German and Russian Air Action

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Reducing the Stalingrad Pocket

The Soviet Air Force remained busy during December 1942 supporting 3rd Guards Army and 5th Tank Army’s attacks against German concentrations near Kotelnikovo. 2nd and 17th Air Armies provided 455 aircraft opposing the Luftwaffe’s 450. When 3rd Composite Air Corps joined the 17th Air Army the balance of power shifted to the Soviet side.

Deteriorating weather interrupted air support for the engaged forces until 15 December when the weather again improved. The Soviet Southwest Front went on the offensive on 16 December with the Air Force attacking German defensive lines and troop concentrations at Toerdockhlevovka, Radchenskoye, Boguchev, and airfields at Tatsinskaya and Morozovsk.

On 18 December the 16th Air Army struck enemy forces near Karpovka with 100 aircraft. This attack allowed Soviet forces to break through the German defense lines. By the end of 21 December Soviet air action closed all escape routes for the Italian 8th Army.

The 24th Tank Corps commanded by Major General V.M. Badanov, took the airfields and rail line at Tatsinskaya destroying 350 German aircraft, five equipment dumps, and seven warehouses.

By this time the 2nd Guards Army, reinforced by 6th and 7th Tank Corps, had a two to one superiority in men and tanks, and a 1.6 to 1 superiority in artillery. The Germans still had air superiority 1.7 to 1.

The Soviet 2nd Guards Army forced the German withdrawal from the Aksay River. On 25 December General Rotmistrov’s 7th Tank Corps crossed the river seizing Generalovsky.

On Christmas Day General von Paulus authorized the slaughter of 400 horses for food.

By 28 December the Soviets cut off all escape routes going west and southwest from Kotelnikovo. They also captured another airfield where they acquired fifteen aircraft, 800 cans of petrol, and large numbers of heavy bombs. The next day they captured Kotelnikovo itself.

General S. I. Bogdonov’s forces moved toward Rotmistrov’s corps forcing a general German withdrawal to Rostov.

General Malinovsky took Tormosin on 31 December capturing German supplies for Army Group Don.

As the German relief force fell back the distance between them and the surrounded Stalingrad forces increased to 200 to 250 kilometers. Seven Soviet armies now surrounded the Stalingrad pocket. Within the pocket ammunition, fuel, and food was running out. Eighty thousand German soldiers were lost to sickness and wounds leaving 250,000 remaining. Soviet aircraft shot down any remaining supply transports.

On 1 January, 1943, Adolf Hitler promised von Paulus that everything was being done to get them out. Meanwhile, Von Paulus set up a dense defense network.

The Soviet Don Front received reinforcements. The Stalingrad Front, operating on the inner front included the 57th, 62nd, and 64th Armies. The plan for liquidating the Stalingrad pocket, Operation ‘Ring’, was authorized on 4 January.

65th Army had a superiority over the surrounded German forces in the Stalingrad pocket of three to two in guns and mortars, and three to one in aircraft. The Germans superiority in men and tanks was six to five.

On 8 January the Soviets issued an ultimatum giving the Germans until 1000 hours 9 January to surrender. This ultimatum was rejected.

Leaflets rained down on Stalingrad on 9 January offering troops safety if they surrendered. Resisters would be wiped out. Von Paulus forbade any discussion of surrender.

On 10 January, at 0805 hours, artillery and air bombardment began.

Sources: The Soviet Air Force in World War II, translated by Leland Fetzer, Edited by Ray Wagner, Doubleday & Company, Inc., Garden City, New York, 1973

Red Army Resurgent, John Shaw and the Editors of Time-Life Books, Time-Life Books, Inc., Chicago, IL, 1979

“Stalingrad: The Relief,” Colonel Alexander M. Samsonov, History of the Second World War Magazine, 1970s

Stalingrad

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General Hermann Hoth’s Fourth Panzer Army finally arrived south of Stalingrad, after its turn at Kotelnikovo, and attacked the Soviet 64th Army commanded by Major General M. S. Shumilov. In the hill country, the 64th Army fought the Fourth Panzer Army to a standstill on 23 August.

As the area around Red Square burned, 6,000 soldiers were ferried across the Volga River and sent north to confront Lieutenant General Hans Hube’s 16th Panzer Division which entered Stalingrad from the west striking toward the tractor factory on the north end of the city. These soldiers, with the assistance of unpainted T-34 tanks from the factory driven by factory workers, stopped this attack.

