The second day of Operation Storm ended with mixed results. In the north, Pavlov was falling back, while in the south, Kirponos had broken through and advanced. The two front commanders reported they were short of fuel and ammunition and that hundreds of tanks were down for maintenance. They could not mount another major attack until they were supplied. But resupply would be difficult, for the Red Army was in the midst of a logistics’ nightmare. The Luftwaffe’s bombers had hammered Soviet support units and supply depots repeatedly throughout the first two days of the operation, resulting in a major shortage of fuel and ammunition, as well as trucks to deliver them forward. To add insult to injury, the Red Air Force had proved unable to seriously challenge the Luftwaffe.
Still, Zhukov believed the morning held great promise. Depots in the Pripet Marshes had escaped relatively unscathed, and transportation units from Strategic Reserve’s 24th and 28th Armies were expected to arrive within the next day. Also, the commanders of the 13th and 16th Armies, battered throughout the day from the air, had finally linked up with their colleagues in the front lines, although too late to join the battle. With them came much needed fuel and ammunition, albeit not enough to meet everyone’s needs. Zhukov had also committed the under-strength 4th and 5th Armies to fix the German center along the Vistula. Both were already advancing under cover of darkness. Finally, staff officers were hastening the movement of the 19th, 20th, and 21st Armies toward the border. The Soviets thus had five armies on the front lines, two more expected to join them within the next twenty-four hours, and three more within another forty-eight hours.
“Dig in and hold your positions. There will be no falling back!” Zhukov ordered Pavlov and Kirponos. With a little time and a bit of luck, he thought they could still win this war. But the Russians had run out of both.
Hitler studied the overhead photos taken by his strategic reconnaissance squadron. The Luftwaffe had succeeded in separating the advancing Russian armies into distinct echelons almost too far apart to be mutually supporting. Furthermore, the army group commanders were all reporting tremendous Soviet losses on the ground and in the air. Finally, signals intelligence indicated that the Red Army was experiencing a major fuel shortage. “They are dead in their tracks,” Rommel reported from the front. “Release your hounds before the bear can recover!”
31
He would have preferred to wait another day, until the Red Army was well within the bag. Despite the Soviet breakthrough in the south, however, the confidence of his commanders convinced him that now was the time to start his counterstroke.
At 0300 on July 8, 1941, the guns of Army Groups Center and South erupted in a concentrated and sustained artillery barrage, tearing huge gaps in the first echelon Russian armies massed in front of them. The Luftwaffe joined the attack minutes later, pounding the second echelon armies of the two Russian fronts. Two hours later OKW unleashed its Panzer groups, which had moved forward during the night. In the north, 3rd Panzer Group attacked across the Narew from Warsaw toward Bialystok, ripping through Pavlov’s 10th Army and into the advancing 13th Army. In the center, 2nd Panzer Group pushed across the Vistula from Warsaw southeast toward Lublin, slashing through the already battered 6th Army. In the meantime, Panzer Group Rommel, its flame tanks in the lead spewing fire in every direction, sent the 26th Army’s 8th Rifle and 8th Cavalry Corps running for their lives as it attacked toward Lublin. In the south, the 1st Panzer Group attacked from Krakow to Przemysl, overrunning the stalled 8th Mechanized Corps’ 24th and 7th Motorized Divisions before crashing into the 16th Army. The concerted German ground and air attack was too much for the exhausted and depleted Russian units, and the Red Army’s front echelons disintegrated under the German onslaught.
On the flanks, however, the Soviet 13th and 16th Armies responded well with intense tank and antitank fire backed up by plenty of artillery, slowing the 3rd Panzer Group’s advance in the north and stopping the 1st Panzer Group dead in its tracks. The Luftwaffe moved to intervene but was effectively countered by scores of Russian fighters. The Panzers attempted to circumvent the pockets of resistance, while the infantry and artillery moved forward to eliminate the threat. “
Flak vorwärts!
” (Flak forward!) shouted a regimental commander in 1st Panzer Group’s 16th Motorized Division. Minutes later intense rapid fire from 20mm, 88mm, and 105mm antiaircraft guns ravaged the Russian 109th Motorized Division, while the Panzer divisions slugged it out with the Russian 13th and 17th Tank Divisions.
