The Bloody Triangle

by Victor Kamenir

  Everybody at the headquarters of the South-Western Front by now realized how precarious situation at Ostrog was:

  It was clear that if Task Force Lukin could not hold, the enemy will get far into the rear of the main forces of our Front. This threat concerned each of us. One thought underlined all conversations: the border battle was lost; the troops had to be pulled back to the line of the old fortified districts. But nobody dared to voice it out loud. Everyone understood that the fortified districts, located along the old state border, were still not ready to receive troops and provide a stiff defense.8

  It was apparent that Stavka in Moscow evaluated the situation in the northern Ukraine along the similar lines. On this day, the Central Committee of the Communist Party created the State Defense Committee, GKO (Gosudarstvenniy Komitet Oborony). Josef Stalin, as expected, placed himself at the head of this newly created body, which now concentrated all the power in the USSR. Directives of the GKO became equal to laws and were to be obeyed and carried out by all individuals and organizations.

  With the approval of the GKO, the Soviet High Command ordered Colonel General Kirponos to begin the withdrawal to the fortified districts deeper in Ukraine. These five districts, named after towns of Proskurov, Starokonstantinov, Shepetovka, Novograd-Volynskiy, and Korosten, represented the last chance of halting Army Group South before it reached Kiev. The withdrawal was to be accomplished by July 9.

  Colonel Bagramyan remembered that staff officers at the headquarters of the South-Western Front could breathe easier. Everyone understood that withdrawal was necessary several days ago, but, he reported,

  Those of us who had frequent contact with the Front commander during these days understood clearly that demands of [latest] orders—to withdraw to the line of old fortified districts—completely mirrored [Kirponos’] intentions. Only Kirponos’ inherent servility, some special convictions in not questioning orders, did not allow him to ask Moscow by himself about permission for such a pullback.9

  Kirponos’ command group now feverishly set to planning for withdrawal. Before, the attack of the Fifth Army on July 1 was treated as an unnecessary evil—a sacrifice to the demands from Moscow. Now, the Fifth Army would be attacking to pin down the German advance, allowing the main forces of the South-Western Front begin their withdrawal.

  While the strike force of the Fifth Army, namely the 41st Tank Division, would launch its lonely attack, other units would begin the pullback on staggered timetable. The XV Rifle Corps of the Fifth Army in the north and the Twelfth Army in the south were still located much farther west than the rest of the forces of the South-Western Front. These formations were to begin their retrograde movement during the night of June 30–July 1. The Sixth and Twenty-Sixth Armies were to move in their turn the next night. The retreat was to be conducted in stages, with each army defending intermediary positions in order to ensure smooth pullback and to slow down pursuing Germans.

  One of the major difficulties facing the Soviet withdrawal was lack of strength in-depth. Kirponos, Purkayev, and Bagramyan clearly realized that if Germans pursued aggressively, which they were sure to do, any breach in the Soviet lines could lead to encirclement of other retreating formations. There were practically no reserves left to plug the gaps. While Purkayev and Bagramyan wanted to slow down the rate of retreat in order to allow Soviet forces to leap-frog one another on the way east, Kirponos insisted on withdrawing as fast as possible.

  As an intermediate solution, each army was instructed to conduct a phased withdrawal as it saw fit. The Front-level reserves were to be formed from depleted IV, VIII, and XV Mechanized Corps, which received withdrawal orders a day earlier, and two rifle divisions from the XLIX Rifle Corps. Around midnight, the finalized orders, maps, and instructions were signed, and liaison officers were sent out to deliver them to their respective commands.

  Bagramyan writes:

  Before the war, why hide the sin, we were mainly practicing offensive operations. And to such an important maneuver as retreat, we did not assign appropriate significance. Now we were paying for it. Commanders and headquarters ended up being insufficiently prepared to organize and carry out retreat maneuvers. Now, during the second week of the war, we had to basically re-learn the most difficult science—the science of retreat.10

  Below are excerpts from the situation overview section of orders issued in the evening of June 30 by Colonel General Kirponos to the forces of the South-Western Front:

  1. Mobile enemy units, after fierce fighting, captured the area of Dubno, Ostrog, Rovno.

  2. Armies of the South-Western Front are withdrawing by July 9th, 1941, to the line of Korosten, Novograd-Volynskiy, Shepetovka, Starokonstantinov, and Proskurov fortified districts; where, anchored on these fortified districts, [they] will organize a determined defense by field forces, paying particular attention to artillery and anti-tank means.

