True to its doctrine, the 11th Panzer Division was moving forward along three routes in three battle groups. One battle group was formed around the 15th Panzer Regiment, the other two around the two panzer grenadier, or mechanized infantry, regiments. Each battle group had its allotment of field and air-defense artillery and combat engineers. One of these battle groups, formed around the 110th Panzer Grenadier Regiment, supported by one panzer company from the 15th Panzer Regiment, reached Berestechko in the evening of the previous day.
The only effective means to slow down the 11th Panzer Division was the Soviet Air Force. According to Isayev, the Air Force of the South-Western Front conducted 523 sorties between June 22 and 24 and dropped 2,500 bombs.[35] Isayev is seconded by Gustav Schrodek: “At dawn of June 24, the [15th Panzer] Regiment underwent its first attack by Russian bombers. It shall not be the only one this day; completely the opposite. Hour by hour, number of hostile attacks increases. As the result of this, the regiment now has several dead and wounded.”[36]
Schrodek himself experienced a close brush with the attacking Soviet aircraft. As the rest of 15th Panzer Regiment continued driving east, German aerial reconnaissance identified strong enemy armor concentration coming north from direction of Lopatin around 0700 hours. Detaching Schrodek’s 5th Company, under command of Lieutenant von Renesee, as flank security, the regiment drove on.
As dispersing German panzers grabbed whatever scare natural concealment camouflage was available, Lieutenant von Renesse was stuck with hiding his tank in an ancient, dilapidated barn. In order to have a clear field of fire, the lieutenant ordered his driver to simply push out a few boards in the wall of the barn with tank’s cannon. Unfortunately, the whole of barn collapsed on top of von Renesse’s tank. After considerable efforts, and aided by other crews, they dug out the trapped vehicle only to discover that panzer’s torsion bar and suspension system were damaged, putting the vehicle out of commission. While von Renesse commandeered another tank, Schrodek and the rest of the crew took the damaged panzer on a slow, lumbering, and bumpy trek back to division’s rear for repairs.
As they traveled west along the traffic-choked dirt road against the tide of other advancing units from 11th Panzer Division, three Soviet bombers dove at the road, spreading a thick carpet of bombs: “The Russian air attack, aided by that continuously beautiful favorable weather, proved to be quite a hindrance to the further advance.” Schrodek’s damaged tank could not maneuver out of the path of oncoming bombs: “There was no chance of avoiding the bombs, only living through it.” While Schrodek and other crew members dove for cover in the ditches, several Russian bombs landed close behind the tank. Fortunately, despite some scratches and bruises, no one on Schrodek’s crew was hurt.
In spite of Soviet air attacks, combat engineers for the 11th Panzer Division succeeding in repairing a damaged bridge over Styr River east of Berestechko, and advance continued in direction of Dubno. By the end of June 24, the 15th Panzer Regiment covered another thirty miles, despite the difficult road.
While the two tank divisions from the XV Mechanized Corps moved from place to place, its sister division, the 212th Motorized Rifle, received orders directly from headquarters of the South-Western Front. It was ordered to take up positions north of Brody and hold the area until arrival of the VIII Mechanized Corps.
VIII Mechanized Corps, Lt. Gen. Dmitriy I. Ryabyshev Commanding
As the other Soviet units were fighting Germans, the VIII Mechanized Corps was bouncing around inside the Stiy-Peremyshl-Lvov triangle. After covering almost two hundred miles, the VIII Mechanized Corps now had to move an additional seventy-five miles east to Brody. The meaningless miles used up fuel at an alarming rate and caused severe stress on men and machines.
Shortly after 0500 hours, the corps set off east. The roads around Lvov were choked with refugees and military units, some moving towards, the others away from the border. As much as Ryabyshev disliked the idea, he had to move his corps through the town, painstakingly negotiating its narrow medieval streets.
Corps Commissar Nikolai Popel accompanied the motorcycle regiment in its vanguard position. He remembered seeing unending streams of refugees flowing through the main thoroughfare. Single rifle shots were heard. As the regiment moved deeper into the city, shooting intensified, turning into regular skirmishes.[37]
Popel quickly found out the source of shooting. Up to a week before the war, armed Ukrainian OUN (Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists) nationalists began infiltrating the city. Now, this “fifth column” began sniping at the Soviet troops moving through Lvov. The garrison of the city found itself not able to contain the situation, and passing regular Soviet units were pressed into lending a hand in eliminating pockets of resistance. Several companies from Popel’s motorcycle regiment found themselves involved in a series of confusing running fights along the rooftops and through the alleys.
The OUN saboteurs and snipers began with creating an atmosphere of chaos and panic in the city, setting fires to buildings and picking off individual Soviet soldiers. As the German troops moved closer to Lvov, OUN fighters became bolder and began engaging Soviet regular army troops.
The Soviets exacted more than their share of vengeance upon the citizens of Lvov, however. From almost the very first hours of the war on June 22, the NKVD prison guards throughout western Ukraine began executing their civilian prisoners held in local jails. Majority of these prisoners were people deemed unreliable or potential enemies of the Soviet state. Now, with the Germans pressing close to Lvov, the wholesale slaughter of political prisoners began. By the time the Soviet forces finally abandoned Lvov, over twelve thousand of these prisoners were shot by NKVD in Lvov alone.[38]
As the main body of the VIII Mechanized Corps entered Lvov, its movement sometimes slowed down to a crawl. The flow of civilian refugees severely interfered with the progress of the Soviet units. Ryabyshev was forced to set up road blocks, sometimes consisting of tanks, to ensure proper movement of his corps.
In the afternoon, the main body of the VIII Mechanized Corps gathered in a small town of Kurovitse, approximately twenty miles east of Lvov. Three men in civilian clothes approached Popel. To his surprise, he discovered that these men were film director Kovalchuk with two assistants. They had been looking for Popel now for two days: “I was, of course, flattered by such a distinguished attention to our corps, but how could I have been of service to [movie people] in these chaotic days! I could only shake their hands, express my sincere hope for a productive cooperation and advise them… to go rest.”[39]
As the tired units of the VIII Mechanized Corps continued pulling into Kurovitse, it became painfully obvious that the corps was not in any shape to reach Brody the same day. Too much time was lost moving through the bottlenecks in Lvov and fighting the Ukrainian nationalists.
Still, the vanguard 2nd Motorcycle Regiment under Maj. V. F. Trubitskiy continued moving forward. At the small town of Busk, roughly halfway between Lvov and Brody, it ran into an ever-present German reconnaissance element made up of armored cars and motorcycles and exchanged gunfire with them.