Adolf Hitler moved his headquarters from Rastenburg, East Prussia to Vinnitsa, Ukraine on 25 August. On the same date a state of siege was declared in Stalingrad.

Marshal Semyon K. Timoshenko was quietly removed from command of the defense of Stalingrad, and replaced by the savior of Moscow, General Georgy Zhukov, with Varonov in charge of artillery, and Novikov in charge of the Soviet Air Force in the Stalingrad area.

General Hoth’s troops sidestepped the Soviet position in the hills south of Stalingrad and attacked on 30 August penetrating the Soviet fortification at Gavrilovka. This move threatened to drive a wedge between the Soviet 64th and 62nd Armies. The 64th Army retreated into the city.

Turning east Hoth’s Fourth Panzer Army struck into the city and reached the Volga River south of the grain elevator on 10 September.

Lieutenant General Aleksandr I. Lopatin, commanding the 62nd Army, was relieved of command on 12 September and replaced by General Vasily Ivanovich Chuikov who promised he would hold the city or die there.

On the same date, Lieutenant General Friedrich von Paulus and General Maximillian von Weichs were called to Hitler’s headquarters in Vinnitsa. He told them it was vital to take Stalingrad and the banks of the Volga River. Von Paulus voiced concerns about the northern flank of the Sixth Army, at which point Hitler reassured him the allied armies were watching the Volga banks in that area.

Von Paulus launched his main offensive on 13 September after an artillery bombardment.

On the 14th of September Chuikov moved his headquarters from the threatened Mamayev Hill to the bunker in the Tsaritsa Gorge.

The Luftwaffe bombed Soviet forces, concentrating on the railroad station where the Soviets kept their last reserve of tanks.

Under severe pressure, Chuikov knew he had to keep the Germans from taking the Volga River ferry landing. Without that the 10,000 soldier of the 13th Guards Division, commanded by Major General Alexandr Ilyich Rodintsev, would not be able to reinforce the defenders.

Rodintsev’s soldiers landed on the west bank of the Volga on 15 September and were able to retake Mamayev Hill on the 16th.

The battle for Stalingrad took on the appearance of a house-by-house fight. This erased the German army’s superiority in training and teamwork allowing the Soviets to take advantage of their knowledge of the city to pop up behind the German lines and force them to fight back through areas they had already taken.

By 21 September the Germans cleared all of the Tsaritsa Gorge and positioned themselves within a few yards of the landing stage forcing Chuikov to move his headquarters to the Matveyev-Kurgon area.

Sources: Red Army Resurgent, John Shaw and the Editors of Time-Life Books, Time-Life Books, Inc., Chicago, IL, 1979

“Drive to the Don,” Alan Clark, History of the Second World War Magazine, 1970s

“Stalingrad: The Onslaught,” Alan Clark, History of the Second World War Magazine, 1970s

Barbarossa-22 June, 1941

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The German attack on the Soviet Union was not un-telegraphed. For months German troops and tanks gathered in Poland, yet Josef Stalin trusted Adolf Hitler. On the fateful day German artillery began bombarding the Soviet front lines. Luftwaffe aircraft crossed the frontier at 0300.

The German’s three pronged attack spanned a 3,200 kilometer front. Field Marshal Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb commanded Army Group North. Army Group South, commanded by General Gerd von Rundstedt invaded south of the Pripyat Marshes into the Ukraine. Army Group Center, under Field Marshal Fedor von Bock advanced toward Minsk, aiming to take that and Smolensk on the way to Moscow.

When Stalin’s troops invaded Poland in September 1939 he did not fortify the front. Instead, he relied on the fortifications established pre-1939.

Disorganized, with little support from artillery or aircraft, and no defense plans, the Soviet troops fell back in disarray. The Germans bypassed organized resistance. The fortress at Brest-Litovsk, surrounded with no chance of escape, held out for four days.

In the air the Luftwaffe reigned supreme, hitting airfields, anti-aircraft artillery, and aircraft on the ground. They claimed 322 aircraft shot down and 1,489 destroyed on the ground. The Soviet Air Force launched 1,900 sorties on 23 June attacking tank and troop concentrations and claiming 100 German aircraft destroyed.

