Third Winter

[cardboard_killer]

[80 years ago today] "• Soviet submarine A-3 (former Imperial Russian submarine AG-14) vanishes southeast of Odessa around this time. The reason for her loss is unknown.

 

AG-14 in the 1920s before being renamed

 

• The Soviet North Caucasus Front is preparing to conduct an amphibious assault from the Taman peninsula to the Kerch peninsula in the Crimea. Once marines of the 386th Independent Naval Infantry Battalion land to create a beachhead, the 318th Rifle Division will cross. Three more divisions are available to follow, but a lack of suitable craft will make the reinforcement slow. Six hundred artillery pieces and rocket launchers are waiting, able to five across the five mile wide strait. The defenders are the German 98. Infanterie Division, the Romanian Divizia 6 Cavalerie and the Romanian Divizia 3 Munte, covering seven miles of shoreline. Armor support is light for the Axis forces and they will rely on light Romanian tanks and German StuG-III assault guns for this role.

 

- Today, Admiral Nikolai Kuznetsov conducts bombardments of the Axis held shore in order to determine positions for defending artillery and coastal guns.

 

• Unable to leave as Soviet troops approach, four German Marinefährprahm are scuttled at Henichesk, Ukraine, on the Sea of Azov.

 

• The Germans conduct an “anti-partisan” operation against the village of Kusnezovo, district of Pskov. The inhabitants are herded into buildings and shot, then the village is burned. Jacob Grigoriev will testify at Nuremberg that he survived by crumpling to the floor at the first shot and playing dead. His wife and two of his sons (ages 11 and 9) are killed. He escapes through a window carrying his 6 year old son who is wounded but survives. The village is erased.

 

Anti-partisan sweep 1943"

Edited October 28, 2023 by cardboard_killer

[cardboard_killer]

[80 years ago today] "• U-24 torpedoes and sinks Soviet coastal minesweeper SKA-088 off Gagra, Georgia.

 

• Soviet forces reach Perekop, cutting off the Axis land route to Crimea.

 

• The Soviet North Caucasus Front launches an amphibious assault on the Kerch peninsula in the Crimea. Marines of the 386th Independent Naval Infantry Battalion land first to create a beach-head, followed by leading elements of the 318th Rifle Division including political officer Leonid Brezhnev.

 

Soviet Marines

 

- The Soviets land in the German 98th Infanterie Division’s area, and bad weather quickly comes in preventing follow-up waves until November 2nd. 17. Armee Commander Generaloberst Erwin Jaenecke hesitates to attack the beach-head and orders elements of the Romanian Divizia 6 Cavalerie and the Romanian Divizia 3 Munte to move up in support first. Armor support is light for the Axis forces and they will rely on Romanian 37mm armed Pz-38(t) tanks and German StuG-III assault guns for this role.

 

- By the time Jaenecke attacks, the beach-head will be reinforced.

 

Romanian T-38 tanks 1943"

 

[cardboard_killer]

[80 years ago today] "• Goebbels writes that "we are in danger of slowly bleeding to death in the East." [geez, really? It's important to remember that the Nazis as a whole were a bunch of incompetents that found themselves at the head of an industrial nation.]

 

• Soviet submarine M-35 sinks the barge SNR 1293 off Ak Mechet, Crimea.

 

• The Soviet Azov Flotilla is able to provide some reinforcements and supplies for the Eltigen beachhead on the Kerch peninsula and make a second landing north of the port city itself. The 2nd Guards Rifle Division is led by the 369th Independent Naval Infantry Battalion. Numerous landing craft and small vessels are lost.

 

• The Germans will respond by having the German V Corps contain the Kerch landing while ordering the Romanian Divizia 6 Cavalerie and the Divizia 3 Munte to assault and eliminate the Eltigen beach-head.

 

Soviet Marines landing near Kerch

 

[cardboard_killer]

[80 years ago today] "• Flying a Focke-Wulf 190, Luftwaffe Staffelkapitän Emil Lang is credited with shooting down 18 Soviet aircraft (nine Il-2, three Yak-7, two Yak-9, three La-5, and one unknown type) during four sorties near Kiev. It remains the record for the most aerial victories by a pilot in one day. He will appear on the cover of Berliner Illustrirte Zeitung and be awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves by Hitler personally. He will be credited with 173 victories when he is shot down and killed by P-51 pilot Darrel Cramer in September, 1944.