  3. The 5th Army—previous composition, plus 196th Rifle Division of the 7th Rifle Corps.11 While continuing cooperation with the 6th Army to liquidate the breakthrough in Rovno direction, organize strong defenses along the first line of Novograd-Volynskiy fortified district. The right flank of the army is to begin the withdrawal to the line of Sluch River. The withdrawal is to begin with nightfall on July 1st, 1941. [It is] to reach the line of Sluch River by morning of July 5th, 1941. The intermediate line of Styr River, Chartorysk, Tsuman, Klevan to be reached by midday on July 2nd, 1941, the intermediate line of Antonovka railroad station, Goryn River, Kostopol, Goryn River to be held until July 4th, 1941.12

  After these orders were sent out, Kirponos listened to the report by General Sovetnikov, his deputy in charge of fortified districts. According to Sovetnikov, only Korosten, Novograd-Volynskiy, and Letichev fortified districts could be considered combat ready. They were occupied by small but permanent garrisons composed of machine-gun and artillery units. Upon arrival of field units, their defensive capability would rise drastically. As far as the other fortified districts were concerned, they were neither combat ready nor had sufficient garrisons and would have to be practically rebuilt anew.

  Sovetnikov was seconded by chief of engineers of the South-Western Front, Gen. A. F. Ilyin-Mitkevich, who was in charge of reconstruction of the old fortified districts. He mentioned that even though the bunkers and strong-points were being taken out of mothballs, there were no weapons for them. Ilyin-Mitkevich expressed hope that the retreating field units would be able to deploy their organic weapons there.13

  The situation in the area of operations of Major General Rokossovskiy’s IX Mechanized Corps remained steady throughout the day. After beating back a determined German attack in the area of Klevan, Rokossovskiy’s command continued preparing for simultaneous attack and withdrawal for the next day. Major General Feklenko’s XIX Mechanized Corps was engaged in minor local actions as well.

  Task Force Popel, Corps Commissar N. K. Popel Commanding

  June 30 started off quiet in Popel’s area of operations. The rains of previous days ended, and, waiting for attack that they knew must come, Soviet soldiers huddled in stifling June heat. The good weather brought renewed German air and artillery attacks:

  Our forward positions disappeared in smoke and dust. Clouds obscured the sun. The barrage was then shifted into our rear. . . . We did not notice, did not hear, when the aviation appeared. As if cannons of gigantic calibers joined in the artillery barrage . . . . We are even more defenseless under bombs, more so than under [artillery]. We do not have aid defense artillery. Not even one gun.14

  German aviation and artillery worked over the Soviet positions for two endless hours. Especially hard hit were positions near the Ptycha village, in the southwestern sector. The rear echelon units of the 34th Tank Division were also hit hard. During the previous day, Popel’s men managed to tow a small number of disabled tanks to a central location. Since a majority of them were already heavily damaged, no attempt to disperse or camouflage them were taken, and the Germans further bombed them into oblivion.

/>   The inevitable tank and infantry attack followed the bombardment. As Popel expected, the most severed fighting took place at Ptycha. The large village changed hands several times, until the smoking ruins of it finally and firmly remained in German hands. This fighting cost the Soviet side the only one field artillery battery available in Ptycha sector. The carnage was terrible: “Vehicles were burning. Cannon barrels of artillery pieces pounded into the ground were sticking up into the air, overturned half-tracks . . . . And everywhere—near vehicles, artillery positions, half-tracks—corpses of our and German soldiers.”15

  In the early evening, after the fall of Ptycha, German pressure increased on the Mlynov sector held by a unit from the 34th Tank Division. One of the battalions from its 67th Tank Regiment was almost completely wiped out by a combined attack of German aircraft and panzers. This fight cost the life of Popel’s friend, commissar of the 67th Tank Regiment, Ivan K. Gurov. He had to identify his friend’s body under trying emotional circumstances: “We began breaking though to the still, slightly smoldering tank. . . . Through the opened front hatch I saw three blackened skeletons.” Popel’s driver, Korovkin climbed inside the mammoth T-35 tank and among the carnage found a charred Order of the Red Banner, with its enamel melted off. This was an award Ivan Gurov received during the war with Finland.16

  After enduring punishing air and artillery attacks throughout the day, during the night of June 30–July 1, Popel’s command attempted to break out. The task force split into two groups, the combat and the rear echelon ones. In a sudden attack the combat group broke through the still-porous German defenses around Ptycha, allowing the rear echelon convoy, carrying wounded, to slip south around the eastern edge of the village. A small detachment from the 27th Motorized Rifle Regiment commanded by Col. Ivan N. Pleshakov brought up the rear of the almost-helpless convoy.