By 23 June Soviet forces retreated from Bialystok. The German Army Group Center thrust out two arms to surround Soviet forces near Minsk. General Bock felt the Soviets were retreating to prevent his intended encirclement. He commanded his forces to take Polotsk and Vitebsk on the Dvina River to prevent the establishment of a defense line behind the River.

On 24 June the Panzer Gruppen occupied Slonim in the south and Wilno in the north and prepared to close their trap. The main crossing on the River Bug was taken. As the encirclement developed tanks outpaced the infantry and gaps between them appeared. In the east the tankers found they could not contain infantry units effectively. Many Soviet troops escaped and fell back to reorganize.

As the Germans tightened the encirclement, the large pocket degenerated into several smaller pockets. One around Bialystok and another around Volkovsk. Making use of the dense forests around Bialystok and using ration and ammunition dumps the resourceful and tough Soviet soldiers progressed northeastward toward Novogrudok, but were encircled again on 29 June. The double envelopment captured the Soviet 3rd and 10th Armies.

The next step was to capture the ‘Land Bridge’ between the Dvina and the Dnieper rivers. First there was the reconsolidation of Army Group Center. The infantry would replace the Panzers in the job of containing the Soviet soldiers now surrounded, while the tanks advanced toward Smolensk, the next objective.

Sources: Barbarossa: The Shock, Lieutenant General N. K. Popel, History of the Second World War Magazine, 1970s

Barbarossa: Drive to Smolensk, Generalmajor Alfred Philippi, History of the Second World War Magazine, 1970s

The Soviet Air Force in World War II, Edited by Ray Wagner, Translated by Leland Fetzer, Doubleday & Company, Inc., Garden City, New York, 1973World War II: Day by Day, Anthony Shaw, MBI Publishing Company, Osceola, WI, 2001

Hans-Ulrich Rudel–Stuka Pilot

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Hans-Ulrich Rudel’s name and the story of the Stuka (Junkers 87) belong together. The crank-winged dive bomber became legend during the attack on Poland in September 1939, and the blitzkrieg through France and the Low Countries in spring 1940. It fell out of the sky like a bird of prey, siren screaming, spraying machine gun fire, and dropping bombs on fleeing civilians on crowded country roads, leaving the dead, and wounded in its wake.

The Stuka lost some of its luster during the Battle of Britain in summer, 1940. The British Hurricanes and Spitfires found the Ju-87 an easy kill.

The Stuka again ruled the skies over Crete and during the invasion of the Soviet Union. German fighters cleared the skies of Soviet machines, most of which were left overs from the days of the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s.

Deemed an average pilot in training, Hans-Ulrich Rudel, volunteered to fly the Stuka in lieu of flying bombers. He spent his early years as a flight instructor before being assigned to 3 Gruppe, Stukageschwader 2, Immelmann. Rudel quickly gained a reputation for diving quite low and achieving remarkable accuracy. During the siege of Leningrad, on 16 September, 1941, the Luftwaffe, caught the Soviet battleship Marat at sea. Rudel hit it with a 500 kilogram bomb, damaging it and sending it back to Kronstadt harbor. There he hit it again, this time with a 1,000 kilogram bomb, breaking its back.

Rudel flew his 500th sortie in September, 1942, and his 1,000th on 10 February, 1943. By this time the Ju-87D replaced the Ju-87B model. Rudel helped to evaluate the Ju-87G model. This variant carried a 37 mm cannon under each wing which fired shells with tungsten cores. These shells made short work of the thin, rear armor plate of the Soviet tanks. During the Battle for the Kursk Salient in July 1943, Rudel destroyed twelve tanks on the first day. He often flew at an altitude of five to ten meters above ground level on his attack runs. (Please refer to previous blogs on Hitler’s Airborne Anti-Tank Guns Part 1, February 2017, and Part 2, March 2017.)

During the battle for Cherkassy and the Korsun pocket in August 1943 (please refer to my blog of October 2017) on the Dnieper River, Rudel continued his destruction of Soviet tanks . By March 1944 his unit operated at the Dniester Bridgehead farther north.

Hans-Ulrich Rudel was a proponent of ‘tank-busting.’ During his career he destroyed at least 519 tanks. Some sources credit him with many more. He flew 2,530 combat sorties, more than any other pilot flying on the Eastern Front. He rescued six air crews by landing in the midst of battles to pick them up. Shot down by anti-aircraft fire at least 30 times, he was never shot down by a fighter. In addition to the Marat, he sank two cruisers and one destroyer.

