Chapter 182: Liberation of Orel
It is not new to whitewash war achievements in any country. After all, it is a political necessity. From this perspective, it seems not too much to describe the "severe damage" to the German army as "annihilation" of the German army and the "retreat" of the German army as "defeat" the German army. The most important point is that the North Caucasus Front won the final victory in the offensive campaign on the Taman Peninsula and liberated the entire peninsula including Novorossiysk and Taman. This is it. Don't pursue those details too much.
After staying in the General Staff for a while, Yuri made rapid progress. He had learned the two skills of "smoothing things over" and "turning a blind eye". Therefore, when he signed his name on the report that needed to be submitted to the Supreme Command, he did not hesitate and signed with a smile.
Although Yuri signed his name on the report submitted by the front headquarters, the report could not be sent to Moscow immediately. After all, there was still some finishing work to be done. For example, in addition to the statistics of the number of troops annihilated by the German army, there was also a statistics of the capture and destruction of German equipment.
Even Yuri had to admit that in this battle, the amount of weapons and ammunition captured and destroyed by the Soviet army was indeed astonishing. The reason for this was that the German army retreated very hastily, and many weapons, equipment and ammunition supplies had no time to be loaded onto ships for evacuation, so they could only be destroyed on the spot or even left in warehouses.
According to Soviet statistics, in the process of retreating, the Germans were forced to destroy nearly 40,000 tons of ammunition and supplies at Timryuk alone, and more than 100 tanks and self-propelled artillery were abandoned and blown up at several landing sites on the Kuban River. In addition to these, there were also many artillery pieces that were blown up. To be frank, although the German army did not suffer serious losses in the Battle of Taman, its losses in military supplies were also very heavy, which was undoubtedly another painful defeat for Germany, whose comprehensive national strength could not compete with the Soviet Union.
The Taman Campaign was launched in early August and ended in victory in mid-to-late August. The entire campaign took less than half a month. In this campaign, the Soviet army completely eliminated the German forces in the Caucasus, liberated a large area including the Taman Peninsula, and pushed the front line to the Kerch Peninsula again. From a strategic point of view, it had three direct impacts: first, it created the prerequisites for the Soviet army to further liberate the Crimean Peninsula; second, it solved the problem of the berthing ports of the Black Sea Fleet and the Azov Sea Fleet, thus creating conditions for the two fleets to launch an attack on the German Navy operating in the Black Sea; third, it completely freed the Soviet army from the constraints of the southern battlefield, so that it could draw more troops to launch an offensive operation aimed at liberating Ukraine.
A week after the end of the Taman Peninsula offensive, the North Caucasus Front Command was ordered to be disbanded, and the new Coastal Combat Group Command entered the formation process. As a representative of the headquarters, Yuri participated in the formation of this combat group.
During this period, Yuri learned from the secret documents sent by the headquarters the operational concept of the Supreme Command in the future: According to the decision of the Supreme Command, the Soviet army has not made any preparations to launch an offensive against the Crimean Peninsula through the Kerch Strait in the recent period. The main task of the coastal combat group is to carry out organized harassment of the German troops stationed in the Crimean Peninsula through the aviation and naval fleets to prevent the German army from counterattacking Taman through the Kerch Strait. At the same time, with the strength of an army group as the leading force, strive to establish several landing sites on the Kerch Peninsula to prepare for the Soviet army's future offensive plan.
After fully understanding the headquarters' strategic thinking, Yuri concentrated the formation of the coastal combat group on the 56th Army, and at the same time, assigned the Black Sea Fleet and the Azov Sea Fleet and their aviation to the combat group. As for the 9th, 18th, and 46th Armies and the 9th Air Force Army, after consulting the Supreme Command, they were transferred to the Southern Front's combat group to enhance the front's offensive capabilities along the Azov Sea coast and southern Ukraine.
In mid-to-late August, just when Yuri was busy recommending personnel for the newly formed Coastal Combat Group, in the Kursk theater, the 9th Guards Tank Army of the Central Front commanded by Rokossovsky, with the cooperation of the 13th Army, launched a fierce attack on the German 41st Armored Corps on the Optukha River line. Three days later, it broke through the German Optukha River defense line and reached Kromie.
On the same day, Model, commander-in-chief of the German Ninth Army, sent a telegram to Hitler, requesting the High Command to allow him to lead his troops to retreat and re-deploy the defense at the "Hagen" line to prevent the German troops from being surrounded by the Soviet army. However, Model's request was rejected by Hitler, who could not accept the fact that his troops had suffered another defeat in Kurkov.