Rommel’s 1st Cavalry Division broke the impasse by charging south and striking the Russians a surprise blow, scattering first the artillery and then the antitank guns. Behind them came wave after wave of flame tanks, sowing panic in the enemy ranks and breaking his will to resist. The cries of “
Kamerad
” or “
Tovaritch
” (German and Russian for “comrade”) rang out from tens of thousands of Red Army soldiers as they began to surrender. The 3rd Panzer Group, without the luxury of either cavalry or flame tanks, had to resort to more conventional methods, battering its way through the 13th Army with heavy artillery and air support.
In the meantime, Guderian and Rommel, racing for the Bug River and scattering the Russians, collided with the newly arrived Soviet 4th and 5th Armies. Rommel’s units replied with a barrage of high explosive and smoke rounds from his self-propelled artillery following the first wave. His lead Panzer regiments then advanced under the cover of smoke, supported by infantry and a battalion of flame tanks. This time the flame tanks failed to have any effect on the Russians, who quickly hit a dozen of the vulnerable vehicles, forcing the others to retire. The catastrophic explosions that ensued, however, drew the attention of the Luftwaffe, which tore into the Soviet formations. The air and artillery strikes, in combination with accurate tank fire, were too much for the Red Army soldiers, who grudgingly began to give way to the Germans.
Both Guderian and Rommel had dispatched strong mobile corps to conduct a deep envelopment at the beginning of the engagement, and this additional pressure proved decisive. The Russians began to fall apart, slowly at first, then disintegrating as the Germans tore into their flanks with a vengeance. A frontal attack by the massed Panzers of the two groups finally broke the front echelons of the two Soviet armies, sending them dashing against the Red Army formations behind them, with the Germans in hot pursuit. The cry “
Kamerad
” was everywhere, as the Russians began to throw down their arms and abandon their heavy equipment. “No time to stop for prisoners!” Rommel told his commanders. “Point them toward the west and keep moving.”
By nightfall the lead elements of Panzer Group Rommel had reached the Bug River, opposite Brest-Litovsk. The remainder of his command continued arriving throughout the night, as Rommel planned his next move. As soon as all his commanders were assembled he informed them matter-of-factly: “We are going through the Pripet Marshes.”
Phase III of Whirlwind called for the Panzer groups to drive deep into the Soviet Union, while the remainder of Army Groups Center and South completed the destruction of the Russian armies in Poland. In the center, the 3rd Panzer Group and Panzer Group Rommel would attack north of the Pripet Marshes toward Minsk, smashing the remaining Russian armies in Byelorussia and seizing the city. The 3rd Panzer Group would then continue its attack northeast toward Smolensk, while Rommel attacked southeast toward Gomel to close the northern pincer of the German encirclement.
In the meantime, Army Group Center’s 2nd Panzer Group would attack south of the Pripet Marshes toward Kiev, then swing northeast toward Gomel, destroying the remaining Russian armies in the northern Ukraine and linking up with Rommel. It would thus close the southern pincer of the German encirclement.
Simultaneously, the 1st Panzer Group would attack from Przyemysl southwest toward Dnepropetrovsk to destroy the remaining Russian armies positioned in the southern Ukraine. Farther south, a Hungarian motorized corps, two Romanian armies, and the German 11th Army would attack across Soviet Bessarabia toward Odessa to destroy the Russian 12th and 9th Armies.
Rommel, however, had other ideas. Well aware that the Russian armies were probably converging to the norm and south of the Pripet Marshes, he believed the quickest road to victory was also the straightest. German Panzers had pierced the impenetrable Ardennes in 1940, and he was confident they could do it again here in the Soviet Union in 1941. Besides, where were all these Russian armies coming from? Instinct told him that the Soviet high command was probably using a road network through the marshes to expedite the deployment of the Red Army to the border. Experience told him that Russians did not expect an attack from that direction. His mind made up, Rommel dispatched reconnaissance battalions across the river under cover of darkness to reconnoiter Brest-Litovsk and the road to Pinsk. The remainder of the night was spent planning the advance.
When Phase III of Whirlwind kicked off at 0300 on July 9, Rommel’s lead elements had already crossed the Bug River and seized Brest-Litovsk against almost light Soviet resistance. The German units immediately set off for Pinsk, 110 miles to the east, the first day’s objective. The reconnaissance battalions reported that the road was open and being used only by Red Army support units. Rommel’s Panzers moved swiftly through the countryside, entering Kobrin, where the German motorcycles and armored cars had already shot up various headquarters and support units as they moved through, leaving the city in flames.