Near the end of the war he was wounded by a fragment from an exploding Stalin tank, resulting in the amputation of his right leg. His left leg was put in a cast.

When Germany surrendered, Rudel, directed to surrender to the Russian, instead surrendered to the Americans. After the war he moved to Paraguay where he lived for thirty years until returning to Germany where he died of a brain hemorrhage 21 December, 1982, at the age of 66.

Sources: Warplanes of the Third Reich, William Green, Doubleday and Company, Inc., Garden City, NY, 1972

War Over the Steppes, The Air Campaigns of the Eastern Front 1941-1945, E. R. Hooton, Osprey Publishing, New York, NY, 2016

‘He was ‘worth an entire division.”‘ Ludwig Heinrich Dyck, WW II History, Sovereign Media Company, Inc., February, 2020

 

Women Fighter Pilots of the Soviet Union

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During the Great Patriotic War (World War II) many women in the Soviet Union flew fighter aircraft in combat. These women were generally underappreciated by their peers (the men they flew with), and the Soviet public. Only a few names are known in the West. The 586th Women’s Fighter Regiment, along with the 587th Women’s Bomber Regiment, and the 588th Women’s Night Bomber Regimen, was formed by Marina Raskova by order of Josef Stalin in late 1941. These units consisted of all women, including the mechanics. The 586th Regiment assigned to Saratov in the summer of 1942.

The 586th Fighter Air Regiment contained other women pilots of note. Valentina Petrochenkova and a woman comrade chased a reconnaissance bomber quite beyond their area of operation until they ran out of ammunition. Valeria Khomyakova shot down a night bombing Ju-88 and inspected the wreckage on the banks of the Volga. Galia Boordina infiltrated a Ju-88 bomber formation at night and shot down one of the aircraft.

The most famous woman fighter pilot Lilya Litvak began her career in the 586th Fighter Air Regiment. Please refer to my previous blog, ‘Lilya Litvak.’ Katya Budenova gained nine victories and was a consummate fighter pilot. She kept her hair short and was always singing. She became Lilya’s wing mate in the 586th Fighter Air Regiment and followed her to the 73d Fighter Air Regiment, an all male unit. Eventually Lilya convinced the Regimental Commander Colonel Nikolai Baranov to let them fly, initially as wing mates on the colonel’s and Captain Alexei Salomaten’s wings.

Lilya, as the highest scoring woman ace in the Soviet Air Force, achieved a victory tally of 12 aerial kills plus three shared victories in 268 sorties over a period of less than a year of combat. She owes much of her fame to her mechanic, Ina Pasportnikova, who gave an interview to a Soviet newspaper reporter, and also to Bruce Myles, author of Night Witches, The Amazing Story of Russia’s Women Pilots in World War II.

Bruce Myles’ accounts add a personal touch to the harrowing life of a fighter pilot living in primitive conditions under severe mental and physical stress. The Ukraine, Russia’s bread basket, captured by the Germans in 1941, reduced Soviet food supplies. The rations consisted of one meal per day of bread with watery soup. Shower trains arrived at airfields at rare and irregular intervals. These allowed all personnel to get a hot shower. Women first.

In intervals between the arrivals of the shower trains, Lilya used slivers of soap and hot water drained from the radiator of her Yak fighter, mixed with cold water, to wash her hair. Colonel Nikolai Baranov turned a blind eye to that disobedience stating the Soviet Air Force could afford the loss of a bit of hot water. Lilya typically brought flowers into her cockpit before going flying and frequently wore a flower in her hat.

Colonel Baranov also allowed her to paint a white rose on both sides of her aircraft, number three, which she called “Troika.” Each aerial victory was celebrated by adding another white rose as a victory marking. She became known as the ‘White Rose of Stalingrad,’ and achieved notoriety among German airmen.

Lilya was shot down twice in three weeks, once making an emergency landing, another time bailing out of her flaming machine, she emerged from that period emotionally shaken. Her boyfriend, Captain Alexei Salomaten, was shot down and killed, and Lilya carried a photograph of them sitting together on the wing of her aircraft. After his death her friends became worried about her. She withdrew into herself and threw herself into her combat flying. Only her friend, Katya Budenova, was able to comfort her. When Katya was shot down and killed, Lilya was devastated.

