“Very well, Hauptmann, I want you to find that infantry for me. Note their position on a map when you do, and then send a fast biker back here to look for me. Can you get up there?”
“Certainly,” said Hauser. “This advance here has a lot of heavy armor—many KV type tanks in small battalion formations. That’s going to be a lot of work for the Panzer Jaegers. The really big breakthrough is to our east from all I can gather. We picked up a lot of Russian radio traffic. They moved several corps through a big hole last night, and I even heard Steiner on the radio talking about Morozovsk. The situation is very scattered. They have cavalry milling about over there, then charging off in every direction and getting nowhere fast. There are also tanks, however. I heard clear radio traffic that identified the 17th Tank Corps, and some units from the 6th—T-34s for the most part.”
“Yes, we’ve already killed all their older tanks,” said Balck. I’m afraid all we did was encourage them to build more of these new ones. Well, we have a few new tanks as well. I have Hauptmann Ruschel not far from here with a Kampfgruppe. He’s watching the stream bed on your right for the moment, but his cats will come when I whistle. Let me know if you need them. I think we had better finish up here quickly, and then move east at mid-day. Pass the word. We’ll regroup at Roshok on this secondary road to Morozovsk. That will put the division on the flank of that breakthrough, and that’s when we do what we do best.”
That became the order of the day. The 23rd Panzer had blunted the attack pushing out of the Boguchar Bridgehead, and then shifted to its right where Balck had been engaging those heavy tank battalions Hauser had scouted out for him. In that he had the support of the 102nd Heavy Panzer Brigade, and with that unit, one Kurt Knispel was having a field day, racking up an astonishing 13 kills in the space of an hour.
“My,” said Balck, watching through his binoculars as the Lions roared. “Look at that lead tank there, number 507. I want that man in my division!” He had unknowingly pointed to Knispel’s tank, seeing it turn and engage, the crack of its heavy gun sharp on the afternoon air. Balck first thought he had fired much too soon, until he saw the enemy tanks burning, well over 1500 meters away. Knispel’s penchant for long range kills was in rare form that day, and he got seven of his baker’s dozen at ranges where the Panzer IVs could never consider engaging.
By late afternoon it wasn’t a runner who came looking for Balck, but Hauser himself. “I heard this is where the action is tonight,” he said. “But I have good news. The 9th Panzer Division has arrived by rail at Millerovo.”
“That’s Walter Scheller’s outfit now,” said Balck. “Good for him. He can smell where the fighting is.” Balck had taken command of the 11th Panzer from Scheller, who then went to the 9th.
“His division has been assigned to Kempf’s Korps,” said Hauser, “only Kemp is going somewhere else. It’s Knobelsdorff commanding the 48th now.”
“Knobelsdorff? I thought he was in the hospital. In any case, that’s a step in the right direction. He did excellent work with the 19th Panzer Division. Kempf is good with the infantry, but not with tanks. This is very good news.”
“It gets better. Scheller has an infantry division with him.”
“Just what we need. Good! Then we attack until sunset—keep them off balance. After dark we pause, and we’ll let them think we’re sleepy. Instead we move to see if we can coordinate with Scheller’s division. This is going to get very interesting. Stay sharp, Herr von Hauser. I will want your eyes and ears on my right flank now. That’s where we hit them tonight.”
Hermann Balck wasn’t the only one with good eyes and ears. The Soviets had enjoyed a rare local air superiority in the last two weeks, as Manstein’s advance outpaced the ability of the Luftwaffe to reposition and supply squadrons to airfields close enough to support it. Therefore, General Zhukov had a good bird’s eye view of what was happening on the ground. When he saw the dramatic breakthrough in his main attack, he clenched his fist with elation.
He had pushed a tank corps and supporting cavalry divisions through that hole and seen them race over 120 kilometers to the south, all the way to threaten Morozovsk. He had killed the German 46th and 50th Infantry Divisions, cut the line of communications for the SS Panzer Korps, stopped the flow of supporting infantry, worsened its supply status, disrupted its attack at Kalach, forced Steiner to pull units out of that hard won bridgehead to cover his north and even western flanks. The Wiking Division had gone north, Totenkopf west to Morozovsk, Das Reich was pulled into reserve, its troops too exhausted and supplies too low to be used in the bridgehead battle any longer. There his two Aces still fought with the Volga Rifles, now heavily reinforced with the arrival of several independent tank brigades. The Germans would eventually restore their supply corridor, but not this week. He smiled.
Now, however, he could also see the slashing counterattacks that began to bite into the western end of his offensive. A pair of fast moving German Panzer Divisions had punched, moved, punched again, until they had restored order and stabilized the entire German line from Boguchar to Veshenskaya. A third division was seen arriving on the trains at Millerovo, and he knew what was coming next. “Signal Yeremenko—Summer Fox,” he ordered.
It was the prearranged code for consolidation and pullback. He wasn’t going to sit there and watch the Germans tear up his scattered dividions. So on the night when Balck was planning to strike, the Russians pulled back. Only the formations that had broken through near Morozovsk were to be sacrificed. They were too far south, so Zhukov ordered them to turn for the big bend of the Donets, tear up rail lines, blow bridges, and attempt to join Rokossovsky.
His brief summer offensive was over, but he had gained nearly a month of valuable time for the citizens of Volgograd. As far as he was concerned, Operation Mars was a success.
Chapter 9
The German assessment of what had happened in that attack was quite different. The Russians had definitely caught them by surprise, and for eight long days their shock armies had rampaged across the steppes. Yet from the German perspective, they had seen the enemy throw the mass of all the forces they had available along the line of the Don against a string of German infantry divisions that had only recently taken up positions. The line had buckled, was pierced in at least two locations, with one very serious breach that led to the startling enemy drive on Morozovsk.
Yet the presence of two panzer divisions, the 11th and 23rd, had stopped the wound at Boguchar, then swung east to smash into the flank of the enemy’s most serious penetration. The timely arrival of the 14th Panzer Korps had finally put an end to Zhukov’s offensive, but at some considerable cost.
When Steiner sent the Wiking Division north into the breach at the height of the crisis, casualties had been high. When finally pulled off the line, the Germania Regiment was down to the strength of a reinforced company. There were only 18 rifle squads left of the 120 that had started the offensive a month earlier. Nordland had only 24 squads, battalion level strength. Only Westland survived reasonably intact, with 69 squads still on the line reinforcing a battered infantry regiment that had been whittled down to battalion strength. The rest of the Wiking Division had to be pulled back to the Chir for extensive rest and reorganization to a traditional Panzer Division structure. Nordland and Germania would combine their resources, and tanks and other assault guns were on the way to form a panzer regiment.