The Bloody Triangle

by Victor Kamenir

  THE BLOODY TRIANGLE

  THE DEFEAT OF SOVIET ARMOR IN THE UKRAINE, JUNE 1941

  VICTOR J. KAMENIR

  I think that those who never experienced

  all the bitterness of the summer of 1941 will never be

  completely able to appreciate the joy of our victory.

  —Vassiliy Grossman, Soviet writer

  Contents

  PREFACE

  PART I: OPPOSING FORCES

  1. German Plans, Dispositions, and Organization

  2. Soviet Military on the Eve of War

  3. Dispositions of Kiev Special Military District

  4. Organization and Strength of Kiev Special Military District

  5. Creeping up to War

  PART II: THE BORDER BATTLE

  6. We Are Under Attack! What Should We Do? June 22

  7. Creaking to the Sound of the Guns, June 22

  8. Hold What You’ve Got! June 23–24

  9. Piecemeal Forward, June 25

  10. Battle for Dubno, June 26–27

  11. Continue Mission, June 28

  12. Fall Back to Old Border, June 29–30

  13. The Last Convulsion, July 1–2

  CONCLUSION

  APPENDICES

  A. Abridged Order of Battle: Army Group South

  B. Kiev Special Military District Order of Battle

  C. Order of Battle of Soviet Mechanized Corps

  D. Organization of German Motorized Infantry Division

  E. Organization of German Panzer Division

  F. Organization of Soviet Antitank Artillery Brigade

  G. Organization of Soviet Mechanized Corps and Tank Division

  H. Organization of Soviet Motorized Rifle Division

  I. Organization of Soviet Rifle Division

  J. Unit Symbols

  K. Comparative Strength of Armored Units

  L. German Armored Vehicles

  M. Soviet Armored Vehicles

  MAPS

  NOTES

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  INDEX

  Preface

  AS THE YEARS GO BY, the white areas on a historical map of World War II continue shrinking. However, to most Western military history enthusiasts, the four bloody years of struggle on the Eastern Front continue to be terra incognita. Most people have only heard about the Siege of Leningrad, the slaughter of Stalingrad, and, of course, the Battle of Kursk.

  The weeklong armored clash near the Russian city of Kursk in 1943 has been widely known as the largest tank battle in history, involving over six thousand armored combat vehicles on both sides. During this bloody battle, the backbone of the German Panzer Corps was broken forever, leaving it unable to mount significant operations for the rest of the war. However, this was not the first large-scale armored struggle on the Eastern Front. Another weeklong conflict featuring massive tank formations took place immediately following the German invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941.

  Just two days after launching Operation Barbarossa, from June 24 to July 1, roughly 650 German tanks and 180 assault gun and tank destroyers fought over 1,500 Soviet tanks in a roughly triangular area of approximately 1,800 square miles between the northwestern Ukrainian towns of Lutsk, Dubno, and Brody.

  The fighting in Ukraine did not parallel fighting in Byelorussia, where the armored warfare on the Eastern Front became associated with exploits of the most famous German panzer leader—Heinz Guderian. Instead of heady dashes by “Hurrying Heinz’s” armored spearheads, the difficult terrain of northwestern Ukraine limited German advances to a grinding series of battles along a miserable road network.

  Events that took place there, when covered by Western historians, are usually glossed over by an encompassing title of “border battles.” Yet, here, in the swampy and marshy terrain, the German blitzkrieg was for the first time slowed down to a crawl and even halted for several crucial days. The Soviet side lost the battle. However, even in defeat, the Red Army demonstrated that the vaunted German Wehrmacht could be stopped and bloodied, even if only for a time.

  This experience was costly for the Soviet Union. Numerically superior mechanized forces of the Red Army were savaged by the smaller, more proficient and professional German opponents. In this, and similar border battles, the Soviet armored force, larger than all other armored forces in the world combined, melted away under the relentless assault of the German combined-arms style of warfare.

