Chapter 132: Quiet Flows the Don
In fact, in the long river of history, countless people and deeds that once shone have been covered by the dust of history, so that they are little known. What people can see with their eyes and remember in their minds are often just one or two things or one or two people who are put under the spotlight and attract everyone's attention.
The defense of Yelzhovka was as long as the Battle of Stalingrad. The 66th Army also paid a heavy price in the defense of this city. In mid-September, the German offensive forces even captured the city. The 66th Army headquarters suffered a German artillery attack, and 11 senior commanders, including the army chief of staff and artillery director, were killed in the shelling.
However, precisely because this city had once fallen into the hands of the Germans, the Supreme Command downplayed the battle here in the corresponding propaganda, and the achievements of the army group were obliterated.
There are many times when things are like this. In the same defensive operation, whether a front can be successfully defended often determines the future and fate of the commander. In the Battle of Stalingrad, the 62nd Army successfully defended. Even though the German army occupied most of the entire city, the Soviet army could only retain a small area along the river, and the city did not fall. Chuikov and Yuri, who commanded this operation, were heroes and could gain great honor. On the contrary, no matter how determined they fought and how much they sacrificed, it would be meaningless.
Yelzhovka was recaptured three days ago. In this line, the German defense line was forced to retreat 18 kilometers. Such a distance means that the entire city is still under the threat of German artillery fire. Therefore, blackout in the city is essential. Looking from the other side of the river, the entire city is like a rotting beast. Only some broken outlines can be seen, but it is difficult to see the whole picture.
On the east bank of the river were the Soviet artillery positions, which were set up below the riverbank and stretched for several kilometers. Occasionally, one or two artillery pieces would fire at the German defense line west of the city. This bombardment was blind and had no target, and its purpose was only to retaliate against the enemy's artillery fire.
The river was frozen, the ferry dock was useless, armored vehicles could not safely roll across the river, and only dog sleds were available .
Yuri boarded a dog sled temporarily requisitioned by the army on the shore, crossed the river in the dark, risking falling into an ice hole, and entered Yezhovka, which had already become a ruin, in the early morning.
As the commander of the Don Front, Rokossovsky entered Yelzhovka yesterday. At that time, there were still sporadic battles in the ruins of the city, and Soviet soldiers were clearing out the Germans who stayed in the city. After entering Yelzhovka and establishing the temporary command post of the front, the first thing Rokossovsky did was to contact the members of the front command, including Yuri, and ask them to attend a meeting in Yelzhovka. As the new assistant commander of the front, Yuri was the first to rush over.
The front's temporary command post was set up in an underground facility of the city's water plant. In previous battles, this underground facility was relatively well preserved. In addition, it was close to the river bank and was relatively safe.
After crossing the river with great trepidation on a dog sled, Yuri, led by a lieutenant he met on the road, found the city water plant.
Because it was late at night, the main commanders in the headquarters had already gone to bed, and only a young staff officer on duty received Yuri. Yuri declined the staff officer's suggestion to arrange for him to rest, asked for something to eat, and read documents in the temporary meeting room of the headquarters - since he had been appointed to a new position, he had to adjust his state and get into the role in the shortest possible time, and to do this, he had to shift his focus from the level of the 62nd Army to the level of the front.
Conditions at the front line were limited, so the staff officer found a serviceman and after more than ten minutes of effort, he finally brought a few pieces of bread and some cooked potatoes. Fortunately, they got a pot of coffee from somewhere, which was considered to be of higher quality.
The bread was a bit dry and hard. When I took a bite, my mouth was full of crumbs. It was hard to swallow without drinking something. The cooked potatoes were hot, but they had obviously been frozen before. They were watery and tasteless. But Yuri didn't care. He didn't have high demands for material life. Besides, he had been at the front for a long time. As long as he could fill his stomach, he could eat anything.
While looking at the documents and eating a few slices of bread and two potatoes, Yuri had a rough understanding of the current situation of the Don Front.
The Don Front had six reorganized armies and one air force army under its command. The six reorganized armies were the 9th Guards Army, the 21st, 24th, 63rd and 66th combined arms armies, and the 9th Tank Army which was undergoing reorganization. The air force army was the 16th Air Force Army.