  After the convoy with noncombatants departed, the still-combat-capable group remained with Popel east of Ptycha to cover the retreat. By now, according to Popel, this force consisted of around one hundred tanks, with roughly twenty to twenty-five rounds each and a half-tank of fuel. A handful of riflemen rode on each tank.

  Generaloberst Halder noted in his war diary the end of Soviet threat at Dubno: “The situation at Dubno is straightened out. Still, 16th Panzer Division and 16th Motorized Division were not inconsiderably delayed by the episode, and 44th, 111th, and 299th divisions, which were brought up behind the III Panzer Corps, will be stalled for some days; this greatly delays and hampers the follow-up of infantry behind III Corps.”17

  Neither Popel nor any of his officers knew that their corps already abandoned its positions and retreated southeast. While the convoy with wounded from Popel’s task force was probing its way south, the main body of the VIII Mechanized Corps was licking its wounds north of Radzivilov. According Ryabyshev, after the first week of the war his corps was down to 19,000 men, 207 tanks, and 21 armored cars. These numbers did not include Popel’s task force. Among surviving tanks were forty-three KV-1s, thirty-one T-34s, sixty-nine BT-7s, fifty-seven T-26s, and seven T-40s. Despite being down by one third of its pre-war strength, the VIII Mechanized Corps still retained a significant punch of fifty-four modern KV-1 and T-34s. To put things in perspective, the 207 tanks still available to Ryabyshev on June 30 were almost the same number of tanks that Rokossovskiy’s IX Mechanized Corps started the war with; and Rokossovskiy did not have any modern tanks. Especially severe was the loss of almost all the artillery, mainly due to air attacks. In his memoirs, Ryabyshev stated that by June 30, not counting Popel’s detached force, the VIII Mechanized Corps sustained losses of 635 killed and 1,673 wounded—a highly unlikely and, obviously, lowered number.18 Other than plainly overestimating his strength at nineteen thousand, a doubtfully high number, Ryabyshev must have absorbed whatever straggling detachment of Red Army men he could lay his hands on.

  In an interesting detail, both Ryabyshev and Popel wrote in their memoirs that both were subjected to several instances when someone claiming to be one of them attempted to contact the other by radio. According to the two memoirists, the speaker spoke fluent Russian, but when challenged could not provide proof to the authenticating questions. In this fashion, the false “Popel” did not know the name of Ryabyshev’s dog, and false “Ryabyshev” did not know the make of Popel’s hunting rifle. Since both writers independently mention these episodes, they seem like attempts by German intelligence to exploit the confusing situation at the front.

  XV Mechanized Corps

  Colonel Yermolayev’s corps spent most of the day in the vicinity of Zolochev, collecting stragglers, men and machines both, and getting ready to retreat eastwards. Its 10th Tank Division fought a sharp skirmish with German reconnaissance units before setting off itself. Retreat of the 37th Tank Division was also interrupted when it became embroiled in a rear-guard action in support of the 141st Rifle Division from the XXXVII Rifle Corps. After conducting several local counterattacks, the tanks of the 37th Tank Division resumed their pullback.

  After 2000 hours, hoping to use the cover of darkness to slip east, the gigantic convoy of the XV Mechanized Corps entered onto the highway east of Zolochev. This was a mistake. Enjoying uncontested air superiority, German aircraft quickly found the defenseless convoy. Under relentless pounding from the air, the highway east of Zolochev turned into a gigantic funeral pyre of retreating Soviet vehicles.

  There was one bright spot during that day. Almost a thousand survivors from the 87th Rifle Division under command of Colonel Blank made it through German lines and linked up with the XV Rifle Corps. These men made an incredible journey of over one hundred miles through the nightmare of constant encirclements, bringing out their division’s flag with them.