  Describing the events above, this work relied heavily on numerous memoirs of Soviet and, to a lesser extent, German participants in the conflict. These first-hand accounts provide genuine insights into the unfolding events. While some of them cover the same events, no two of them are exactly alike, each man’s own personality coming through in his interpretation of the events. I intentionally weighted my research towards the Soviet/Russian sources because I wanted to present this conflict from the Soviet point of view.

  Starting shortly before the war, the Soviet officers, their reports and memoirs describe, often in minute detail, the condition, preparedness, and morale of the Red Army at the outbreak of the conflict. I was not the first writer to rely on these works, and, like others, I drew my own conclusions.

  Russian writer and former military intelligence officer Vladimir Rezun (pen name Viktor Suvorov) helped fuel the debate whether Soviet Union was planning to attack Germany first. Very persuasively, albeit not very convincingly, Rezun argued that presence of certain types of weapons or personnel in large quantities was the indicator of immediate Soviet aggressive intentions. I found his claim that the Soviet Union had one million paratroopers by the start of the war preposterous. While parachute jumping was immensely popular among Soviet youth before the war, a teenager who has several jumps off a tower under his belt does not a trained airborne soldier make.

  While I do not dispute Stalin’s aggressive intentions overall (it is hard to argue with this, knowing of his swallowing up the three tiny Baltic states and chunks of Finland, Poland, and Rumania), I do not believe that the Red Army was in any shape to conduct major offensive operations in July 1941, as advocated by Rezun/Suvorov. On a much more personal note, I find him usurping the venerated surname of Suvorov as an insult to Russian and Soviet history.

  Rezun alleged that the sheer number of over twenty-four thousand Soviet tanks as clear demonstration of aggressive intent. However, a significant number of them were so obsolete as to be not much more than targets for German gunners. This could be unscientifically explained by Russian propensity not to discard anything. Large numbers of inoperable tanks rusting in their motor pools were still carried on the rosters as viable combat vehicles.

  Along with inflated quality and quantity of materiel, unrelenting propaganda of the Communist Party lulled the Soviet citizens into a false sense of security. In early 1939 a movie called Tractorists was released in the Soviet Union. Two new songs written by songwriter Boris Laskin and featured in its soundtrack became instant classics, “The Tree Tankers” and “March of the Soviet Tankers.” The latter song featured words which symbolized the naïve pride which the Soviet people had in their armed forces: “The armor is strong and our tanks are fast.”

  The unrelenting stream of propaganda convinced a majority of the citizens of the Soviet Union that their country possessed the strongest armed forces in the world. The whole country took pride in its armed forces. Millions of young men and women had membership in paramilitary clubs teaching a variety of military skills—flying, parachute jumping, shooting, and radio operating. Military pilots, dubbed “Stalin’s Falcons,” strutted with their chests puffed out with pride. Tens of thousands of young people proudly wore their “Voroshilov’s Marksman” pin, named after Stalin’s crony Marshal Kliment Voroshilov and earned for outstanding
rifle shooting.

  After the German invasion on June 22, 1941, shaken out of their sense of security, the Soviet people with great disbelief listened to radio broadcasts naming long strings of cities and towns captured by Germans with insulting ease. Common questions were, if not on everybody’s lips, certainly on everybody’s mind: “What happened to our armed forces? Where are our planes, the fastest in the world? Where are our tanks, the strongest in the world?”

  This work will, hopefully, shed light how the Soviet tank park melted away under merciless German hammer blows in 1941.

  Part I:

  OPPOSING FORCES

  CHAPTER 1

  German Plans, Dispositions, and Organization

  ON THE HUMID EVENING OF JUNE 21, 1941, all the camps of the 11th Panzer Division around the small Polish town of Stalowa Wola were a beehive of nervous and excited activity. While the drivers revved up their engines and ran through the last-minute maintenance checks, the troops were busily loading up their vehicles. Every available inch of space was crammed to overflowing with extra ammunition, jerry cans, and metal drums offuel, indicating a long and busy drive. Anxious weeks of training and waiting were replaced by relieved anticipation.