Surprised as she attacked a formation of Ju-88s bombers, Lilya was killed in single combat with eight Bf-109s.

Sources: “Red Air Force Female Fighter Pilot Lilya Litvak Became an Ace and Hero of the Soviet Union Fighting the Germans” Michael D. Hull, WW II History Magazine, January 2005, Sovereign Media, Herndon, VA

Night Witches: The Amazing Story of Russia’s Women Pilots in World War II, Bruce Myles, Academy Chicago Publishers, Chicago, IL, Second Printing 1990

Writing in the Time of COVID-19

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It’s no joke. I hope everyone stays well in spite of the fact that we have lost more than 100k people in the United States and many more worldwide. Many of us have been sickened, and I know those numbers include writers.

Enter COVID-19 forcing me to self-isolate. Being introverted by nature, I have no problem social distancing. As a retired person, I spend most of my time at home in any event; reading and writing. The rough draft of my work in progress proceeded slowly, requiring much time doing research, thinking, planning and putting words on paper. Now I am beyond the rough draft. I am arranging the scenes, which requires a laptop. This is where the real creative work happens. Character development, adding action to dialogue, generating images to make the story come alive in the reader’s mind. 

My current struggle is getting my rough draft into some sort of order. I started with my opening scene–probably not surprisingly. The first page is in constant flux. Should I spend that page in setting the scene, introducing the main character, presenting the problem, or building the conflict? Mystery writers just need to have a body on the first page.

Moving beyond the first page I found the flow of the story moves in fits and starts, jerking from scene to scene like some Frankenstein’s monster learning to walk. For the reader the story must move freely, increasing the tension, challenging the main character to find solutions to problems, and then finding the solutions only complicate the problem. Most readers want relatable characters, conflict beyond World War II itself, a problem to solve, excitement along the way, and a believable and satisfying ending. Not too much to ask, is it?

Keeping the reader entertained and interested is the goal. I love a good dogfight, and the thrust of the battle to retake the Ukraine intrigues me. The Yakovlev fighter aircraft cries out for description. After all, it is one of the secondary characters, as is the Ukrainian Steppes. For some readers that may be enough, but, for those who are not World War II aviation aficionados, it just isn’t. 

And, when I feel I might be boring the reader, I procrastinate. I eat, nap, pet the cat, and watch the birds at my numerous bird feeders. I have hummingbirds, deer, and goslings in my back yard. Amazingly, I find my mind moves on resolving conflicts in the story line, and hearing the characters telling me more about themselves, even when I am apparently not listening.

Currently, I am re-writing the first third of the novel. The bones have arranged themselves. In some ways this part is easier and in other ways it’s more difficult. Fitting the pieces together to make a narrative challenges me. I must move some scenes forward in the manuscript and drop some later while maintaining the flow of the weather and the history of the battles in the correct sequences.

The main character’s love interest disappears in the smoke of battle and her heart breaks. But another two-thirds of the book looms ahead, so he must reappear. Right? And she is wrapped up in the battle herself, flying her fighter in the wild dogfights, and shooting down German aircraft.

For those of you working during this period, or, just as scary, not working during this period, and who can’t disappear into their writing, please know I salute your courage and willingness to carry on.

Characters

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Creating memorable characters is not easy. They seldom appear full blown. Just like meeting someone new, it takes a while to get to know them. I’m sure my experience is not unlike that of many other writers. You may think you know a character when you first start to write about it, but, as scene follows scene and the writer puts the character in a number of different situations and makes it jump a number of hurtles, the individual begins to come through.

The main character in my work in progress is Katrina Safronova. As I introduced her I knew she flew Yakovlev fighters and had fought in the air war over Stalingrad in the fall and winter of 1942/43, that she had been wounded in combat, (splinter through the left bicep), and that she had two personal victories and one shared victory. That told me she was one tough cookie, especially since she wanted to go back into combat to drive the Fascist invaders from her homeland.

Success in the air in a fighter at any time in the history of air combat requires the mental agility of a cat, the physical strength of an athlete, the ability to think in three dimensions making mathematical calculations under unthinkable emotional and physical pressure and all in fractions of a second. Katrina has a core of steel and an indomitable spirit. As the saying goes, there are two types of fighter pilots: the hunter, and the one who knows in his heart he is the hunted.

