“My infantry should help,” said Model, understanding all too well what Speidel was saying.
“They will, but your Army had only eight divisions if I recall. This doesn’t leave you with very much.”
“It is not my Army any longer,” said Model. “Hitler has given me the 9th Army, the largest in Armeegruppe Center. Weichs is taking over 2nd Army. Unfortunately, a good many of the divisions assigned to my roster are somewhere else. You already have my 7th and 82nd Infantry Divisions and 9th Panzer. My 18th Panzer is in the Caucasus, the 78th Sturm is still in Iraq, 2nd Panzer is in Syria, though I’m told it will be returning soon. So the 44th Panzerkorps is now reduced to two infantry divisions. What a misnomer!”
“Don’t complain,” said Speidel. “It is the same everywhere, and I think it will only get worse. The Soviets are already over the Middle Donets at Andreyevka again. Manstein has ordered Kirchner to pull both his divisions off the line and move to that sector. Hopefully, we can discourage them if they have any notion to exploit the gap there.”
“A difficult situation,” said Model. “Very well, give my regards to the Field Marshal.”
So, Model is feeding a little higher on the Lamb, thought Manstein. 9th Army once had 26 divisions, the heart of Armeegruppe Center. It had held the line west of Orel, covering Bryansk, and fought well. Model will only make it better.
As for Hitler, I think both Speidel and I were shocked that things went as well as they did. His remarks at the end were quite telling. Even though his frustration would lead him here to remove me from command, he could not do so, because I think, deep down, he knows that he could not master this situation. The tension between my loyalty to him as Germany’s leader, and my deference to his command, is always in play against my duty to the army, and military common sense.
In his mind, Hitler is still fighting the last war. These battle lines are merely trench lines to him. He would just have our troops sit there behind wire and machineguns, but he has forgotten what happened when the tanks came on the scene. If one position is overrun and taken by the enemy, he thinks only of mounting a charge to retake that trench.
At least Hitler kept his promises. Thus far he has not rescinded my orders to consolidate the front. He is getting me some infantry, and I will soon have two more infantry divisions from Hansen to help shore up the Middle Donets. I have tightened up my line near Kharkov, and the enemy has tightened his noose. What I would like to do now is counterpunch off the ropes. I think I can recall 3rd SS to the city now, and Grossdeutschland Division is ready to fight. What I would like to do is strike Kuznetsov with those two divisions, right through the lines of Sepp Dietrich’s 1st SS. My only concern is the north, so I have ordered Balck to take 11th Panzer back to Knobelsdorff as a fire brigade.
As to the situation near Andreyevka, Kirchner has his troops in position now, and he will deliver a counterblow in conjunction with my attack out of Kharkov. So, it is time for the knights to sally forth out of the castle. The attack begins at dusk, a nice night action that will hopefully catch the enemy napping.
But that was not to be.
Kuznetsov had plans of his own. He had spoken with Leylushenko of the 3rd Guards Army, and Galitskiy of 3rd Shock. That group was on his right, and he wanted both armies to begin a big push to break through to the city that very same night, while he organized his own attack. The two sides would soon be like a pair of bull rams, butting their steel antlers against one another in a battle that could decide the fate of the city.
Just as Kirchner was forming up south of Andreyevka, the Soviets were also busy reinforcing their bridgehead. Inheriting the trucks once used by the Soviets when they converted more units to mech infantry, the two Siberian Armies (1st and 2nd Shock), had been reinforced by a pair of nine battalion Motor Rifle Corps. The 1st Siberian Motor Rifle Corps had established the bridgehead, and now it was being reinforced by the division from 2nd Shock Army, detached for this purpose.
They were just the leading edge of forces Zhukov now planned to move south of the Donets. Behind them was the entire 27th Steppe Army from Vatutin’s front with six more rifle divisions. Further north, the Wiking Division had been forced to halt its advance towards Kharkov by the appearance of strong infantry forces on its right. Those were the Guards Rifle Divisions, six in all, that made up Kuznetsov’s infantry support, and they would not be alone.
3rd Guards Tank Corps, a unit meant for Leylushenko, had been detached to provide more armor in that sector, and now Zhukov was doubling down by committing the entire 4th Guards Army, six more Guards Rifle Divisions organized into two Corps. This was the old 24th Army, pulled off the line and reorganized with fresh recruits filling out the veteran divisions, and a new name. It was just as Manstein had explained it to Hitler. The enemy was attacking with new Armies that had never been heard of before.
That night Kirchner opened his attack in the south with 17th Panzer, 29th Motorized and the 501st Schwerepanzer battalion. It caught the 2nd Siberian Motor Rifle Corps by surprise, as half of that division was further west assisting the attack being made by their brothers in 1st Siberian. Kirchner was going to be attacking into the flank of that operation, and he hoped he could stop it completely.
It was but one small part of the great flow of troops and equipment over the Middle Donets. The 1st Guards Cavalry Corps had come over the river using a small bridge at Bishkin, and they were moving in three divisions through the thick woodland south of Zimyev. Above those same woods, 4th Guards army was marching in behind the slowly expanding perimeter of the 1st Guards Army, which had pushed through Taranovka southwest of Kharkov. They eventually found the right flank of the Wiking Division, which had stopped Kuznetsov’s 10th Tank Corps. Active reconnaissance soon discovered that there was nothing beyond that flank, and so the Guards infantry began to maneuver to enfilade the Wiking s. When 7th Tank Corps began to probe the left flank of Gille’s division, he realized that he was going to have to withdraw.
This was not Damascus….
Near Kharkov, both sides met like two lines of armored cavalry, with fighting more intense than the night of the Zitadelle offensive. Grossdeutschland Division sallied forth, recapturing the village of Oshovka, only to find the Russians reorganizing for an immediate counterattack. 51st Panther Battalion surged into the enemy line, and ran right into the oncoming attack by 17th Heavy Tank Brigade. That action would pit a massed formation of 72 new Panthers against 24 Kirov-I heavy tanks, 18 KV-II’s, 11 T-34/85’s and 12 T-34/76 medium tanks. With 12 more assault guns on the Soviet side, the numbers were just about equal.
It was a stunning duel, the thunder of the guns and growl of the tanks ripping the night apart. The one advantage the soviets had was a preponderance of infantry support when two battalions of 1st Guard Mech joined the action.
The battle rippled all along the line extending to the northeast, lighting up the night with fire. 3rd SS gained a kilometer only to find itself under attack by two fresh Siberian divisions from 3rd Shock Army. 2nd Reichsführer Brigade smashed through one rifle division only to find itself in a life and death struggle with the newly arriving 3rd Guards Mech Division.
Yet the most dramatic event that night was the relentless advance of Mikhail Katukov’s new 5th Guards Mech Corps in the north. It struck the German 167th Infantry Division, smashing one battalion after another. The Germans stared in awe at the new fast moving infantry carrier, which they first thought was a new light tank, until swarms of infantry suddenly emerged from the shadows, submachineguns blazing. The Russians went right through the German line, the fast moving BMPs sweeping south and west towards Grayvorn.