  For the past month their bivouacs were buzzing with rumors. Oh, there was no doubt that they were going to war again. The veteran tankers had been through this already and knew the signs. Their panzers had trampled the wheat fields of Poland, rolled down the tree-shaded roads of France, and rumbled through the twisting mountain valleys of Yugoslavia.

  Well armed, superbly led, and experienced, the young troopers of the 11th Panzer Division were cockily spoiling for another fight. Knowing only victories brought about by Hitler’s ambitious daring, theirs was a generation unencumbered by memories of humiliating defeat of World War I. Did they not thrash the French, their fathers’ tormentors? Did they not make the British wade through the cold waters of the English Channel, scrambling up the boats whisking them to the safety of their island home? How about the Polish, their ancient enemy? The Poles lasted but four weeks, crushed under panzer onslaught and screaming dive bombers.

  Only some of them believed the official version claiming that they were training for the invasion of the British Isles. There were better and closer places to train than this backward corner of Eastern Europe. Born out of half-truths and wild guesses, the rumors ran unchecked through the bivouacs. Some said that the Russians were going to let them pass through their territory and attack India, the crown jewel of British Empire, from the north. Others claimed that they were to head south through Romania and Turkey to link up with Rommel’s Africa Corps in Palestine. Only a few thought that they would fight the Soviet Union. After all, didn’t the Führer sign a nonaggression treaty with the commissars? Whichever way they would turn, the men and machines of the 11th Panzer Division, bearing the white stencil of a sword-wielding ghost, the symbol of their unit, were ready.

  All the rumors were dispelled later on this muggy evening. Hitler gave the nod, and like wildfire, the code words “The heroes say: Wotan! Neckar fifteen!” spread through the German cantonments in Poland. The greatest invasion in history would begin tomorrow morning! It was now Russia’s turn to submit to the will of the master race!

  In his second-story office in a commandeered tavern-turned-headquarters, commander of the 11th Panzer Division Maj. Gen. Ludwig Crüwell was poring through the almost-memorized operational plans. He already prepared the address which would be read to his troops tomorrow morning, shortly after the artillery of all calibers would make its own poignant announcement. The brief statement read:

  Soldiers of 11th Panzer Division!

  The Führer calls to war against the Bolshevism, the supreme enemy of our National-Socialist realm. The fight will be tough, calling for sacrifices everywhere. The Ghost Division will fall upon the enemy as it did in Serbia, wherever meeting it, attacking it and destroying it.

  I know that I can rely on you absolutely, as in the southeast, from the oldest officer to the youngest man.

  Our slogan remains—Attack! Our goal—the Dnieper [River]. We want to be the first again, as before in Belgrade.

  Heil Führer!1

  The stocky, bespectacled major general was immensely proud of his tankers, recruited mainly among the sturdy Silesians with their long military traditions. Like the overwhelming majority of German officers, Major General Crüwell had no doubts about the necessity of destroying the communist Russian state. Belonging to an older generation than his men, Ludwig Crüwell remembered well the cancerous influence of Bolshevism on post–World War I Germany. Now it was time to wield the scalpel.

  Down in the street below, Crüwell could see his driver, paint brush in hand, refreshing a large “K” on the side of his armored command vehicle. The three-foot letter indicated that Crüwell’s division belonged to the Panzer Group 1, commanded by Col. Gen. Ewald von Kleist. In just a few short hours, the 11th Panzer Division would begin moving to its pre-attack staging areas near the tiny Polish town of Laszczow, just twenty-five short miles west of the Soviet border.

  GERMAN PLANS AND DISPOSITIONS

  Crüwell’s division belonged to Wehrmacht’s Army Group South, commanded by a stiff-backed, old-school Prussian field marshal, Gerd von Rundstedt. This powerful group of forces was aimed at the strategically important Soviet Ukraine, with its vast natural resources desperately needed by resource-poor Germany. The original plans of Army Group South called for a two-pronged pincer movement, penetrating the Soviet border defenses and advancing with all haste on to the great Dnieper River, almost four hundred miles east beyond the border. Once there, the northern and southern pincers were to link up on the eastern bank of the river, trapping the bulk of the Red Army in Ukraine on the western side.