After three months in hospitals, Katrina is ready and eager to go back into combat. At the beginning of my work in progress she is flying a replacement aircraft for a squadron based at Belgorod south of the Kursk salient in the Ukraine. Three other women, also flying replacement aircraft, accompany her as replacements of casualties the squadron suffered during the Battle of the Kursk Salient.

The squadron they join has been all male. The squadron is happy to get the replacement aircraft but not so happy to get women pilots. They consider these women to be sub-standard replacements. As a male, telling this story from a woman’s perspective, I may seem under qualified. It takes a considerable amount of chutzpa to think I can take on this project and make it a success. As a writer, I took it on because I felt it was a story that needed to be told. Women now fly fighters in the Air Force, the Navy, and the Marine Corps, and fly a number of aircraft for the Army of the United States.

I am not a fighter pilot, but I am a life long student of war in the air. As a Naval Flight Officer in the United States Navy I was a navigator and an airborne anti-submarine warfare tactical coordinator. In training I was indoctrinated into formation flying and air combat maneuvers, so I have a platform with some credibility. And I felt a duty to tell this story, before the accomplishments of these women were totally forgotten.

Katrina has, for me, after writing some 95,000 words, become a complex, multi-faceted, 22 year old women tempered in the heat of combat, and unwilling to allow any man, anywhere in the world, to look down on her, in spite of the fact that she is short.

Researching for Historical Fiction

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A fiction writer must know intimately the world he/she is trying to describe. Place, time, local culture, and the attitudes of the people of the time all play a part in the story. The best place to stage your story is a place that remains as it was at the time your action takes place. That’s usually not possible with historical fiction. Even stories about the recent past frequently involve changes in the places being described. More distant, yet still modern, times can be researched using photographs, paintings, or sketches. Descriptions of places, written by people who lived there at the time your story takes place, are helpful, but seldom provide the panoramic view that allows the writer to look around and feel part of the venue.

In addition to place, technology also changes over time. As obvious as that sounds, a few months or years during periods of rapid technological  change can make a tremendous difference. An example is the telephone, not to mention computers.

Finding sources useful in fleshing out a past period can be challenging. Diaries, interviews of people who lived at that time, and bureaucratic records, to name a few, can make a time in the past come alive. Unfortunately, people writing during that time take many common objects for granted and do not spell out how or when those objects may have been used. They may simply make reference to them feeling these items were too common to describe. Photographs can be helpful, but even a photograph doesn’t describe how an object was used.

My era of interest is World War Two, and specifically the aerial aspect of that war. I have found autobiographies by pilots of that era most helpful. Interviews done during the war or immediately after might be less valuable if classified material of the time is avoided, glossed over, or redacted.

The setting of my most recent writing, the Soviet Union, is particularly troubling for Americans because most of us, (myself included) do not speak or read Russian. We are dependent on translations of works. Another problem with documents written in the Soviet Union during the war, such as newspapers, and books published for mass distribution, were politicized. More recent documents, though more forthcoming, are frequently fogged by the passage of time.

Archives, available here in the west, are helpful, but these documents also suffered from political manipulation. More recent documentation released after the dissolution of the Soviet Union tends to be more realistic.

Walking the battlefields I describe would be helpful, except that several of them are battlefields once again. Regrettably, for me, the costs of travel are also a deterrent.

My main references are books about the aircraft and operations from Soviet sources translated into English. These books and articles provide very good information in most cases. I have spoken with, as opposed to interviewed, a very successful German fighter pilot from World War Two, and discussed the characteristics of a Yak-9 fighter with a pilot who flew a model provided with an Allison engine, rather than the original Klimov. Both discussions provided insight for me, colored, of course, by pre-conceptions based on my previous study.

Biographies of Russian pilots lack fine detail. One of my books includes interviews with twenty Soviet women who flew in combat with the Soviet Air Force. Bruce Myles, who interviewed these women in the 1970s, wrote the book Night Witches, telling the true stories upon which my fiction is based. Unfortunately, he barely touches upon the things most important to people, and which can be most revealing about their lives. Items such as food, hygiene, and personal care make a tremendous difference in morale and influence the attitudes of people, not just women, who put their lives on the line for their country.

