Here, again, senior commanders set off in lone tanks to gather information by themselves. The VIII Mechanized Corps would have been much better served had General Ryabyshev stayed at his command post and directed his corps from there, instead of acting like a junior officer and motoring off in search of information.
Following the wake of battle debris, knocked-out tanks, corpses, ironed flat by heavy tank treads, destroyed cannons, Ryabyshev located Colonel Vasilyev in the Khotin village. The small village was a collection of demolished houses and smoking ruins, a sad testimonial of a bitter fight.
While happy with Vasilyev’s capturing the village, Ryabyshev, nevertheless, chastised him for not sending situation reports on schedule. After briefing Vasilyev and his command staff about corps’ overall situation, Ryabyshev moved off to his own command post at Brody.
The night caught us on the Brody-Dubno highway. [My] tank turned southwest towards Brody. To the left and right of the road the haystacks, individual houses were burning…. Everywhere in our rear there was heavy rifle and submachine-gun fire. Bullets whistled in all directions. It was difficult to figure out who is shooting at whom…. German bombers were droning overhead nonstop. They flew east in wave after wave to bomb our peaceful cities and villages.[22]
Following a similar path of destruction, Commissar Popel arrived at positions of 7th Motorized Rifle Division in the middle of a fight. The 27th Motorized Rifle Regiment under Col. Ivan N. Pleshakov was heavily engaged in holding the two beachheads on the western side of the Styr River. There were only several light regimental guns with Pleshakov, and several light BT tanks were attempting to support his regiment with gunfire from the east bank: “The woods butted up against Styr. Light tanks would dart to the edge of the river, quickly fire off several rounds from their 45mm cannons towards the west, and would again disappear among the thickets. Not a significant aid to the infantry.”[23]
Popel did not find division’s commander Colonel Gerasimov at his command post. Instead, Popel was informed that Gerasimov was in the beachhead with his forward regiment. Again, an example of another senior commander going forward instead of directing the whole unit. Dodging shell and mortar explosions, Popel ran on foot across the flimsy combat bridge onto the beachhead.
The narrow territory of the beachhead was blanketed by German artillery and mortars: “Dead were everywhere. Coming here, we stumbled many times over their bodies. There were no shelters for the wounded, and it was possible to evacuate only few of them.”[24]
While Popel was visiting colonels Gerasimov and Pleshakov, the Germans crossed the Styr River approximately two miles south of the Soviet beachhead and attacked rear echelons of Pleshakov’s 27th Motorized Rifle Regiment. Division’s commissar, Y. A. Lisichkin, diverted a battalion of BT tanks from division’s 405th Tank Regiment to restore the situation in the rear. Upon hearing of this threat, Colonel Gerasimov returned to the east bank, while Popel decided to remain in the beachhead a little longer.
Soon, the situation on the eastern bank was restored. Fortunately for the Soviet side, the German probe was more of a feint than a full-scale attack. It hit the area of regimental headquarters and few rear echelon detachments. After the initial shock, survivors of the headquarters element put up a determined fight that held off the German attack. After the battalion of BT tanks sent by Commissar Lishichkin arrived to restore situation, the Germans pulled back across the river.
Headquarters, South-Western Front, Tarnopol
Since the early morning of June 26, situation reports were trickling into the headquarters of the South-Western Front in Tarnopol. Slowly, ever so slowly, the Soviet units were taking up positions in preparation for the offensive. A major concern was whether the mechanized corps that had already become engaged with the Germans could free up enough strength to conduct a concentrated offensive.
All mechanized corps commanders were requesting air support, especially by fighter aircraft. But by this fifth day of the war, the Soviet fighter formations were so severely depleted that there were almost no fighters to go around. Still, some missions were flown by the Soviet bomber aviation into the areas now in German rear. Fifty-four Soviet bombers struck German concentrations near Rava-Russakaya, sixty more in the area of Lutsk, and further sixty-five at Sokal. However, these strikes were conducted at a steep cost; the slow bombers conducted their bombing runs at low altitudes and suffered heavily from lack of fighter cover and accurate German antiaircraft fire.
Also on the 26th, commander of the Air Forces of the South-Western Front, E. S. Ptukhin, and his chief of staff, Major General Laskin, were recalled to Moscow. Within the next several months, both of them, along with a number of their counterparts from other fronts, were shot for their failures, real or imagined, during the first days of war.
Ptukhin was replaced by Lt. Gen. F. A. Astakhov, who used to be chief of Air Forces of Kiev Special Military District until his transfer in the spring of 1941. Already knowing majority of his senior subordinates, he quickly went to work. One of the top priorities assigned to him by Kirponos was rebuilding aerial reconnaissance. Soon, information began coming in.[25] Based on information delivered by Astakhov, in the evening of June 26 Colonel Bagramyan was able to make the conclusion that the rumors about German armor coming from Brest direction were just that, rumors.
Despite efforts by the VIII and XV Mechanized Corps, Colonel General Kirponos was not generous in describing their actions in a situation report issued by his headquarters at 2000 hours:
The 8th Mechanized Corps at 0900 hours on 06/26/41 indecisively attacked the enemy mechanized formations from the vicinity of Brody in the direction of Berestechko, and not having sufficient support from aviation and his neighbor on the left, the 15th Mechanized Corps was halted by the enemy in the area of its jump-off positions.
The 15th Mechanized Corps, acting just as indecisively, did not carry out attack orders. By 0900 hours on 06/26/41 (beginning of the offensive by the mechanized corps), it was not concentrated in the staging areas.[26]
Activities of the 36th Rifle Corps also received an unflattering review: “The 36th Rifle Corps reached the defensive line of Targovitsa-Dubno-Kremenets. Due to poor organization, poor cooperation, and inadequate supply with artillery ammunition, the units demonstrated lowered combat capability while fighting the enemy in the vicinity of Dubno.”[27]
During a command meeting that evening, Purkayev expressed thoughts that the reserve XXXI, XXXVI, and XXXVII Rifle Corps needed to set up a defensive line along rivers Stokhod and Styr and towns of Dubno, Kremenets, and Zolochev. The remains of the mechanized corps would be pulled back behind them for refit and reorganization. Then, another offensive could be organized with joint cooperation of mechanized and rifle formations.
Kirponos was in overall agreement with him; temporary defensive stance was completely necessary. At the same time, he issued orders to begin reactivating the old, mothballed fortified regions of Kiev, Shepetovka, Izyaslav, Staroconstantinov, and Ostropol and form machine-gun battalions to garrison them.[28]