  The stronger of the two, the northern wing of Army Group South, was composed of Sixth and Seventeenth Field armies, plus its strike force of Panzer Group 1. This force was designated to contend with its primary Soviet counterpart, the Kiev Special Military District. While the Seventeenth Army was to operate against the northern flank of Lvov pocket, the forces striking directly for the Ukrainian capital were the infamous Sixth Army, marching towards its doom at Stalingrad. The Sixth Army, commanded by Field Marshal Walther von Reichenau, was given the task of breaching the Soviet border, paving the way for Panzer Group 1 under von Kleist, an army in all but name, to break into operational maneuver space.

  The Eleventh Army deployed in Rumania was the southern pincer of Army Group South, originally tasked to attack against Odessa Military District. However, Hitler’s last-minute modification ordered the Eleventh Army to stay put and to guard against a possible Soviet counteroffensive into Rumania, protecting Ploesti oil fields, vital for the German war effort. The Rumanian Third and Fourth armies, supported by over five hundred aircraft, were also part of Army Group South. The gap between the two parts of Army Group South, running along the craggy Carpathian Mountains, was thinly held by a Hungarian mobile corps.

  Stretching from a small Polish town of Wlodawa in the north, to the Danube Delta in the south, along almost five hundred miles of border, the Army Group South numbered 41 German divisions, supported by 772 aircraft of Luftflotte 4. The above number reflects strictly the number of German divisions. Even though there were additional Rumanian and Hungarian divisions included in the overall strength of Army Group South, the German planners did not trust their abilities or motivations. This attitude is clearly illustrated in a diary entry by Generaloberst Franz Halder, chief of Army General Staff: “It would be pointless to base our operational plans on forces which cannot be counted on with certainty. As far as actual fighting troops are concerned, we can depend only on German forces. . . . On Romania we cannot rely at all. Their divisions have no offensive power. . . . Hungary is unreliable. Has no reasons for turning on Russia.”2

  Breaking down German mission objectives, from the long-range strategic goal of reaching Kiev, individual German corps and armies were to strike for intermediate
operational objectives. On the extreme left, north, flank of Army Group South, the XVII Corps was to attack in direction of Kovel, safeguarding the left flank of German Sixth Army, whose intermediate objective was the city of Lutsk. Aimed against it was the XXIX Corps of the Sixth Army, tasked with breaching Soviet defenses along the Western Bug River and allowing the III Mechanized Corps of Panzer Group 1 to race onto Lutsk. The ancient town of Lutsk, founded in the eleventh century, was the first important stop on the road to Kiev. Termed Panzerstrasse by Gen. Eberhard von Mackensen, commander of III Mechanized Corps, this major artery ran from German-occupied Poland to Lutsk, then Rovno, Zhitomir, and, finally, to Kiev.3

  South of them, aimed at Sokal, the LV Corps of Sixth Army was echeloned in front of XLVIII Mechanized Corps of Panzer Group 1, with the XLIV Corps farther south. Finally, in reserve of Army Group South, located in the area of Lyublin, was the XIV Motorized Corps.

  The German units were deployed in very compact, concentrated formations, achieving density of one division per three miles of front. Compared to up to thirty miles of frontage occupied by some Soviet divisions along the border, the Germans were well-positioned to penetrate porous Soviet defenses by bringing the maximum amount of forces at the place and time of their choosing. Still, von Rundstedt and his senior commanders clearly understood the complexity of launching a major invasion with the northern wing alone, as underscored by command staff exercises in Saint Germain, France, in early February 1941:

  It shows the difficulty of accomplishing an enveloping operation west of the Dnepr [Dneiper], with the northern wing alone, particularly in view of the possibility that this wing might be threatened or at least slowed in its advance by enemy attacking from Pripet area. . . .4 By any attack against the Russian army, one must avoid the danger of simply pushing the Russians back. We must use attack methods which cut up the Russian army and allow its destruction in pockets. A starting position must be created which allows the use of major envelopment operations.5