red Army Day
festivities celebrating the Soviet Army’s birthday--Colonel Kazankin led
his brigades southward. The advance initially fared well. Colonel
Kuryshev’s 9th Airborne Brigade overran several German outposts, and a
surprise attack secured Vertekhovo station from Group Haase before the Germans
could react. Heavy German automatic weapons fire from positions in Ekaterinovka
and Pesochnya halted the brigade advance on the outskirts of Prechistoye and
Kurakino. Lieutenant Colonel Kolobovnikov’s 214th Airborne
Brigade’ssurprise night attack had only limited success againstIvantsevo,
Kostinki, and Zherdovka. Insufficient Soviet artillery and mortar preparation
and heavy German fire thwarted the attacks.
German rear service units
from five regiments of the 13lst, 31st, and 34th Infantry divisions were
strongly entrenched in a thick network of villages, the strongest of which were
Dubrovna, Kurakino, Der tovaya, Gorbachi, Kostinki, Ivantsevo, Pesochnya, and
Klyuchi. Each of the villages was a company-size strongpoint for all-round
defence, and a system of mutually supporting automatic weapons and artillery
fires tied each village into a defensive network with nearby villages.
Moreover, the Germans had been alerted to the presence of the airborne units,
but they did not know the units’ precise location.
On the morning of 25
February, the airborne corps relied on resolute surprise attacks to reduce
these villages. By day’s end, 9th Airborne Brigade had secured Dubrovna,
Kurakino,
In spite of heavy German
opposition, the airborne corps had advanced twenty to twenty-five kilometers on
separate axes toward their junction with 50th Army, which was still fighting
over a sector of the Moscow-Warsaw road. Elements of the 4th Airborne Corps and
partisans along the rail line north of Ugra station succeeded in taking
Debransky and Subbotnik from Group Haase. They captured seven rail cars full of
bombs I food, and weapons. Fighting farther south near Ugra station revealed
strong German garrisons at each station of the Vyaz ‘ma-Kirov rail line,
demonstrating the great importance the Germans attached to defence of the
railroad. 17 The major objectives for the airborne forces were the German
strongpoint’s at Pesochnya and Klyuchi, whose capture would open the way
to Astapovo,Lyud kova , and 50th Army.
Klyuchi was the key. At a
critical road junction on a ridge, it dominated the surrounding flat
countryside. Moreover, its defensive network interlocked with other villages,
which , taken together, dominated the
On the morning of 27
February, with the
March Offensive
The respite from combat,
however, was brief. Taking advantage of superior mobility and firepower, a
German battalion of infantry supported by artillery and tanks began
counterattacks north of the highway. Repeated German attacks from 1 to 5 March
failed to dislodge the Soviet paratroopers from their defensive line. This
time, the Soviet airborne force had the advantage of a village and forest-based
defence, while German mobile forces, once they had left the road, found the
going difficult in the forests north of the highway.
On 4 March, developments to
the northeast resulted in new orders for the airborne corps. Soviet 43d and
49th Army pressure on Yukhnov had finally forced the Germans to abandon the
city and the salient around it. The 43d Army Corps withdrew its remaining
divisions from the Yukhnov to the southwest where they joined the 137th
Infantry Division and other 4th Army units in defences south of the
Moscow-Warsaw Rollbahn. Each division occupied a sector for all-round defence.
The bulk of each division's strength faced southeast against Soviet 5Oth Army.
Small battalion-size Kampfgruppen, often organized from division support units,
occupied villages north of the Rollbahn to defend against Soviet airborne.
Cavalry, and partisan units. These divisions relied on the interlocking village
defences and Rollbahn communications to thwart Soviet attacks. Until the end-of
winter, 43d Army Corps relied on occasional battalion-size forays north of the
road to keep Soviet forces in the rear from mounting a successful, concerted
drive southward to link up with 50th Army. On 7 March, 43d Army Corps assumed
responsibility for the entire Rollbahn defence. While 43d Army Corps moved
southwest of Yukhnov, the 12th and 13th Army Gorps' of 4th Army occupied
prepared positions facing east along the Ugra and Ressa rivers.
In a flash of optimism
generated by the German withdrawal, the chief of staff of the Western Front
sent out the following orders:
Comrade Boldin [5Oth Army]
, Comrade Kazankin [4th Airborne]. Enemy is withdrawing from Yukhnov along the
Vyaz'ma highway.
High Command order:
- Comrade Boldin, strengthen the tempo of
the offensive, in every possible way cut the
- Comrade Kazankin, while fulfilling the basic
mission--strike against Malyshevka and Grachevka and send part of the
force to cut the Vyaz'ma highway near Slobodka. Organize ambushes alongthe
Vyaz'ma highway to destroy the enemy.
On 3 March, General Boldin
dispatched his assistant chief of reconnaissance in a PO-2 aircraft to 4th
Airborne Corps headquarters to coordinate the upcoming operations. Boldin
passed word to Kazankin that, in view of Kazankin's failure to break the German
front at Lavrishehevo and Adamovka, 50th Army would now attack toward hill
253.2. The following morning, Boldin specified that 50th Army's attack route to
the hill would be via Solov'yevka and Makarovka and that the attack would occur
on the night of 5-6 March against the German 31st, 34th and 137th Infantry
divisions. He requested that 4th Airborne Corps cooperate, first by sending
reconnaissance forces toward 50th Army and then by attacking to meet 50th Army
units.