Today's Don Front is actually the previous Stalingrad Front. During the Battle of Stalingrad, the Don Front had two tasks: on the one hand, it was to gather troops and wait for the time to counterattack; on the other hand, it was to keep the Soviet landing site on the left bank of the Don River and create the most favorable conditions for launching a counterattack.
The so-called landing site on the left bank of the Don River here actually refers to Yezhovka. Although this landing site was lost during the war, it was finally recaptured and is now firmly controlled by the front.
Now, the Don Front is facing a second expansion. The Supreme Command has issued an order to transfer the 62nd, 64th and 57th armies, which were originally under the Southeast Front (now the Stalingrad Front), to the command of the Don Front. This order shows two realities: first, the Supreme Command headed by Comrade Stalin has lost confidence in the old Marshal Timoshenko, and now Rokossovsky is more trusted; second, considering that the Don Front will only undertake auxiliary offensive tasks in the upcoming "Operation Uranus", but the Supreme Command is strengthening the strength of the front, this means that once the Battle of Stalingrad is over, the Supreme Command is likely to push for the next offensive campaign.
What was the plan for this offensive campaign? Yuri could think of it without looking at the map. There were only two routes: one was to launch an offensive in the southwest direction, attack Ukraine via Rostov, and outflank the German southern group on the Kharkov line. The other was to launch an offensive in the direction of Voronezh, capture Kursk, and then cooperate with the Bryansk Front and the Voronezh Front to outflank the German central battle group on the Orel line.
On these two offensive routes, Yuri believed that the goal of the campaign to Rostov in the south would be difficult to achieve, because during the Battle of Stalingrad, the Soviet army's southern combat group suffered heavy losses. At present, the Soviet army can only rely on limited forces to intercept the German army in the Caucasus in order to prevent the German army from continuing to advance towards the Kuban oil fields. Without the cooperation of the Soviet army on the southern front, it would be difficult for the Soviet army to form a military advantage over the German army in western Ukraine by relying solely on the Don River and the Volga River.
As for the choice of another front, Yuri thought it was the most likely, because in his previous life he knew that the famous Battle of Kursk broke out at this stage. However, Yuri believed that the Soviet army would also face many difficulties if they chose this offensive route, because once the battle started, the attacking Soviet army would not only have to withstand the German counterattack on the front battlefield, but also have to guard against the threat posed by the elite German 4th Panzer Group on the left wing. In addition, in the Orel area, there was also the Ninth Army commanded by Molde, and this German defense master was not an easy bone to chew.
Of course, if this continuous offensive can achieve its goal, then the Soviet army will not only be able to push the front line back to eastern Ukraine, but also force the German troops attacking the southern front in the Caucasus direction to retreat, thereby relieving the military pressure in the Kuban direction, which can be said to kill two birds with one stone.
After reading documents in the conference room for more than an hour, just when Yuri felt sleepy, he suddenly heard voices outside the door. The voices sounded very noisy, obviously not just one or two people.
Frowning, Yuri looked up towards the door, just in time to see a man walking in with his head tilted.
"Comrade Commander, good morning!" Yuri quickly stood up and saluted as he saw the person coming.
The person who came was Rokossovsky. He had obviously just got up. The buttons of his military uniform were not yet buttoned, and he walked in with his shirt open.
"Comrade Yuri, when did you arrive?" Rokossovsky didn't expect that there was someone else in the conference room. He was stunned for a moment, then asked with a smile.
"Around one in the morning," Yuri checked his watch and replied, "more than an hour ago."
While the two were talking, a few more people came in from behind. Yuri looked and saw that the second person who came in was a short man with a square face. He knew this man. It was Yakov Nikolayevich Fedorenko, Deputy People's Commissar of Defense, Commander of Armored Tanks and Mechanized Forces. Recently, he was stationed in Stalingrad as a representative of the Supreme Command Headquarters to supervise the war.
Following closely behind Fedorenko was a middle-aged man with a burly figure and a big face. Yuri also knew this man, but it was the first time they met. Like Fedorenko, this man was also a representative of the Supreme Command Headquarters. His name was Konstantin Petrovich Kazakov, a staff officer of the Soviet Artillery Command.
But the person who came in behind Kazakov was another Kazakov, Vasily Ivanovich Kazakov, the artillery commander of the Don Front, who was an old acquaintance of Yuri.