 

- Lang has only been flying since March, and celebrated his hundredth victory the day before when he was credited with downing eight Yaks.

 

• There has been an uneasy balance along the front at Kiev (modern Kyiv). After the failure to break out of the Bukrin bridgehead south of the city two weeks earlier, First Ukrainian Front commander Nikolai Vatutin had shifted the Third Guards Tank Army and most of his heavy artillery northwards to the Lutezh bridgehead. With radio deception and maintenance of pressure at Bukrin, Vatutin completely fools Erich von Manstein into thinking his next attempt will be in the same place. Von Manstein even shifts reinforcements intended for 4. Panzer Armee at Kiev to the 8. Armee opposite Bukrin to counter it.

 

- Today the Soviets conduct a massive artillery barrage from the east bank of the Dnepr and assault from Lutezh only 30 km north of Kiev with six rifle divisions backed by a tank corps ready to exploit the breach in the German lines. A limited offensive is made from the smaller bridgehead at Yasnogorodka to keep the Germans there pinned. In two days the German front will be sundered.

 

- Expecting the Soviets to drive straight for Kiev, von Manstein will again be surprised when Vatutin drives westward in order to take the towns of Zhitomir, Korosten, Berdichev and Fastov, and to cut the rail link to Army Group Center; this would be the first step towards the encirclement of Army Group South. Kiev will be liberated within days as the Germans hastily withdraw to avoid being flanked.

 

- Von Manstein blames 4. Panzer Armee commander Hermann Hoth for the defeat and Hitler replaces him. Hitler reinforces von Manstein with five panzer divisions and an artillery corps and orders him to counter-attack once Vatutin’s forces are extended.

 

Soviet infantry in Kiev November 1943"

[cardboard_killer]

[80 years ago today] "• North of Kiev, elements of the Soviet Sixtieth Army begin breaking out of the bridgehead at Yasnogorodka while those of the Third Guards Tank and Thirty-eighth Armies advance from Lutezh with heavy air support.

 

Soviet B-25 and Yak-3s over Ukraine winter 1943-44

 

- These thrusts are breaking the 4. Panzerarmee into three sections.

 

• The Azov Flotilla loses a patrol boat, motor torpedo boat, and a minesweeper off the Kerch-Eltigen beachheads.

 

• South of Kiev, the Germans are forced to yield additional ground along the Dniepr River as the Red Army presses forward to its mouth opposite Kherson. This places Soviet troops less than a hundred miles from Odessa, which is not far from the Romanian border.

 

- Von Manstein cancels a counter-attack by the XL Panzerkorps at Krivoi Rog, 80 miles southwest of Dnepropetrovsk, since even if they advance they will be flanked north and south by the Soviet advances near Kherson and Kiev.

 

Artillery of Panzergrenadier Division Großdeutschland in Ukraine November 1943

 

Soviet heavy artillery near Kiev

[cardboard_killer]

[80 years ago today] "• German submarine tender Otto Wünsche is commissioned. She will survive the war and serve the Soviet navy into 1973.

 

• Kiev is liberated by the Red Army. Stalin issues a special order of the day and broadcasts to celebrate this victory. 6,000 men of the 88. Infanterie Division acting as a rear-guard are captured.

 

Spoiler

[Caution, video  included murder of civilians.]

 

 

[cardboard_killer]

[80 years ago today] "• The German VIII and LIX Corps plus the XLVIII Armored Corps assault Soviet forces around Meleni. The offensive will reach the Teterev River and inflict heavy losses on the Soviet Thirteenth and Sixtieth Armies.

 

• Soviets cut the Smela-Znamenka rail line southwest of Kremenchug.

 

• In the Crimea, General de brigadă Corneliu Teodorini orders the final assault on Eltigen. By evening the Soviet line is collapsing and the Azov Flotilla under Sergei Gorshkov is evacuating units to the Kerch beachhead further north. By the following morning Teodorini will report "the Eltigen bridgehead is no more".

 

- The Romanians have suffered nearly 900 casualties while killing about 1,100 Soviets and capturing 3,114. Also taken are 36 artillery pieces and anti-tank guns, 81 heavy machine guns, and 35 mortars. 76 Soviet tanks are destroyed with 38 captured.

 

- Teodorini will be awarded the Mihai Viteazul Order 2nd class and Oak Leaves for his German Knight’s Cross."