Map 16. German 137th Infantry Division
Defensive Area
Colonel Kazankin followed
Boldin’s request and assigned 9th Airborne Brigade, reinforced by the
corps’s artillery battalion and part of the 214th Airborne Brigade, to
secure Malyshevka and subsequently Bavykino (800 meters from the Warsaw road),
where 50th Army advance units had promised to meet the airborne force. The 9th
Airborne Brigade would attempt to take Malyshevka by envelopment, a
simultaneous surprise attack from both flanks and from the front. The 214th
Airborne Brigade covered 9th Airborne Brigade’s right flank by an advance
on Pesochnya.
While in the woods north of
Malyshevka, Colonel Kuryshev of 9th Airborne Brigade issued orders to battalion
commanders and organized fire support. A short artillery barrage would precede
the 0300 infantry attack. After dark, the battalions began their painstaking
advance to assault positions. The 2d Battalion ran into problems early. At
2100, while moving through the northern edge of woods one kilometer south of
Klyuchi, the unit encountered heavy German fire and halted. The 3d and 4th
battalions continued to advance, expecting to make a coordinated attack. At
0100, the 3d Battalion approached Malyshevka from the northeast and, at first
light, attacked without waiting for the 4th Battalion. Heavy German resistance
and a flank attack by a German ski battalion forced 3d Battalion back toward
Gorbachi. With 3d Battalion already repulsed, 4th Battalion arrived late
because of the deep snow, attacked Malyshevka, and secured footholds in the
northwest and northeast portions of the village Immediate German counterattacks,
however, denied 4th Battalion time to dig in and drove the unit north out of
the village.
The supposedly concerted
Soviet attack failed. Poor reconnaissance resulted in underestimation of German
Strength in Malyshevka, which actually numbered two infantry battalions with
antitank guns and mortars, later reinforced by a ski battalion. The disjointed
nature of the attack also doomed the operation. German reserves
counterattacking on 6 March forced the airborne force to conduct a gruelling
withdrawal through deep snow at agonizingly slow speeds (one kilometer an hour)
back to its original assembly areas. After its unsuccessful offensive, 4th
Airborne Corps, on 7 March, tried to consolidate its defensive area by
capturing German positions at Pesochnya and Ekaterinovka. Both attempts failed.
The 4th Airborne
Corps’s attempt to link up with 50th Army was condemned to failure in
advance e The corps ’ s 3,000 men, with their light weapons and short sup
lies, were exhausted by more than two weeks of combat an cr were siapl too weak
to engage the heavy German defensive line. 56 The front commander had
overestimated the capability of his forces. The 50th Army had provedearlier the
futility of trying to break the formidable German defenses on the Moscow-Warsaw
road. After the failed linkup, the situation stabilized. Airborne forces
continued conducting diversionary operations against the German rear from their
base area near Zhelan’ye.
Concentrating their forces
for operations along a number of axes, the Germans sought to root out and crush
the troublesome airborne force. The bulk of the 131st and elements of the 34th
Infantry divisions, reinforced by the 449th Infantry Regiment of 137th Infantry
Division, massed near Kostinki, Leonovo, Ivantsevo, Dertovaya, and Andronovo to
push toward Novaya, while elements of the 331st and 31st Infantry divisions
assembled south of 4th Airborne Corps positions. The Germans built a strong
defensive cordon around the airborne force with minefields, snow barriers,
abates, and pillboxes to restrict airborne force movement along the
Slobodka-Znaaenka road and toward the Moscow-Warsaw highway. Meanwhile, German
task-organized mobile groups planned to penetrate the airborne defensive area
from the southeast and south.
On 11 March, after a
thorough reconnaissance of the area, the German 13lst Infantry Division
attacked Andronovo and Yurkino after an artillery preparation. The Germans
attacked three sides at first light. They forced two platoons of 4th Battalion,
214th Airborne Brigade, to withdraw into the woods west of Yurkino where the
Soviets managed to hold their positions. German attacks in the center of the
corps defense against Novaya and Tat’yanino failed. Particularly heavy
fighting occurred at Gorbachi, a key Soviet strongpoint within artillery range
of the
At dawn on 13 March, after
an intense artillery preparation, two German infantry battalions from the 3lst
and 34th Infantry divisions attacked Gorbachi from the northeast, west, and
south. Repeated German assaults, taken under fire by the paratroopers at ranges
of fifty to seventy meters, finally secured a foothold in the airborne defence.
The 1st Battalion, 9th Airborne Brigade, was unable to dislodge the Germans. At
1700, the commander of 2d Battalion, Capt. S. P. Plotnikov, dispatched one of
his companies from Klyuchi on skis to reinforce the 1st Battalion. Advancing
rapidly through the forest, the ski battalion attacked the German left flank
and forced a German withdrawal to Astapovo. By 1800, the two battalions had
driven the last German troops from barns on the northern side of the village.
The 2d Battalion commander’s decisiveness and skilful manoeuvre had won
the battle. A telegram from the Western Front Military Council lauded the
efforts of the airborne force: “The Corps operated in outstanding
fashion, in spite of difficulties. Give to the units operating in the Gorbaehi
region my thanks. “
Yet, despite the victory at Gorbachi and a
respite offered by the arrival of a major snowstorm on 14 March, German
pressure increased unrelentingly as German reinforcements continued to arrive
in the area. By 18 March, the 131st Infantry Division had taken Pushkino from
the 4th Battalion, 214th Airborne Brigade, and had reduced the battalion to
only thirty men. The Germans had threatened
Despite 4th Airborne
Corps’s 19 March withdrawal to better defensive positions, German attacks
continued. On 25 March, German units penetrated the positions of Capt. D.