  CHAPTER 13

  The Last Convulsion, July 1–2

  Fifth Army, Major General Potapov Commanding

  AS A MAJORITY OF FORCES, PARTICULARLY ITS INFANTRY and rear echelons, continued pulling back to the 1939 border, the units of the Fifth Army designated to participate in the last-ditch effort to slow down the armored spearhead of Army Group South attacked as scheduled in the morning of July 1. Reacting to the crisis situation south of Dubno during the previous two days, the German command shifted several divisions to the threatened sector, presenting the Soviets with a golden opportunity to inflict some telling damages on the left flank of the German advance.

  Initially, the attack went surprisingly well, exceeding meager expectations. The two tank divisions of Maj. Gen. K. K. Rokossovskiy’s IX Mechanized Corps contended throughout the day with parts of German 25th Motorized Infantry Division. The 20th Tank Division under Col. M. E. Katukov advanced approximately seven miles by 1500 hours. It could go no farther and by the end of the day returned to its starting positions. Its sister 35th Tank Division advanced roughly four miles before similarly being halted and forced to retreat by nightfall. In an after-action report, the command of the 20th Tank Division claimed up to 1,000 Germans killed, and ten tanks and two artillery batteries destroyed. It stated its own losses at highly doubtful only two hundred men killed and wounded. Still, there were flashpoints of heavy fighting, such as the plight of one German infantry battalion being temporary surrounded in the Bronniki village and losing 153 killed and unknown number of wounded.1

  Repeating the mistake of the first counteroffensive of the South-Western Front just few short days before, this second attack also suffered from a lack of coordination between Soviet armored formations. By 1500 hours the offensive of the IX Mechanized Corps began petering out, brought to a halt by strong German defenses. However, 1500 hours was the time when the XXII Mechanized Corps went forward. Its 19th and 41st Tank Divisions advanced in the first echelon, supported by the 215th Motorized Rifle Division.

  The 41st Tank Division initially met with surprising success, pushing back forward German elements and coming within ten miles north of Dubno by 1030 hours on July 2. Casualties were high on both sides, and the combat eventually ground to a halt in the afternoon of
July 2.

  Its sister division, the 19th Tank, which by now was relatively well reorganized after the drubbing it received on June 24, started out well. Steadily moving forward, it reached the vicinity of Mlynov in late morning of July 2. However, around 1400 hours, the 19th Tank Division was itself suddenly attacked by the SS Division Adolf Hitler in its right flank and rear and was forced to retreat with heavy casualties. The command group of the 19th Tank Division, including its commander, Maj. Gen. K. A. Semenchenko, was encircled. It was able to break out only seven days later.

  Following behind the two tank divisions, the 215th Motorized Division had the mission of protecting the left flank and rear of the XXII Mechanized Corps. While not heavily engaged in fighting, it was subjected to strong artillery and air strikes and suffered heavy casualties.

  The third armored formation belonging to the Fifth Army, the XIX Mechanized Corps under Major General Feklenko, was already on the east bank of the Goryn River and was in no shape to advance, barely holding back German attempts to sweep it aside.

  The XXVII Rifle Corps, while being still called a “corps,” numbers-wise was less than a division. It consisted of remains of the 135th Rifle Division and the survivors of the 16th Rifle Regiment from 87th Rifle Division, plus everybody from the rear support units who could be placed in line. It is of no surprise that the XXVII Rifle Corps was brought to a halt after advancing barely a mile in the early afternoon on the 1st of July.

  The counterattack of the Fifth Army in direction of Dubno, especially the almost-twenty mile penetration by the XXII Mechanized Corps, worried the German command about the rear echelons of the III Motorized and LV army corps. Since the main bodies of these two corps were locked in combat with the Soviet VIII Mechanized Corps around Dubno, the German command hurriedly moved uncommitted forces against the XXII and IV Mechanized Corps. They consisted of the 670th Separate Antitank Battalion, a reinforced panzer regiment, a reconnaissance battalion from the 16th Panzer division, and the SS Motorized Division Adolf Hitler. The latter, after moving through Lutsk, slammed into both XIX and XXII Mechanized Corps and forced them to retreat. The 25th Motorized and parts of 14th Panzer Divisions were moved against the IX Mechanized Corps. As the result of the rapid enemy reactions and counter-moves, the advance of the Fifth Army in the direction of Dubno had only limited results. Attack of the XXXI Rifle Corps in the direction of Lutsk was unsuccessful as well.