On August 25, the German 46th Motorized Infantry Army under the command of Colonel-General Zorn engaged in a fierce battle with the Soviet 9th Tank Army in the Khotnets area. In the first two days, with the strong support of the Air Force, the German Army once repelled the attack of the Soviet 9th Tank Army, but the Bryansk Front quickly made tactical adjustments and the main force of the 15th Air Force was assigned to this direction. At the same time, the French "Normandy" Air Brigade, which was reinforced on the Eastern Front, also joined the battle in this direction.
In the following two days, Soviet and German fighter planes launched a large-scale fierce battle over Hotnets, and eventually the German army was forced to abandon its defense of the area.
On August 28, the German 46th Motorized Infantry Division was forced to retreat towards Karachev. The Soviet army then liberated Hotnets and quickly prepared to launch .
The straight-line distance between Khotnets and Kromé is less than 40 kilometers, which means that the German Ninth Army has been surrounded by the Soviet Army in a large encirclement centered on Orel. The only exit of this encirclement is less than 40 kilometers wide. Once this exit is penetrated by the Soviet Army, more than 300,000 German troops will be completely trapped, and being captured will be the only option they face.
On the same day that the Soviet army captured Hotnetz, Model again asked Hitler for retreat. He even pointed out clearly that if the 9th Army could not withdraw as soon as possible, the fate of the 9th Army under Stalingrad would be repeated . This time, Hitler approved his request and asked him to hand over the 2nd SS Panzer Corps after withdrawing to the Hagen Line. The High Command needed to transfer this force to Italy to stabilize the rapidly deteriorating situation there.
Starting from September 1, the German Orel Combat Group began to retreat across the board. The Soviet army noticed that the German army was trying to escape, and the Bryansk Front and the Central Front immediately launched an all-out offensive.
On September 4, the German 20th Infantry Corps commanded by Colonel General Roman was surrounded by the Soviet army in the narrow strip of land between the Optukha River and the Oka River south of Orel. As an artillery general, Roman refused the Soviet army's persuasion to surrender and led his troops to resist stubbornly. On September 10, Roman was hit in the head by a shrapnel in the Soviet air raid and died on the spot. His troops resisted until the 15th before they formally surrendered. By the time of the surrender, less than 500 of the 15,000 combat troops of the infantry corps survived.
On the same day that Roman was killed, the Soviet Central Front and the Bryansk Front successfully joined forces in an area about 20 kilometers south of Karachev. At this time, the German troops in the encirclement that had not yet evacuated included part of the German 47th Panzer Corps.
On September 20, Friesner led the remnants of the 23rd Infantry Army under his command to surrender to the Soviet army. On the same day, the Soviet army entered Oryol and officially liberated the city.
When the news of the liberation of Orel reached Moscow, Stalin left the Kremlin for the first time since the outbreak of the war, took a special plane to Belev, and then took a train from Belev to Orel for inspection. In addition to the main members of the Supreme Command, Stalin also came to Orel with many members of the Politburo, ambassadors of the Allied countries, and journalists from various countries.
In Orel, Stalin listened to Rokossovsky's battle report, and then he called Moscow. That afternoon, 124 artillery guns in Moscow fired 12 rounds at the same time to pay tribute to the heroes who liberated Orel.
As part of the Battle of Kursk, the Battle of Orel used the strength of the three Soviet fronts to implement the correct tactics of defensive counterattack against the German Army Group Center. By the end of the war on September 20, in the more than one month-long battle, the Soviet army annihilated nearly 150,000 German troops, destroyed nearly 600 German tanks and nearly 3,400 artillery pieces, and almost fundamentally destroyed the German Ninth Army. Most importantly, the troops lost by the German army in this battle were mostly its elite troops, which was a loss that could never be made up for the German Central Combat Cluster.
Taking into account the gains and losses of both sides in this battle, the Supreme Command believed that from now on, the German army should no longer have the ability to launch an offensive against the Soviet army in the central direction. Another point is that in this battle, the Soviet army completely changed the passive , and with this victory, proved to the world that the offensives launched by the Soviet Red Army in summer, no, in any season, are equally sharp and equally deadly - this declaration has a very special political significance.
Of course, the entire Battle of Kursk had not yet ended at this time. On the southern front of Kursk, the offensives of the Voronezh Front, the Steppe Front and the Southwestern Front had also been fully launched.
After the inspection in Oryol, Stalin returned to Moscow that night and called Yuri who was far away in the Caucasus. During the call, Stalin informed Yuri in the name of the Supreme Command that in view of the great changes in the battlefield situation, the Supreme Command decided to put the plan of liberating Ukraine on the agenda. As the Minister of Operations, Stalin hoped that Yuri could come up with a feasible plan as soon as possible.