Having both suffered and
inflicted heavy losses, 4th Airborne Corps units abandoned the three
strongpoints and established new defenses in the forests to the northwest.
The 4th Airborne
Corps’s March defensive battles achieved limited success in holding off
the attacks of elements of three German divisions. But the suffered greatly. By
the end of March, 2.000 paratroopers where sick or wounded, including 600 who
required evacuation. Supplies were short, antitank ammunition was gone, and
rations were very low. Without reinforcement, there was little chance to resist
against the continuing German attacks. Furthermore, the imminent spring thaw
would make movement even more difficult than had the earlier heavy snow cover.
While the airborne force
tried to join 50th Army, other encircled Soviet forces fought for survival. By
mid-April, elements of 33d Army had been decimated under constant German
counterattacks. 32 Remnants of the 329th Rifle Division, 33d Army, and the
250th Airborne Regiment, separated from 33d Army, managed to join Belov’s
1st Guards Cavalry Corps, but only after the Germans had destroyed the bulk of
those units in late March in a pocket north of Perekhody. The 1st Guards
Cavalry Corps, thwarted in its attempts either to free Vyaz’ma or to
rescue 33d Army, withdrew its depleted forces westward toward Dorogobuzh where,
supported by partisans, it reorganized its units and replenished its supplies
in March. Belov disbanded his three light cavalry divisions and used them to reinforce
his remaining units. The 1st and 2d Guards Cavalry divisions, the 329Lh Rifle
Division remnants, and two partisan detachments.
April Offensive
By late March, it was
apparent that Only joint efforts of the encircled units would ensure their
survival as fighting entities. In late March, Belov’s cavalry corps moved
eastward in a last, futile attempt to rescue the remnants of 33d Army or,
failing that, to join with 4th Airborne Corps reinforce joint efforts break out
of German encirclement.
As 1st Cavalry Corps moved
east, German attacks on 4th Airborne Corps intensified. The German 131st
Infantry Division’s attacks on 2 and 3 April hit airborne positions at
Novinskaya, Dacha, and Akulovo, further shrinking the restricted airborne
defensive perimeter. German tanks and artillery made the task of defence even
more difficult.
Map 18. Territory Occupied by Belov’s
Forces, March-May 1942
On 7 April, the 4th
Airborne Corps received some assistance when 8th Airborne Brigade returned to
its parent unit from 1st Guards Cavalry Corps. Reduced to reinforced battalion
strength in the fighting alongside Belov, Colonel Kazankin assigned to the 8th
Brigade defensive positions on the 4th Airborne Corps right flank along the
rail line from Preobrazhensk to Zhukovka. This was the weakest portion’
of the airborne defensive line, and indications were that German forces were
beginning to mount counterattacks there. The only other Soviet force in the
region was the 2d Guards Cavalry Division. Belov had dispatched it south to
help Kazankin after the failure of the final attempts to rescue 33d Army. The
2d Guards Cavalry Division, after securing Ugra station, occupied positions in
the Baskakovka area and, from 7 April, operated with 8th Airborne Brigade to
repel German probes north along the rail line from Buda. To further complicate
matters for the Soviets, the German Group Haase still held out at Voznesenfye
and Senyutino in the rear of 2d Guards Cavalry Division.
Kazankin’s fears for
his right flank were well founded. On 9 April, after a systematic
reconnaissance, German forces with air, artillery, and armour support struck
northward against the junction between 2d Guards Cavalry Division and 4th
Airborne Corps, Following heavy fighting, the Germans secured Vertekhovo station
Zhukovka. By nightfall on the tenth, the German force had also seized Ugra
station and Kombaya and had lifted Soviet siege of the German garrison at Voznesen’ye.
The slashing German attack continued on the eleventh with other German forces
advancing from the northeast.
With the situation rapidly
deteriorating, Belov fired off the following message to Zhukov’s
headquarters:
I am
reporting to you an assessment of conditions and proposals. The extent of the corps
front in encirclement exceeds 300 kilometers. Enemy strength: On a Pine
Milyatino-Yel’nya determined to be six infantry divisions. Toward Ye1
‘nya are fortifications from Roslavl to
Conclusion:
The corps participates
in the encirclement of the Vyaz’ma-Yel’nya-Spas Demensk enemy group
and in its turn is in operational encirclement.
The strength of the corps
and extent of the front forces me to turn to defensive operations. The
initiative is clearly in the hands of the enemy. There are no reserves. In such
conditions, I suggest an offensive plan:
1.
To
break the encirclement ring to meet 50th Army in the general direction of
Milyatino.
2.
To
this end concentrate in Vskhody a shock group made up of 1st and 2d Guards
Cavalry Divisions, 4th Airborne Corps, and partisan detachment Zhabo.
3.
Basic
group of Colonel Moskalika's detachment to leave a small group to blockade
Yel'nya and with the main force attack Spass Demensk.
4.
Leave
'"Dedushka" detachment to hold Dorogobuzh. Dnepr floods help that
mission.
5.
To
secure the operation from north and northeast leave the 329th Rifle Division
and small partisan detachments.
6.
With
50th Army units and possibly 10th Army to seize the
7.
After
my linkup with Boldin in the Milyatino area to unite my corps with my trains
including artillery, the tank brigade, the 7th Guards Cavalry Division and
throw the corpseither on Yartsevo to join with the Kalinin Front or for another
assignment.
8. Preparations of the operation will
involve 7-10 days and possibly will succeed in forestalling an enemy offensive.