 

 

Landing reinforcements at Kerch-Eltigen 1943

[cardboard_killer]

[80 years ago today] "• Three German war criminals, Captain Wilhelm Langheld, Corporals Reinhardt Retelav and Hans Ritz and their Russian accomplice Mikhail Bulanov, are hanged this cold grey morning in the public square in Kharkov, the war-scarred city where they had carried out massacres with the utmost brutality. They were found guilty of war crimes by a Soviet Military Court, including the shooting and burning of prisoners of war, and the murder of civilians in carbon monoxide vans. A crowd reported at 40,000 watches as nooses are placed round their necks and roars with approval when the lorries on which they stand are driven away to leave them dangling from the scaffold of rough pine logs.

 

[hidden: scaffold shot]

Spoiler

Kharkov hangings 19 December 43

 

- Radio Moscow has broadcast a day by day account of the trial in German. This first trial is purposefully involving “small fry” against whom the evidence is ironclad, but the Soviet Court announces in a clear message,

 

“All of these crimes and atrocities are not isolated incidents, but links in a long chain of crimes which have been, and are still being, committed by the German invaders on the direct instructions of the German government and the Supreme Command of the German Army.”

[cardboard_killer]

[80 years ago today] "• Early in the morning, thirty Soviet tanks with infantry penetrate the lines of the 48th Armored Corps and burst into Kazatin where they destroy several hundred German trucks and wagons at a supply centre. By late afternoon the Germans have retaken about half of the city but have no real prospect of maintaining their grip on it. Von Manstein reports to Hitler that the Red Army has so far thrown a total of forty-seven rifle divisions and nine tank and mechanized corps against Fourth Armored Army (more than double what the Soviets are actually using). Other Soviet forces take Korostyshev, East of Zhitomir. Von Manstein pulls back the First Armored Army to lend support to the threatened Fourth Armored Army.

 

• Adolf Hitler orders the demolition of his Werwolf headquarters north of Vinnitsa, Ukraine. "There must be a special detachment at Vinnitsa to burn the whole headquarters down and blow it up. It is important there should be no furniture left, otherwise the Russians will send it to Moscow and put it on display. Burn the lot."

 

http://www.pizzatravel.com.ua/uploads/2014/19400.jpg

[cardboard_killer]

[80 years ago today] "

• The Soviet Sixtieth Army secures Korosten and drives west along the rail line towards Sarny. Third Guards Army has trapped elements of the German XIII Corps at Zhitomir.

 

• Large partisan formations in the Yaila Mountains are creating significant problems for the Axis forces defending the Crimea. Estimated to be about 7,000 strong, they have intensified their actions following the Red Army landing at Kerch.

 

- Colonel General Erwin Jaenecke, commander of the Seventeenth Army, details the Romanian Mountain Corps (Vânători de munte) to clear out the main group, twenty kilometers east of Simferopol.

 

- Mountain Corps staff draw up a plan to encircle the area with troops and gradually reduce it. Dedicated air support is to be provided by the Romanian 1st fighter flotilla with Bf-109Gs, the 8th Assault Group with Hs-129B ground attack planes, and the 3rd Bomber Flotilla with Ju-87D and Ju-88A bombers, but fuel constraints will drastically limit the sorties.

 

 

- Seven mountain battalions, one cavalry squadron, two engineer platoons, a security platoon, plus four artillery and two 120mm mortar batteries set out in three tactical groups to conduct the encirclement. One German infantry battalion is provided, allowing Jaenecke to describe it in reports as a German operation with Romanian support.

 

- The Romanians initially encounter stubborn resistance east of Angara, but after the lightly equipped partisans take heavy losses, the Crimeans concentrate on escaping the noose through the thin Romanian lines. By the end of the first week in January, the Romanians report destroying 29 partisan camps while killing an estimate 1,100 partisans and capturing 2,500. How many of these were actually partisans is unknown. Romanian losses are 43 killed and 189 wounded.

 

Aeronautica Regală Română Henschel 129B

 

Romanian mountain troops in the Yaila Mountains

 

Romanian Ju-88"

[cardboard_killer]

[80 years ago today] "

• Allied enlisted prisoners are treated differently in Germany. Enlisted men are expected to work, often in excess of what was stipulated in the Geneva Conventions. Denis Avery, captured in North Africa, was sent to the I.G. Farben plant complex near Auschwitz, where he worked side by side with Jewish inmates. One entry of his account:

 

“We worked eleven hours a day. Forget everything you have seen in war movies where the men swan around in cricket sweaters, doing a bit of gardening or gym to cover their escape tunnels, smoking pipes and teasing the Germans. It may have been like that in the officers’ camps but for us, the ‘other ranks’, it was hard, physical work, though it was not nearly as hard for us as for the stripeys.”

