At the same time, all technical personnel of the whole Volyn region civilian communication apparatus were mobilized. This allowed military communications units to be filled up with highly qualified personnel and equipment. A liaison section headed by Major Shestakov was created at the Fifth Army headquarters. Each division and corps of the Fifth Army was required to send two liaison officers with their own transportation to be part of this section. These liaison officers were to constantly be on the move between the army headquarters and their units in order to provide up-to-date information, not more than two hours old. This was a valuable additional source of communication besides radio and telephone.[26]
Despite taking Lutsk, German command did not actively exploit a continual offensive on this direction. Both panzer divisions of German III Corps received orders in the evening of 25th to shift south. The 14th Panzer Division was to advance on Rovno via Ostrozhets (ten miles southeast of Lutsk), the 13th Panzer Division, via Plosk village, further south. This in effect moved them away from the strategic highway going through Vladimir-Volynskiy to Rovno and then to Zhitomir and Kiev. The stubborn resistance of Soviet forces, especially strong antitank defenses posed by Moskalenko’s 1st Antitank Artillery Brigade, forced the Germans to move away from this major road artery and probe forward along secondary roads.[27]
The time lost by the VIII Mechanized Corps was wisely used by Germans, allowing them to pull up at least four infantry divisions on the key Dubno axis. Especially bitter was the fact that the XV Mechanized Corps in the morning of June 25 was moving through the area which it occupied on the 23rd. Unbeknown to Soviet command, on June 26 they would be facing not the porous defenses of panzer divisions, but solid antitank barriers put up by the German infantry divisions. Still, the Soviet counterattack came sooner than expected. Command of Army Group South expected a major Soviet offensive on June 28. Instead, it came on June 26.
The 16th Panzer Division, moving up in the wake of 11th, crossed the border on June 24 near Krystonopol. It had to fight several skirmishes with still-resisting bunkers on the Molotov Line. According to the history of this division, the “border defenses were fiercely defended.”[28]
CHAPTER 10
Battle for Dubno, June 26–27
JUNE 26, 1941
AFTER MEETING SPIRITED SOVIET RESISTANCE in the Lutsk area and not being able to develop an attack along the highway onto Rovno, command of the German III Mechanized Corps shifted its 13th Panzer Division south on June 26. Following in the wake of the 11th Panzer Division, the 13th crossed the Ikva River over a bridge near Mlynov and followed the 11th Panzer towards Ostrog. Behind the two panzer divisions came 111th and 299th Infantry Divisions hurrying along on foot into the gap breached by the hard-charging 11th Panzer division. Behind and to the south came the 75th Infantry and 16th Panzer Divisions, anchoring the tenuous supply and communications line of the “Ghost Division” to Berestechko.
Driving determinedly forward, the 11th Panzer Division was not aware of the danger gathering on both of its flanks. Even after suffering severe casualties in fighting up to this point and terrible attrition of combat vehicle due to noncombat losses, the four Soviet mechanized corps moving up to cut off the spearhead of German armored thrust were still very formidable. The clash of armor was promising to be a loud one.
After Lutsk finally fell in the evening of June 25, Germans continued pressing their attack along the highway to Rovno. The 1st Antitank Artillery Brigade, the motorcycle regiment of the XXII Mechanized Corps, and the 131st Motorized Division were barely defending a wide front from Rozhysche to Ostrozhets, ten miles southeast of Lutsk.
XIX Mechanized Corps, Major General Feklenko Commanding
The northern Soviet pincer aimed at Dubno from north and northeast was composed of IX and XIX Mechanized Corps. However, being only vaguely aware of each other’s whereabouts, the two corps commanders were not able to meet and work out a coordinated attack plan.
Major General Feklenko had very meager resources to contribute to the offensive, the actual strength of his XIX Mechanized Corps under his direct command being closer to a division size. On paper, the combat-arms portion of XIX Mechanized Corps amounted to five tank, four motorized rifle, four artillery, and one motorcycle regiment. In reality, none of its motorized rifle formations were fully present for action on June 26. Roughly two battalions of infantrymen from the 213th Motorized Rifle Division were loaded up into the few available trucks and brought along with the tank formations. The rest of division trudged forward on foot and were approximately seventy kilometers east of Rovno in the morning of June 26. The bulk of artillery regiments moved with them as well, brought forward mainly by slow tractors and horse teams. Armored vehicles belonging to the 132nd Tank Regiment of the 213th Motorized Rifle Division were split between the two tank divisions.
As mentioned previously, the two tank regiments in each tank division lost so many combat vehicles during the approach phase that they had to be combined into a provisional regiment. Also, advance elements of the 19th Mechanized had been in contact with the enemy since the night of June 24, further adding to the loss of tanks and armored cars. Thus the actual combat strength of the XIX Mechanized Corps which took part in the fighting on June 26 were two tank regiments and an equivalent of a weak rifle regiment, basically an understrength division.
The morning of June 26 found the 40th Tank Division roughly twelve miles northwest of Rovno in the area of Klevan. Its sister division, the 43rd Tank, was near Goscha, ten miles east of Rovno. During the previous night, the motorized rifle regiment of the 43rd Tank Division made contact with a rifle regiment from 228th Rifle Division belonging to the XXXVI Rifle Corps and deployed in the immediate vicinity northeast of Dubno. These two weak regiments formed the advanced Soviet positions.
The 40th Tank Division was to attack Mlynov, capture it, and continue southwest. The 43rd Tank Division was assigned to take Dubno and, after taking it, continue southwest as well, parallel to the 40th Tank.
The attack was supposed to begin at 0900 hours, but not all the units were ready and the start was postponed to 1100 hours and then again to 1400 hours. The Germans did not oblige by waiting for the Soviets and attacked first and steadily pushed the advance elements of the 43rd Tank and 228th Rifle Divisions away from Dubno.
As the main bodies of the 40th and 43rd Tank Divisions advanced, they became intermixed with the units of the 228th Rifle Division. The 40th Tank advanced around and through the right flank of the 228th, and the 43rd Tank took up similar positions on 228th’s left.
Opposing the 19th Mechanized Corps on the north side of Dubno were elements of German 11th and 13th Panzer and 111th and 299th Infantry Divisions.
All the available tanks in the 43rd Tank Division were merged into its 86th Tank Regiment. In the morning of June 26 this unit numbered two KV-1 tanks, two T-34s, and seventy-five T-26s. While the Soviet and German numbers were roughly equivalent in this sector, the Germans had distinct advantage of heavy artillery assigned to the 11th Panzer Division from corps assets.