No. 1596. Belov. Miloslavsky. Vashurin.38
On the eleventh, Zhukov
approved Belov's proposal. Bythen, however, Belov's enthusiasm had waned because
Zhukov had forbidden him to weaken forces around Dorogobuzh and told him that
50th Army was not yet ready to join the attack.39 Belov decided to attack
anyway and, on the twelfth, issued appropriate orders to his units, which now
included 4th Airborne Corps.
Those orders required 4th
Airborne Corps to regroup and join 1st Guards Cavalry Corps in an advance.
Southward along and east of the railway line to Milyatino. When ready, 50th
Army would launch an attack (its third) northward to meet Belov’s forces.
The distance from Belov’s forces to 50th Army was only twenty-five
kilometers, but between them were heavily entrenched German units in all-round
defensive positions.
The same day Colonel
Kazankin developed his offensive plan. While the 214th Airborne Brigade would
continue to hold an airborne base area, the 8th and 9th Airborne brigades would
strike south in the direction of Buda, Novoye Askerovo, Staroye, Askerovo, and
Milyatino to cooperate with 50th Army and to pierce the Moscow-Warsaw highway. The
specific orders tasked 8th Airborne Brigade to attack on an axis of
Bol’shaya Myshenka, MalayaMyshenka, western Buda, and Staroye Askerovo.
The 9th Airborne Brigade was ordered to advance through eastern Buda to Novoye
Askerovo. The 214th Airborne Brigade was to secure a defensive line from
Akulovo to Dubrovna and to cover the flank of the main force from Baraki
through Plotki and Platonovka to Akulovo. On the 4th Airborne Corps’s
right flank, the 2d Guards Cavalry Division was to bypass enemy strongpoints
and to reach Fanernovo factory, three kilometers southwest of Baskakovka
station. To protect the rear of 4th Airborne Corps, one battalion of the 1st
Partisan Regiment occupied former airborne defensive lines facing
Vyaz’ma.
The offensive began on the
night of 13-14 April, and, by dusk on 18 April, the 8th and 9th brigades had
surprised German forces and secured Vertekhovo station Terekhovka,
Bol’shaya Myshenka, and Bogoroditskoye. That evening, Belov received
heartening news from Western Front headquarters. It seemed that 50th Army had
already secured the Zaitsev heights and was but six kilometers from
Milyatino--this after being unprepared to attack only three days before. In any
case, the front commander ordered Bekov to accelerate his advance and rejected
Belov’s request to bring the 1st Guards Cavalry Division forward from
Dorogobuzh. Belov’s forces pushed southward on the night of 14-15 April
and occupied Platonovka, Baraki s and Pkotki. On the left flank, the 214th
Airborne Brigade took Akulovo, but heavy German fire halted further advance.
Meanwhile, 2d Guards Cavalry Division reached within three kilometers ,of
Baskakovka. Heavy German air attacks and ground resistance, however, made Belov
rue the absence of his best cavalry division. Without a reserve, he could not
sustain the advance much longer. On the fifteenth, heavy German air attacks and
ground counterattacks threw General Boldin’s 50th Army forces off Zaitsev
heights and back away from the
Belov pushed his forces
forward, hoping they could break the German lines by themselves. Belov‘s
forces took Buda on 17 April and were only three kilometers north of Milyatino.
There the offensive stalled and soon recoiled under renewed German counterattacks.
After a full day of heavy battle, the Germans retook Buda at 1600 on 18
Apriland halted airborne advances on Novoye Askerovo and Kalugovo .
Belatedly, on the
nineteenth, with airborne offensive strength expended p reinforcements arrived
from the Western Front. The 4th Battalion, 23d Airborne Brigade, commanded by
Sr. Lt. S. D. Kreuts and numbering 645 men, had jumped during the previous
three days into a drop zone west of Svintsovo. With these meagre
reinforcements, the 4th Airborne Corps regrouped and again attacked toward
NovoyeAskerovo.
The 214th Airborne Brigade
covered the eastern perimeter, and covering detachments from Malaya Myshenka to
Baskakovka station screened in the west. The corps’s main force moved
through the now completely thawed swamplands southward toward their objective.
On the night of 20-21 April, the soaked and weary 8th Airborne Brigadeat tacked
the heavily fortif ied and mined German-held village, only to be repulsed. At
0200, the brigade withdrew to the southern edge of the forest just north of
Novoye Askerovo.
While 8th Airborne Brigade
attacked, German units pounded airborne positions from Milyatino, Kalugovo, and
Baskakovka. The Germans struck the 9th Airborne Brigade, defending 8th Airborne
Brigade’s flank and rear. The 9th Brigade used ambush tactics to exact a
heavy toll of Germans. By morning, the Germans had given up their attacks,
The 1st Guards Cavalry
Corps reconnaissance units identified elements of the German 331st Infantry
Division (557th and 306th Infantry regiments) and 504th Motorized Engineer
Regiment in the Malaya Myshenka, Baskakovka, Buda, and Butovo regions and the
41st Motorized Regiment,19th Panzer Division, supporting the 31st Infantry
Division in the Novoye Askerovo and Kalugovo regions. Thus, elements of at
least one panzer and two infantry divisions held the narrow corridor between
4th Airborne Corps and 50th Army. Most of the German units held prepared
fortifications established to defend the Moscow-Warsaw highway.