 

British POWs on liberation from Stalag 11B in 1945.

 

“Each day I saw Jews being killed on the factory site. Some were kicked and beaten to death, others simply collapsed and died in the dirt of exhaustion and hunger. I knew the same was happening in every corner of the camp, in every work detail.”

 

“These Jews might be able to prolong their lives a little but the outcome was likely to be the same. They weren’t fed enough to survive. Around midday the dreadful cabbage soup arrived. We could barely stomach it, though ours offered some nutrition while the stuff the Jewish prisoners had was little more than stinking water.”

 

“From time to time we managed to exaggerate the numbers on our work Kommando to get more soup than we needed. We couldn’t give it directly to the Jews but we left it standing around where they could get to it. If the guards or the Kapos saw them eating our soup they kicked it over to stop them. There was usually a beating.”

 

“Behind it all stood the SS and the executives of IG Farben itself. The Kapos, the prisoners put in charge of their fellows, became the focus of my anger. They were evil men and many wore the green triangle of the career criminal. Their survival depended on keeping the rest of the prisoners in line. If they lost their privileged job they were friendless and then they didn’t live long. People talk about man’s inhumanity to man, but that wasn’t human or inhuman — it was bestial. Love and hate meant nothing there. It was indifference. I felt degraded by each mindless murder I witnessed and could do nothing about.” 

 

“I was living in obscenity.”

[cardboard_killer]

[80 years ago today] "• As part of the Strategic Offensive to completely liberate Leningrad from siege, Generál-leytenánt Ivan Fedyuninsky’s Second Shock Army attacks from the Oranienbaum pocket while Ivan Maslennikov’s Forty-second Army attacks from Leningrad itself. The attacks are supported by thousands of guns, mortars and rockets plus 17 warships of the Baltic fleet that pour half a million shells into the German fortifications. Long range naval aviation bombers attack German headquarters and communications centers behind the lines. Further south, the Volkhov Front begins an offensive operation to prevent the Germans from shifting resources.

 

- Obergruppenführer und General der Waffen-SS Felix Steiner’s III SS Panzerkorps is badly mauled while the 9. and 10. Luftwaffen Feld-divisions begin crumpling immediately under the Soviet attack. The Soviets had chosen exactly the two places in which the Germans have the least room to maneuver and within days Generaloberst Georg Lindemann’s 18. Armee will be in danger of being trapped.

 

Soviet artillery on Leningrad Front

 

Destroyer Опытный firing from Leningrad"

Glad I'm not on that tug!

[cardboard_killer]

[80 years ago today] "• Generalfeldmarschall von Küchler denies permission for 18. Armee forces to retreat but allows dismantling of the Leningrad siege artillery. He re-routes reserves intended to counterattack in an effort to halt the Soviet advance which has so quickly mauled the III SS Panzerkorps plus one Heer and two Luftwaffe infantry divisions.

 

• During an attack on German positions on the Leningrad Front, Serzhánt Mikhail Smirnov overruns and destroys three anti-tank guns before a shell knocks out his T-34. He mans the turret machine gun and is credited with killing or wounding thirty Germans before supporting infantry catches up. He will be awarded the Hero of the Soviet Union.

 

Serzhánt Smirnov in 1944

 

• Soviet submarine L-23 is lost in the Black Sea, probably sunk by auxiliary sub chaser UJ-106."

[cardboard_killer]

[80 years ago today] "• In the morning the Soviets enter the outskirts of Krasnogvardeysk and reach the bend of the Luga River southeast of Luga. At the end of the day 18. Armee commander Lindemann reports that his right flank has lost contact with 16. Armee and Krasnogvardeysk will fall within twenty-four hours.

 

- Von Küchler requests permission to retreat from the fallback “Rollbahn” defensive line that AG North has just reached. Hitler denies permission with the instructions to be “a little ruthless” rather than abandon prepared defenses without a fight.