Finally, combat is a supremely messy affair. Many veterans decline to discuss their feelings while in combat. Many times the events in which they partake occur so quickly that analysis of those feelings doesn’t take place until after the events they describe. Even if they relate those events to others, they hide the feelings they have as they reflect on those events. Only those who actually participate can know how those feelings actually temper and change the person involved. Any writer who wasn’t there can only imagine, probably unsuccessfully, their reaction. Consequently, I have only my books, my own flight experience, and my imagination to attempt to re-build the world of fighter pilots on the Eastern Front of World War Two, known to the Russians as the Great Patriotic War.

Sources: Night Witches, Bruce Myles, Presidio Press, 1981

The Soviet Air Force in World War Two, Edited by Ray Wagner, Translated by Leland Fetzer, Doubleday & Co., Inc., Garden City, NY 1973

Yakovlev Fighters of World War Two, Yefim Gordon, Sergey Komissarov, Dmitriy Komissarov, Hikoki Publications Ltd, Manchester, England, 2015

Yakovlev Aces of World War 2, George Mellinger, Osprey Publishing, Oxford, UK, 2005

Destruction of the Korsun Pocket

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General Breith’s Three Panzer Corps made good progress against heavy Soviet opposition, but shortage of fuel for his armored fighting vehicles as well as the opposition of 6 and 2 Soviet Tank Armies brought his advance to a halt. On 12 February he was able to get his tanks refueled and resumed his attack. At Dadushkova he ran into the 50 Tank Brigade. After the battle, he resumed his advance another twelve kilometers to Khizhintsy where he again ran out of fuel.

Inside the cauldron General Stemmermann began moving his forces to the west, closer to the units sent to rescue him, in preparation for the breakout. His forces took Nova Buda and Schenderovka. By 13 February he was able to take Komarovka. He simultaneously withdrew from Korsun, which fell to the Soviets the same day. General Konev attempted to retake Nova Buda but was blocked by SS Wallonien.

General Beith’s 3 Panzer Corps, now lining the west banks of the Gniloy Tikich River, attempted to take Hill 239 near the village of Oktybar overlooking the projected river crossing for Gruppe Stemmermann. A bridge at Lisyanka, strong enough to allow tanks to cross the river, was taken, but the bridgehead across the river was not secure enough for them to make contact with the isolated forces. Konev blocked the relief effort with the 16 Tank Corps and the 13 Guards Heavy Tank Regiment equipped with 21 IS-1 (IS-85) heavy tanks.

At this point the thaw ended. Snow resumed. Temperatures fell to -7 degrees Celsius. By now the cauldron measured five by seven kilometers. Generals Bake and Frank, at Oktyabr were within seven kilometers of Gruppe Stemmermann, which was notified on 16 February that now was the time to break out. The attempt began that night.

Stemmermann’s forces were greatly weakened. The Soviet Forces lining the east riverbank were dug in and supported by artillery. The battle went on all night and through the following day in blizzard conditions. German soldiers, making their way to the river were unaware of the bridge available to the north. At this point the river was two meters deep and several meters wide with a strong current carrying chunks of ice. Attempts to form a bridge by driving tanks into the river failed miserably.

Russian tanks were met by German tanks in battles around the perimeter of the cauldron. The German tanks, seriously outnumbered, were destroyed. By midday on 17 February the Soviets drove their tanks into the collapsing cauldron shelling the soldiers on the riverbank. Desperate German soldiers in naked or nearly naked conditions attempted to swim across the river. General Stemmermann himself was killed.

Of the 35,199 Germans who attempted to flee the pocket, 19,000 were killed or captured, including 3,000 surrounded at Shandorovka.

On 17 and 18 February the German Transportgruppen flew 1,500 sorties carrying 2,026 tons of supplies and evacuating 2,400 wounded. Thirty-two aircraft were lost and 113 were damaged.

During the period 31 January to 18 February the Soviet Air Force flew 210 sorties against airfields and engaged in 75 air battles.