Despite the long odds against
success, 4th Airborne Corps made a final attempt to break the Germans’
iron grip on the Moscow-Warsaw highway. On the night of 23-24 April, corps
units struck at Novoye Askerovo three times, but heavy German machine gun and
mortar fire from both Novoye Askerovo and Staroye Askerovo and German
counterattacks from Staroye and Novoye Kalugovo forced the paratroopers back to
their starting position. Similar attempts by 2d Guards Cavalry Division to take
the Fanernovo factory also failed. The two-kilometer zone to the
The next day, the Germans
struck back at Belov’s force. With tank and air support, they attacked
from Buda, Staroye and Movoye Askerovo, and Kalugovo. German units pushed the
airborne corps back into new defensive positions. The Western Front commander,
General Zhukov,had no choice but to order 4th Airborne Corps to cease offensive
actions. Such attacks no longer served any useful purpose because 501th
Army’s attack on Milyatino at 0200 that day had been repulsed. On 26
April, 50th also went on the defence for the foreseeable future.
Conditions facing 4th
Airborne Carps could scarcely have been worse. The Germans had eliminated the
33d Army pocket and driven Soviet front forces onto the defence. German units
could now regroup and, when the spring thaw ended, thoroughly crush the last
threat in their rear, namely, 1st Guards Cavalry Garps and 4th Airborne Corps.
Now that the spring thaw was in progress, rivers were running high, swamps were
unlocked t and terrain thus hindered movement of Soviet troops already facing a
growing network of fortified positions and roads teeming with armed German
convoys. In these conditions, resupply of the corps was impossible, except by
risky direct-parachute delivery.
The front commander
consequently ordered airborne corps units to return to their 12 April--before
the Milyatino offensive--positions. The Germans poured more troops into the
area vacated by 4th Airborne Corps but did not resume their counterattacks
immediately
Encirclement and Breakout, 1 May-23 June 1942
The first half of May was
quiet, as the effects of the spring thaw stifled coordinated action by either
side. The 4th Airborne Carps used the lull to improve its defensive positions south
and east of Ugra station. Sufficient supplies were dropped or flown to
airstrips to reequip and resupply corps units. Returning aircraft also flew
wounded personnel back to bol'shaya zemlya (the big world). The 1st Guards
Cavalry Corps redeployed into a wide area from Dorogobuzh to south of Vyaz'ma
and refitted its units. The 1st Partisan Regiment covered the north-north
eastern flank of 4th Airborne Corps.
Augmented by the remnants
of 8th Airborne Brigade,250th Airborne Regiment, a battalion of 23d Airborne
Brigade, and some personnel from 33d Army, corps forces numbered 2,300 men,
plus 2,000 wounded 1,700partisans. Weaponry consisted of seven antitank guns,
thirty-seven antitank rifles, and thirty-four battalion mortars. With this
force, 4th Airborne Corps defended a perimeter of thirty-five kilometers.
Belov and Kazankin still
hoped to break out from the German encirclement. Their hopes rose even more
when, on 9 May, the chief of operations for the Western Front, Maj. Gen. S. V.
Golushkevich, flew into General Belov’s headquarters with news of a
future Soviet offensive. The offensive would involve 50th Army, reinforced by
new Soviet mechanized formations, and would occur no later than 5 June. But the
nagging question remained, "Would the Germans attack first?"
Undeniable evidence suggested that as many as seven divisions of the German 4th
Panzer Army and 43d Army Corps of 4th Army were preparing to attack the
encircled Soviet forces from both north and south. So, Belov and Kazankin
prepared to meet the German blow.
The Germans reinforced
their garrisons and concentrated new units at Mikhali, Veshki, and Znamenka to
attack against the airborne positions. On 23 May, the Germans dispatched a
diversionary force from Milyatino.The members wore Soviet uniforms, carried
Soviet weapons, and were supposed to destroy airborne headquarters. But,
instead, the 8th and 9th Airborne brigades intercepted and destroyed the
diversionary unit on 23-24 March. Captured Germans revealed German planning for
so-called “Operation Hanover”, an attack that would involve seven
divisions from two army corps advancing from Znamenka (northeast), from
Milyatino (south), and from Dorogobuzh station (northwest). The objective of
the two-to three-day operation was to split 1st Guards Cavalry Corps from 4th
Airborne Corps and then to destroy each piecemeal.
At 0400 on 24 May, in
pouring rain, Belov heard the distant rumble of guns announcing the opening of
the German offensive. All headquarters soon confirmed the sound of the guns
and, more ominously, revealed the coordinated nature of the German attack. The
6th Partisan Regiment at Vskhody reported to Belov that Germans had overrun
their positions with scarcely a pause. The commander of the 6th Regiment was
killed, and the 8th Guards Cavalry Regiment was driven into and through
Vskhody. This German attack on Vskhody and a similar one north along the rail
line toward Ugra were indicative of the enemy's intent to separate the cavalry
corps from 4th Airborne Corps units.