 

• In the Ukraine the Germans launch a counterattack against the First Ukrainian Front’s First Tank Army west of Vinnitsiya. The XLVI Panzerkorps with the 1. SS Panzerdivision "Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler" in the lead, breaks through the Soviet lines, but is unable to exploit as the engineers responsible for bridging a critical stream for the tanks get lost trying to find the location.

 

- The intention was for III Panzerkorps to attack at the same time and envelop First Tank Army, but it is delayed a day due to muddy conditions. The Soviets are able to react to each attack in order and blunt both, though First Tank Army loses several hundred vehicles and takes more than 8,000 casualties.

 

- At the same time, 110 miles to the East, the Second Ukrainian Front launches the Korsun–Shevchenkovsky Offensive with the objective being a link up with the First UF to encircle the German forces in what will be called the Korsun Pocket.

 

- Two days later Stavka will counterattack with First Ukrainian Front’s Fourth Guards Army to meet the 2UF thrust, conducting a double envelopment of the XLVI Panzer and the XI Armeekorps, while the III Panzerkorps retreats.

 

T-26 tank and riders in Korsun-Shevchenkovski region early 1944 [it is very hard to believe that T-26s were still used at the front in 1944. This must be a propoganda photo, IMO.]

 

Tigers of III Armored Corps Jan 44."

[cardboard_killer]

[80 years ago today] "• Troops of Third Ukrainian Front drive to outskirts of Nikopol. The last German troops east of Nikopol cross the Dniepr, blowing up the bridge behind them.

 

• Further north, Erich von Manstein admits that his relief forces will be unable to encircle the Soviet First and Second Ukrainian Front forces besieging the Korsun pocket. XLVII Panzerkorps, itself under attack on its flanks, is making no headway. III Panzerkorps, with a shorter distance (about twenty miles) has already bogged down and is focused on bringing up fuel for its vehicles. The tank crews are carrying gasoline to the front in buckets, and many of the infantrymen are slogging through the knee-deep mud barefooted, finding this less exhausting than having to stop and retrieve their boots every few steps. At the same time the Luftwaffe airlift of supplies stops completely due to mud closing down the airstrips. Von Manstein proposes that he turn and drive directly into the pocket to open a corridor as the III Panzerkorps commander had proposed days earlier. He also proposes that the two trapped Armeekorps elements break out to meet him. Hitler approves that evening and releases another panzer division from the reserve.

 

• The first three prototypes of the Soviet T-44 tank begin trials. Two have 85mm guns and one a 122mm gun. The design goal is for a medium tank with better protection than the T-34 without sacrificing mobility. The tanks conduct comparison trials with T-34/85s and a captured German Panzer-V. Problems with the design result in second generation prototypes being built, including one with a 100mm gun.

 

- Below is a T-44/122 alongside a Panther during trials. Ultimately, the 85mm version with the new ZiS-S-53 gun is chosen as the larger guns overstess the vehicle. Two thousand will be built but other than three sent to the front for testing purposes, the Red Army declines to use them as it would complicate logistics during the drive on Berlin. The T-44 is the direct ancestor of the T-54/T-55 series.

 

T-44-122 prototype alongside PzKpfW-V"

[cardboard_killer]

[80 years ago today] "• Eight American Vosper 72 foot PT boats are commissioned into the Soviet Navy as Torpedo Cutters.

 

• Even after switching from an attempted envelopment to a direct relief thrust, 1. Panzer Armee reports that III Panzerkorps is unable to get through the Soviet perimeter to the Korsun-Cherkassy pocket. Von Manstein directs Stemmermann in the pocket to mass his forces for an all-or-nothing attempt. He is instructed to assemble all the artillery he can to open a breach. With fuel critically short, the wounded and heavy equipment will have to be left behind.

 

Germans attempting to escape Korsun

 

• The Polish Government in London rejects a Soviet proposal that the Curzon Line (322 km west of 1939 Russo-Polish frontier) should now be post-war border.

 

• Fritz Schmenkel is sentenced to death by a German military court, after being captured in December. A German communist conscripted into the Wehrmacht, he had deserted in 1941 while in Belarus and joined a partisan unit once interrogations convinced them that he was sincere in his desire to fight fascism.

 

- Wearing German uniform, he had led German patrols into ambushes where an entire unit might be captured, and he was awarded the Order of the Red Banner in 1943. He will be executed a week from now and posthumously declared a Hero of the Soviet Union."

