In those wooded, swampy areas the Germans moved only along major roads. After using Novikov’s division to cover our lines on Lutsk-Rovno highway, we shifted the 20th Tank Division, including its artillery regiment armed with new 85mm cannons, here from the left flank…. Canons were emplaced in roadside ditches, on hillocks along the highway, and some—directly on the road in order to be able to conduct direct fire.[16]
Not only was Rokossovskiy able to set up effective antitank defenses, General Novikov’s 35th Tank Division and the 41st Tank Division even conducted local counterattacks, resulting in capturing some vital high ground.
Moving off before midnight, by early morning of June 28, the 41st Tank Division gained some ground, capturing a small village called Petushki. This division, numbering around 150 tanks, ran into hail of enemy fire. The village was taken at a heavy price:
The battlefield resembled hell. The smoke of burning tanks, ours and German, was stifling; flakes of ash floated through the air. Screeching, thuds, howling, shots [smothering] the voiced commands, tankers’ faces turned black. People jumped out from burning and knocked out tanks and fell, cut down by rifle and machine-gun fire, fragments of shells and mortars.[17]
All efforts of the 41st Tank Division were in vain. Daylight brought increased German pressure, and the Soviet division was forced to give up the bloody ground. Germans immediately noticed the pullback and went after the 41st Tank Division with a vengeance. Division’s pitiful air defenses, represented by one battery and four antiaircraft machine guns, were quickly bombed out of existence.
A small Soviet rear guard made up of a company of flame-throwing OT-26 tanks with several heavy KV-2s temporarily slowed down the Germans. In this tough fight, the Soviet rear guard was completely destroyed.
After returning to the starting positions, division’s chief of staff, Lieutenant-Colonel Malygin, walked up to the last surviving KV-2 tank: “The tank resembled a wounded animal. The turret was gouged, the howitzer’s frontal plate had armor-piercing rounds stuck in them, the engine barely worked.”[18]
By the time 41st Tank Division finished falling back east of Rovno on June 29, it was a division in the name only:
Only the artillery regiment remained intact. The air defense battery had only two cannons. Tank regiments numbered around 20 T-26s each, number of dismounted tank crewmen increased to 500. Forming them into companies, we included in them crewmen from destroyed air defense weapons. These companies were armed with machine guns [removed from disabled tanks], mainly without bipods, revolvers, and rifles. The heavy tank battalion existed only on paper, consisting of one mangled KV-2, one mobile repair truck, and [several] fuel trucks.[19]
XIX Mechanized Corps, Major General Feklenko Commanding
During the previous day, the task of defending Rovno against German 13th Panzer and 299th Infantry Divisions fell upon Feklenko’s severely weakened XIX Mechanized Corps. Stretched to the breaking point, Feklenko’s corps was unable to contain German probes everywhere, and by afternoon on June 28, Germans began working through the gaps between him and Rokossovskiy’s corps northwest of town.
The final blow was the appearance of advance elements from 11th Panzer Division, which found their way across Goryn River in the evening. German troops now stood twenty miles southeast behind Feklenko’s units. Even though the 11th Panzer Division was not directly operating against the XIX Mechanized Corps, this created a threat to the XIX Mechanized Corps of being taken around the southern flank and being cut off from its own Goryn River crossings. Reluctantly, in the evening of June 28 Major General Feklenko was forced to abandon Rovno and began pulling back behind Goryn River. By the morning of the 29th, the 40th Tank Division took up positions in the area of Tuchin-Goscha, and the 43rd Tank Division, in the area of Goscha-Velbovo.[20]
Task Force Lukin, Lieutenant General Lukin Commanding
During June 28, the two Soviet battalions belonging to the 109th Motorized Rifle Division continued fighting surrounded in Ostrog. On the other side of Goryn River, Lieutenant General Lukin was frantically gathering any warm bodies he could find and throwing them against Ostrog: stragglers, retreating units, small garrison detachments, newly mobilized and untrained recruits, anything. The 404th Artillery Regiment, making up for its late arrival the day before, was subjecting the bridgehead of the 11th Panzer Division to significant and effective fire: “In the Ostrog bridgehead, there were constant and strong enemy attacks with artillery support.”[21]
During the day, the 213th Motorized Rifle Division, separated from Feklenko’s XIX Mechanized Corps, retreated towards Ostrog and linked up with Lukin’s group. However, it needed most of June 28 to reorganize.
Unbeknown to Lukin, German reconnaissance troops discovered an undefended gap between his task force and the right flank of the XXXVI Rifle Corps, which was resting on the Ikva River. During the night of June 28–29, the German units began shifting south of the town, ready to exploit the gap in the morning.
XV Mechanized Corps, Colonel G. I. Yermolayev Commanding
Throughout June 28, the XV Mechanized Corps continued its push to Berestechko. After reaching vicinity of this small town by the end of the day, Yermolayev’s corps was to prepare for possible enemy counterattacks and offer whatever help possible to the VIII Mechanized Corps.
During the previous several days, the Germans set up formidable antitank defenses along rivers Styr and Ostruvka, along with strong points in the villages of Okhladov, Kholyuev, and town of Radekhov.
Attack of the 10th Tank Division faltered at the Severuvka River, on the way to Lopatin. Germans set up strong antitank defenses on the north bank of the river, and the Soviet division could not cross the river over only one available ford in the face of withering artillery fire. Colonel Yermolayev, seeing this situation with his own eyes, sent a liaison officer to the 8th Tank Division, ordering it to support the 10th Tank Division from the west in its drive on Lopatin. However, while these orders were being delivered, the Germans were pressing the 10th Tank Division hard and were beginning to encircle it.
At 1400 hours, the 37th Tank Division under Colonel F. G. Anikushkin launched its attack towards Berestechko. Advance of its 74th Tank Regiment started off well, and it was able to cross over to the north bank of Styr River in the vicinity of Stanislavchik village. On the other hand, its sister 73rd Tank Regiment could not cross the river in its assigned area near Bordulyaki village and around 1830 hours began crossing at Stanislavchik, following the rear elements of the 74th Regiment.
Thus, instead of advancing over a broad front, both regiments became stacked up one behind the other. While maneuvering to expand the attack frontage, the 73rd Tank Regiment found itself in a swampy area along the small Ostruvka River, a tributary of Styr. One of the battalions from the 74th Tank Regiment followed the 73rd and also foundered in the marshy terrain.
These units were in completely exposed positions when German antitank artillery began firing practically point blank upon them from surrounding woods. Their situation worsened when German heavy artillery from Lopatin added its weight to the fray. As the losses mounted, the Soviet tankers were forced to give up the offensive. What’s worse, German artillery fire destroyed the two bridges across the Ostruvka River, trapping the 73rd Tank Regiment and the 3rd Battalion from the 74th Regiment on the wrong side of the river.