At the same time, Kazankin's
airborne units were hard pressed on all sides. After the 0400 artillery
preparation, elements of the German 23d Infantry, 5th Panzer, 197th Infantry,
131st Infantry, 31st Infantry, and 19th Panzer divisions with aviation support
attacked airborne positions from Mikhali, Znamenka, and Milyatino. Only the
eastern sector of airborne defences was relatively quiet. Unable to stop the
concerted German advance and facing certain annihilation if he held his round,
Colonel Kazankin, with Western Front approval, designated covering, units on
his defensive lines. On the night of 24-25 May, he moved 'his main forces
westward toward the
When 4th Airborne Corps
reached the
Meanwhile, Belov launched
several local counterattacks to relieve pressure on 4th Airborne Corps. The 6th
Guards Cavalry Regiment, with two T-26 light tanks, attacked German units
crossing the Ugra at Vskhody and forced them to withdraw. At great risk, the
under strength 2d and 7th Guards Cavalry regiments of 2d Guards Cavalry
Division rushed to the Sorokino bridgehead of the 8th Airborne Brigade and
assisted the remnants of the corps in their river crossing on the night of
26-27 May. After the crossing, Kazankin ordered his forces to break out of the
German encirclement by moving westward between Selibka and Chashchi and to
regroup in the forests south of Podlipki. Subsequently, the corps would move
via Frolova and Kurakino to Pustoshka and unite with Belov’s forces,
which had preceded them. At 0030 on 28 May, the Soviets moved into the
darkness, infiltrated around German forces, and reassembled south of Podlipki
at first light. The withdrawal had been accomplished in such secrecy-that
German units opened an artillery barrage at 0600 on 29 May on Chashchi and
Selibka, where they still assumed the 4th Airborne Corps was entrenched.
Not all corps units were so
successful in escaping destruction. Surrounded at Bol'shaya Myshenka, one
company of the 8th Airborne Brigade perished to a man. The -214th Airborne
Brigade, covering the eastern airborne perimeter defences and the rear guard of
the corps withdrawal, fought its way out of encirclement on the night of 28-29
May near Fursovo, finally crossing the Gordota River and joining the corps west
of Podlipki.
Despite a diary entry by
Halder that "Fourth Army has closed the ring around the main body of
Belov," by the twenty-eighth, Belov's cavalry corps had escaped and re-established
a fairly firm front facing east on the north bank of the Ugra River at
Vskhody.57 His forces included 1st Guards Cavalry Division, 1st and 2d Partisan
divisions, and seven tanks, including a heavy KV (*Model Klimenti Voroshilov.) and a medium T-34. Moreover, the
23d and 211thAirborne brigades, with 4,000 men, had landed to reinforce the
corps and assist Belov in his withdrawal. The 2d Guards Cavalry Division and
4th Airborne Corps would soon join Belov after their escape from German forces
to the east. By 0400 on 30 May, 4th Airborne Corps had arrived in Pustoshka,
The 329th Rifle and 2d Guards Cavalry divisions had preceded them. Belov's
force was now complete, though worn down, and numbered about 17,000 men.
Belov anticipated the
beginning of the Soviet June offensive. He detailed a group of 1st Guards
Cavalry Division (4,500 men), 4th Airborne Corps (5,800 men), and a partisan
regiment to cooperate with 50th Army. Perhaps Vyaz'ma might yet be taken. But
Belov's hopes were dashed when Soviet forces near
Belov’s planned route
of withdrawal passed through the forests south of Yel'nya, where S. Laze's 24th
Anniversary of the Red Army Partisan Detachment operated, and then across the
Warsaw highway into the forests west of Kirov,where Captain Galyuga's partisans
could assist the airborne forces. The 4th Airborne Corps would follow the axis
of Khlysty, Glinka, and Filimony. The 1st Guards Cavalry Corps and 329th Rifle
Division advanced on the left.
At noon on 6 June, the 160-
to 200-kilometer march began. The next day, the two corps endured heavy German
air attacks near Filimony. After that, movement was restricted to night-time to
avoid hostile aircraft, and, on lo-11 June, corps units hid in the forests of
Lazots partisans, where they replenished their food and ammunition. By the
night of 15-16 June, the corps had reached the Moscow-Warsaw highway and was planning
its attack in the Denisovka and Pokrovskoye sectors, with a regrouping in the
forests east of Pervovo Buikovo.
Reconnaissance units
estimated that the German force in that sector was one infantry regiment, with
a tank company on continuous patrol along the highway. The troops' exhaustion
made an envelopment of the German position impossible. A surprise night attack
on a broad front offered the only chance fur success. Belov organized his
forces on a narrow front in the woods opposite the highway. The 4th Airborne
Corps-on the right-hand three brigades in first echelon and two in second
echelon. The 329th Rifle Division was in reserve. On the left, Belov organized
1st Guards Cavalry Corps with the 1st and 3d Guards Cavalry regiments in first
echelon and the 6th and 5th in second echelon. Second-echelon units stayed with
the horses. The weakened 2d Guards Cavalry Division was in reserve.
They attacked in darkness
without any artillery preparation. Soviet units advanced piecemeal because the
Germans took each unit under fire as they detected it. First-echelon cavalry
regiments successfully broke across the road through a gauntlet of heavy German
machine gun and mortar fire. Subsequent small groups crossed in dashes until
German tanks arrived, firing the highway. Soviet cavalry groups balked at
crossing the road under the withering fire as daylight approached. Maj. Gen. V.
K. Baranov of 1st Guards Cavalry Division rallied the force of 3,000 cavalry
and several thousand paratroopers who hurled themselves across the road in an
unstoppable mass. German fire killed many, including the 6th Cavalry
Regiment’s commander, Lt. Col. A. V. Knyazeva. Those who crossed the road
successfully made a frantic dash southward. Those who followed ran a gauntlet
of fire that stripped the trees of their leaves and took a frightful toll of
casualties.
Almost all of General
Baranov's 1st Cavalry Division succeeded in crossing the deadly road, as did
about half of Kazankin"s 4th Airborne Corps. However, the 2d Guards
Cavalry Division, 8th Airborne Brigade, and stragglers from other airborne
brigades could not cross nor could the 329th Rifle Division and the corps
staff. Belov remained with these forces, trusting in Baranov’s and
Kazankin's ability to unite their forces with 10th Army.