The Panzers and motorized infantry moved all day and night without stopping. Outside of Pinsk they overran an inattentive Russian rifle division in its assembly area. They continued moving until they reached the edge of the marshes on the far side of the city, where they refueled and briefly rested, while awaiting the remainder of the command. A messenger met Rommel with the latest report. Two parallel corduroy roads, running east-west, bisected the marshes. The reconnaissance battalions had proceeded along both roads, shooting up Russian traffic police, support units, radio and relay stations, and ammunition and fuel depots. The bad news was that the marshy ground tended to absorb radio signals, making it impossible for the lead units to communicate with the Panzer group. There was thus no way for the main body to know where the roads led and what lay ahead, “Perfect!” Rommel responded, ordering his command to advance. “If we can’t communicate, then neither can the Russians!”
They continued moving during the early morning darkness and throughout the next day, the Panzers always in the lead. By midnight of the second day they reached firm ground. Another messenger informed Rommel that they had reached a major intersection with a second corduroy road running generally north-south. Looking at his map, the Panzer leader estimated that they were about two-thirds of the way through the marshes and concluded that the northern route led to Minsk and the southern to Zhitomir. Rommel sent two Panzer and two motorized infantry divisions north under his chief of staff to facilitate the capture of the Byelorussian capital by Horn’s 3rd Panzer Group and pave the way for a future advance to Moscow. He himself proceeded toward Gomel with two Panzer divisions, a motorized division and an infantry division, sending the 1st Cavalry Division to screen to the south along with the three battalions of light tanks.
Panzer Group Rommel had been on the move for two days, stopping only to refuel.
“Wo ist Rommel?”
(Where is Rommel?) ran the standing joke in the unit.
“Rommel hat nach Gomel gegangen!”
(Rommel has gone to Gomel!) The exhausted German soldiers laughed as they continued advancing, past burning fuel dumps and ammo depots, dead Russian soldiers and horses, abandoned field hospitals, kitchens, and unit headquarters. By midnight of the third day they were through the Pripet Marshes, having marched almost 250 miles in seventy-two hours. They were met by the reconnaissance battalions, which escorted them into a series of assembly areas where they refueled their vehicles before collapsing in exhaustion.
The respite was brief. Hours later they were on the move again, racing the advanced guard of the Soviet 24th Reserve Army, which was approaching Gomel from the east. The city was held by the reconnaissance battalions, which had been reinforced with two Panzer battalions dispatched earlier in the morning. Rommel’s tanks closed the distance first, emerging on the far edge to deliver a withering fire on the Russians advancing in almost textbook formation. “They come on in the same old way!” marveled the Panzer leader’s driver. “And we shall beat them in the same old way!” responded a tired but ecstatic Rommel. Within minutes the Luftwaffe had joined the fray, tearing into the neat Russian ranks. A counterattack by the lead battalions of the Panzer divisions finished the job, shattering the Soviet regiments and sending the entire formation into retreat, hotly pursued by Hitler’s eagles. In the meantime, the arriving infantry and Panzer battalions occupied positions around the city. With communications restored shortly afterward, Rommel personally informed a jubilant Hitler that Panzer Group Rommel had taken Gomel.
Zhukov had spun the wheel of destiny and lost. From eastern Poland to the Soviet Union, the Red Army lay shattered. Little stood between the Germans and Moscow, except a few undermanned, unequipped, and scattered rifle corps. The chief of the Soviet General Staff had underestimated the “patchwork” German Army and overestimated the Red Army. He had front-loaded his attack, gambled, and lost. He was ready when the NKVD officers came to take him away. He smiled to himself and thought with a hint of humor that in war there are no great and indispensable generals, only great and indispensable leaders. Perhaps if he’d had the luxury of learning from his mistakes he might have developed into a first-rate military figure, a great captain of Russia, or even of the world. But in Stalin’s Russia, mistakes were not tolerated in the summer of 1941, not even by favorites. The general’s driver retrieved the small suitcase every Soviet officer kept for such a contingency. It contained a change of underwear, a pair of socks, a metal cup and spoon, a bag of biscuits, some tea, and a picture of his wife. It was one of the bitter lessons Russian officers had learned from the purges. The NKVD officers treated him with a certain deference as they invited him into the car. A curt nod to his staff and the car was on its way.