[cardboard_killer]

[80 years ago today] "• Soviet bombers attack Helsinki again. This time the Finnish defences are strengthened further by a flight of German night fighters. The first attempt by 120 bombers is repelled, but later in the night some 300 bombers try to get through in smaller groups. Some succeed, but overall the city suffers far less than in the first bombing ten days ago.

 

• Finnish envoy J. K. Paasikivi meets Soviet ambassador Madame Alexandra Kollontay in Stockholm to discuss the possibility of a negotiated peace between Finland and Soviet Union. The Soviets demand the 1940 border in addition to the Arctic port of Petsamo, the severing all ties with Germany and interning of German troops. The Soviets also publish the terms, and Germany lets it to be known that it considers the Finnish peace-feelers 'treacherous'.

 

• The Korsun pocket is now a mere five kilometers in diameter, depriving General der Artillerie Wilhelm Stemmermann of room to maneuver. The Red Army pours intense artillery and rocket fire on the area around the encircled troops, while Sturmoviks of the Red Air Force bomb and strafe, only infrequently challenged by Luftwaffe fighters. Various unit diaries describe a scene of gloom, with fires burning caused by Soviet night bombing with incendiaries, destroyed or abandoned vehicles everywhere and wounded men and disorganized units on muddy roads.

 

 

- Stemmermann commands the rear guard and will be killed. As the Germans attack to the southwest with their artillery firing off all remaining ammunition, they find that the vital Hill 239 is occupied by T-34s of the Fifth Guards Tank Army. Energetic efforts to capture Hill 239 fail and the high ground has to be bypassed. The German escape direction veers southwards toward the Gniloy Tikich River, thus ending for the bulk of troops at the wrong position of the stream with disastrous consequences to come. When daylight arrives, the German escape plan begins to unravel.

 

- General Konev, now aware of the German breakout, resolves to keep his promise to Stalin not to let any "Hitlerites" escape annihilation. At this time the XX Tank Corps brings the new Joseph Stalin-2 tanks into battle for the first time.

 

German artillery Korsun pocket"

[cardboard_killer]

[80 years ago today] "• Six hundred Soviet bombers raid Helsinki overnight. Coordination is poor due to the diversity of the Soviet bomber force, which includes VVS and Naval air units. Only a few four engine Pe-8 bombers are available, with most of the aircraft being Il-4 and Li-2s with lend-lease B-25s and A-20s. Only about 300 bombs out of 5,000 actually hit the city, killing 245 people and wounding 646. Finnish torpedo boat Hurja and motor torpedo boat VMV-8 are sunk. Three bombers are downed with six more crash landing on return to base.

 

- Damage is relatively light but it serves its purpose in showing Finland what is to come if it doesn’t negotiate a separate peace.

 

Finnish AA fire Helsinki

 

Bombing Helsingissä February 1944

 

University of Helsinki after the 26-27 February raid."

[cardboard_killer]

[80 years and three days ago] "• Auschwitz-Birkenau camp officials decide to gas the Czech Jews of Theresienstadt camp (sector BIIb). They are given postcards post-dated 25-27 Mar 1944 with pre-printed message “we are healthy and fine” and told to sign them. These prisoners will be gassed on 8 March and the postcards mailed after 25 March.

 

• Soviet 2nd Ukrainian Front under Ivan Konev launches the Uman–Botoşani Offensive in the Ukraine. Its goal is to split Heersgruppe Sud and destroy the 8. Armee. The German response will be slow as von Manstein initially believes this to be a feint in order to draw forces from the 1st Ukrainian Front’s area, and Konev’s forces only outnumber the Germans by 1.5 to 1.

 

- Within two days the Soviets will sunder the German front, allowing the Second and Fifth Guards Tank Armies to cross the Gorny Tikach River on the third day and without pausing, overcome the last defensive line manned by German troops on the way to the Southern Bug river.

 

- Pressure continues further north as the Red Army pushes into pre-war Poland.

 

Soviet troops in Ukrainian village early 1944

 

IS-2 tanks of 1st Byelorussian Front in Poland near the Vistula River Mar 1944"

[cardboard_killer]

[80  years ago today]"• The Soviet Second Tank Army liberates Uman, overrunning the Luftwaffe base there. According to Pravda, von Manstein’s Army Group South is in flight, desperately trying to avoid being encircled and is abandoning arms and equipment in its flight. The Red Army claims to have captured 200 Tiger and Panther tanks among the booty.

 

Soviets with captured Panthers"