Colonel Kazankin
reorganized his truncated 4th Airborne Corps and, harried by German air
attacks, moved southeast into the forests east of Podgerb. There the unit
rested from 17 to 21 June, replenishing its ammunition and food under the
protection of Galyuga"s partisan detachment. Colonel Kazankin notified the
10th Army commander of his intentions to break through the German lines and
requested artillery support and whatever other assistance 10th Army could
provide. Wounded were evacuated to front hospitals by light aircraft operating
from cleared forest landing strips, and the corps prepared to attack a German
sector near Zhilino, just north of Kirov. The plan to weaken German defences
involved diversionary attacks by machine gunners and artillery fire and
infantry attacks by front units. A forward detachment of machine gunners led
the corps's attack in deep echelon, with the wives and children of the
partisans in the middle of the formation. After a four-hour fight and 120
casualties, 4th Airborne Corps finally reached 10th Army positions and safety.
Belov's force and the remaining 8th Airborne troops under Major Karnaukhov
(commander o the first airborne detachment to land in the enemy rear] ended
their hegira on the night of 27-28 June, when they, too, broke through German
lines north of
Conclusions
Elements of 4th Airborne
Corps had operated in the German rear for more than six months. In continuous
battle, the paratroopers had freed 200 villages (many of which remained in
partisan hands), moved 600 kilometers, killed many Germans, and tied down seven
divisions of four German army corps, thus limiting the Germans' counter-attack
potential. German assessments, however, credited the Soviets with varying
degrees of success. A German post-war critique of Soviet airborne operations
around
The
support given the partisans by parachutists considerably increased latter s
striking power and their threat in the, rear of the German Armies. There is
also no doubt that, in addition to mere reinforcement and. supply by air, the
systematic recruiting, equipment, and training of new troops was made possible
by the Russians in the rear of the Germans. . . . However unpleasant it was for
the Germans to have this danger in their rear and although it especially
affected systematic supply of the front, at no time was there a direct,
strategic effect. The Chief of Staff of the German Fourth Army stated in this
connection that "Although the whole matter was very annoying it had no
strategic consequence."
According
to the statements made by the Commander in Chief of the Fourth Panzer Army, the
army estimated the breakthrough at the front to constitute a substantially
greater danger than the parachute jumps in the zone of communications.
General of Infantry
Guenther Blumentritt, chief of staff of German 4th Army, wrote,
"Strategically, this commitment by the Russians had no detrimental effects
in spite of the critical situation of the Fourth Army. From the tactical
viewpoint, on the other hand, the 'red louse in one's hide was unpleasant.'
Blumentritt, however, was impressed enough by the Soviet airborne operations to
write a special post-war study concerning operations against rear lines of
communication that focused on the Soviet airborne experience 1941-42 and its
applicability in modern battle. The Germans did acknowledge limited Soviet
airborne successes:
The
situation in Fourth Army was made far more serious by the appearance of the
Russian airborne corps functioning as a compact unit. The war diary of this
army almost daily mentions the fear that the Rollbahn will be threatened
simultaneously from the north and south and the army cut off. The withdrawal of
the army to the Ressa-Ugra line at the beginning of March 1942 may be regarded
as a tactical result of this threat; that is to say that, in addition to other
factors, it was due to the effects of the Russian airborne corps. It became
necessary to release German forces (13lst Infantry Division) to attack the
airborne troops. Another direct result of the fighting for the Rollbahn was the
abandonment of the plan to make a joint attack at the end of March with the
German Second Panzer Army and the Fourth Army to retake
The assessment uncannily
pinpointed the precise reasons for a lack of greater Soviet success:
The following may well have
been the decisive reasons:
a.
The lack of the element of surprise.
b.
The lack of artillery and heavy weapons, although for the rest, the airborne
troops were well equipped and trained. But this lack substantially diminished
their striking power.
c.
The difficulties of the terrain and of the weather, which undoubtedly decreased
the mobility of the Russians also.
d. The lack of coordination in the measures,
taken by the two separate forces north and south of the Rollbahn, and the lack
of synchronization in the date and hour of the attack (perhaps also influenced
by road conditions); hesitation of the airborne troops between attacking and
going on the defensive.
It is also possible that there were also
difficulties in the attempt to supply the troops exclusively by air and a rapid
decrease of combat strength.
Not the least reason for the failure of the
Russians was the steadfastness of the German troops.
That higher
headquarters shared the concern of front-line commanders is evidenced by
Halder’s diary, which repeatedly mentions the airborne threat to
For all their personal
heroics and individual sacrifices, Soviet airborne units had failed in their
primary mission--a failure for which the High Command was to blame. A mission
with operational-strategic aims had achieved only tactical and diversionary
objectives. The offensive it had supported also failed for reasons beyond the
control of the individual airborne units.
Why did the offensive and
airborne operation fail? The answers fall into three areas: first, High Command
planning; second, execution and technical difficulties; third weather. At the
highest command level, official Soviet critiques of the winter offensive best
summarized the failure:
When our
offensives carried our forces deep into the depth of the position, there was
unsatisfactory coordination between our forces which had broken into the enemy
position and those which remained on the original front line. The initial
[immediate] task given armies by front commands covered too long a phase of the
operation, and flexibility was lacking in the change or correction of such
initial missions in light of the subsequent development of the situation. . . .
Mobile formations were given proper initial instructions (missions), but in the
course of operations they often got cut off, and cavalry corps ended often by
operating not in cooperation with the main force.