Sources:

‘Crucible at Cherkassy”, Pat McTaggart, WWII History Magazine, September 2005

‘The Red Army’s Drive to Rumania’, A. N. Shimansky, History of the Second World War Magazine, 1970s

Tank Warfare on the Eastern Front 1943-1945: Soviet Steamroller, Robert A. Forczyk, Pen and Sword Military, Barnsley, South Yorkshire, 2016

War Over the Steppes, the Air Campaign on the Eastern Front, 1941-45, E. R. Hooton, Osprey Publishing, Oxford, UK, 2016

The Soviet Air Force in World War II, Edited by Ray Wagner, Translated by Leland Fetzer, Doubleday & Co., Inc., Garden City, NY, 1973

Tightening the Ring

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Once First Ukrainian and Second Ukrainian Fronts completed the encirclement of Gruppe Stemmermann, the difficult task of reducing the Korsun Pocket began.

General Breith, commander of III Panzer Corps, began Operation Wanda, attacking northeast from Novaya Greblya with the 16 and 17 Panzer Divisions supported by two infantry divisions. Soviet General Vatutin, commander of First Ukrainian Front, blocked this attack with the 6 Tank Army. Between III Panzer Corps and 6 Tank Army ran the Gniloy Tikitch River, which, in normal times, was not a serious obstacle. During the thaw of mid-winter 1944, this river, augmented by rain and snow melt, formed an impressive barrier. A series of tank battles stopped Breith’s attack 35 to 40 kilometers short of the pocket and held him there for a week.

Mud closed airfields supplying the German forces in the pocket, so German engineers built a new hard surface runway in four days. During the period from 29 January to 4 February the Luftwaffe lost 40 transport aircraft.

The most serious of the German attacks to free Gruppe Stemmermann took place in the 53 Army area near Lysyanka. It drew the attention of the Soviet Air Force which laid on constant attacks. From 4 February and 18 February the Fifth Air Army flew more than 1,400 sorties.

The Soviets also had supply problems. They began using a Night Bomber Air Division to fly fuel, supplies, and rockets from airfields at Fursy and Yanushevk to rail stations for transportation to the air divisions by rail. Railroad beds became so soft supply trains could not exceed 2 to 4 kilometers per hour.

The Soviet forces occupied the eastern bank of the Gniloy Tikich River as the German forces reached Veselyi Kut on the river itself. On 6 February Hitler authorized Gruppe Stemmermann‘s attempt to escape from the pocket. By this time the thaw made troop movement nearly impossible. Soviet ground attack and bomber units forced the withdrawal of German forces from the area of Gorodishche, then invited Gruppe Stemmermann to surrender. This invitation was rejected.

The 10 Fighter Air Corp of the Home Defense Forces joined the Second Air Army in blockading the front over the pocket. By this time only 100 to 185 tons of supplies per day were being received inside the pocket due to freezing rain and fog, though, unlike the situation during the Stalingrad operation, the troops were never in danger of starvation.

On 9 February, the weather turned cold, freezing the ground. At 0630 hours the artillery barrage began. III Panzer Corps launched their attack taking Bushanka on the Gniloy Tikich River under Soviet fire from the surrounding hills. Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler and 1 Panzer Division reached Risino with 75 to 80 tanks. As the ground firmed up Stemmermann moved SS Wiking west toward III Panzer Corps in preparation for the breakout.

Marshal Zhukov, of Moscow, Leningrad and Stalingrad fame, took command of the outer ring surrounding the Korsun Pocket. General Konev commanded the forces of the inner ring squeezing Gruppe Stemmermann. Stemmermann continued movement of his forces to the west in preparation for the breakout, taking Novo Buda and Schenderovka. Konev counterattacked but was blocked by SS Wiking.

III Panzer Corps was able to take a bridge crossing the Gniloy Tikech and continued to probe for weak spots in the Soviet defenses, finally taking Lysyanka, but the relief force was running out of fuel.

Sources: ‘Crucible at Cherkassy’, Pat McTaggart, WWII History Magazine, September 2005

‘The Red Army’s Drive to Rumania’, A. N. Shimansky, History of the Second World War Magazine, 1970s

Tank Warfare on the Eastern Front 1943-1945: Soviet Steamroller, Robert A. Forczyk, Pen and Sword Military, Barnsley, South Yorkshire, 2016

War Over the Steppes, the Air Campaign on the Eastern Front, 1941-45, E. R. Hooton, Osprey Publishing, Oxford, UK, 2016

The Soviet Air Force in World War II, Edited by Ray Wagner, Translated by Leland Fetzer, Doubleday & Co., Inc., Garden City, NY, 1973