Dizzy with success over the
results of the December counteroffensive, the Soviet High Command continued
that offensive in January with depleted forces. Mobile groups, in particular,
lacked the power to sustain the offensive. They achieved penetrations but were
seldom able to exploit them. Exploitation forces entered the narrow
penetrations and advanced only to find themselves exhausted and at the mercy of
better equipped foes. The Germans, ordered to stand fast, used their heavier
armament to close the penetrations and to trap the Soviet exploitation forces.
Furthermore, the High
Command clung too long to original hopes and plans. It forbade isolated forces
from operating with other units until it was too late, and it required them to
attack their original objectives until their combat strength was spent. Thus,
Yefremov's three divisions of Soviet 33d Army perished east of Vyaz'ma. First
forbidden to join Yefremov, Belov was then forced to leave a major element of
his force in Dorogobuzh. Only in April could the remnants of all encircled
units join forces. By then, it was too late to conduct a serious offensive
operation with any prospects for success. The Soviets themselves properly
concluded that
the
launching of large-scale operations [in winter] impulsively, without regard to
the available troops and resources, leads to scattering of forces and a failure
to achieve substantial results. [Moreover,] mobile formations '[including
airborne] in offensive operations under winter conditions are capable of
carrying out independent operational missions. But the limitations imposed on
them by winter conditions make it advisable for them to operate relatively near
to the main body of the army and in close cooperation with it.
Operational planning for
the several airborne assaults was hasty and incomplete, The poorly planned
movement of aircraft and personnel to the launch airfields disrupted the
overall operational plan. Coordination between the airborne force and the main
front unit it was to link up with was nonexistent or limited. Aviation support
of the operation, combat and transport, was insufficient. Insufficient advanced
reconnaissance of the landing site resulted in unrealistic assessments of enemy
strength. Logistical support was inadequate in both weapons and amounts of
supplies needed to overcome enemy forces. Lack of communications prevented
efficient assembly and coordination of forces.
On top of the poor
operational plans, technical difficulties further disrupted smooth operations.
The lack of sufficient aircraft capable of carrying and accurately dropping
paratroopers lengthened the dropping phase, made aircraft and airfields
vulnerable to German attack, and guaranteed dispersal of the combat troops in
the drop area. Lack of navigational equipment on the ground and in the aircraft
made accurate delivery almost impossible. Scarce numbers of trained aircrews
aggravated this problem. Shortages of good radios hampered communications
throughout the operation.
The harsh weather
conditions severely hindered the operations of both sides but had a
particularly severe effect on the less mobile Soviet forces. Low temperatures
(-30° to -45OC) and deep snows (to a depth of one meter) limited rapid
assembly and movement of forces and robbed the airborne forces of their ability
to capitalize fully on the initial surprise they achieved. Only surprise
produced by rapid movement could compensate for the light armament of airborne
units.
Slow Soviet movement
resulting from all these problems puzzled the Germans and confused them as to
the actual Soviet airborne force mission. Post-war German critics claimed
the
operation [January-February] does not present the characteristics of an air
landing operation in the sense of an attack from the air. Rather, the fighting
is solely a ground operation, only the assembly of forces takes place by air.
This assembly although taking place in the rear of the enemy, nevertheless
occurred in an area which the enemy no longer controlled. The operation had
sound prospects for success, but the Russians failed to take quick action and
exploit the element of surprise. They let weeks pass between the first landings
and the decisive thrust. As a result they lost the best chance they had for
succeeding. . . . The situation of German Fourth Army [would have been
critical] if the Russians at the end of January 1942 had landed their brigade,
which up till then had been landed in scattered units, as a compact force in
the area southwest of Znamenka. If these airborne forces had then established
communications between the Russian Thirty-Third and Tenth [50th] Armies, in
cooperation with Cavalry Corps Belov, the German Fourth Army would have been
completely encircled. It would have been doubtful whether this army could have
broken out of encirclement, in view of the condition it was in at the time. The
reasons for the way the Russians behaved are not known. Perhaps, it was the
temptation to achieve a greater objective, the encirclement of the German
Fourth Panzer Army and Ninth Army. Perhaps it was impossible for them to
undertake a landing synchronized in both time and space. It is useless to
speculate without additional information on the subject from the Russians.
Actual events, as revealed
by the Soviets, confirmed the correctness of German speculation.
Mitigating .these failures
is the-fact that this first Soviet airborne operation occurred during a
desperate, period under great pressures and extremely complex conditions.
Unrealistically, the Soviet High Command threw all the forces at its disposal
into a massive. Attempt to crush the Germans, who had recently wreaked havoc on
the
The offensive of January
1942 was a. bold, though flawed, attempt to follow the prescription 'of the
1930s for victory. To the offensive, bold, imaginative resort to deep battle
would produce victory. But, in 1942, it did not. Only later in the war, when
forces and equipment matched doctrine and when leaders educated themselves to
the necessities and realities of battle, would the older concepts contribute to
victory.
Airborne forces paid the
price of High Command failures. About 14,000 men jumped into the cauldron of
battle around Vyazma. These men, under brave leaders, endured the subzero cold
of January and February, and those who survived contended with the rotting
moisture and mud of April and May. They fought daily battles with Germans,
hunger, and the elements, and they reaped little of the euphoria of victory.
About 4,000 Soviet paratroopers survived the four-month ordeal. Their only
reward, save survival, was the knowledge that they had endured the longest
airborne operation in history. Their personal sacrifice and endurance left a
legacy of lessons, a step in the education of an army.
CHAPTER 3
and CHAPTER 4 from “The Soviet Airborne Experience” (November 1984)
By Colonel D. M. Glantz