“That’s a lot to sacrifice,” said Katukov. “There are three other fish in the barrel. Rybalko’s entire 5th Tank Army could be pocketed, all three corps.”
“Yes, but this must have the effect of slowing down this offensive. They want Kursk. There can be no other objective for an attack on this scale.”
“And if they simply screen off the 5th Shock Army and continue? My army would be hard pressed to stop them if those two pincers unite. And once they close the trap, Rybalko will have perhaps another day’s worth of ammunition—maybe two.”
“I am taking further defensive measures,” said Rokossovsky.
“Defensive? We will need to organize a counterattack to make sure we establish contact with those armies.”
“All in good time,” said Rokossovsky, which frustrated Katukov. Yet the front commander was aware of bigger events in the offing which he did not wish to discuss on the telephone. “Move towards Berezovka, and take it if the opportunity presents itself. That will bring your army close enough to reach the others when we counterattack. I am bringing up additional reserves.”
Rokossovsky could have ordered 5th Shock to pull out under cover of darkness, but he was opting to stand his ground. An army of that size, particularly with 5th Tank included, could not be defeated quickly. It had staying power to last as long as the General needed in this situation, and now he got on the telephone to Stary Oskol where the 8th Guards Army was waiting in reserve.
The man who answered that phone call was one Vasily Chuikov, the stone-faced defender of Volgograd. The survivors of his 62nd Army had formed the root and stem of a new formation, which was now composed of six rebuilt Guards Rifle Divisions, with two heavy tank brigades and a regiment of SU-122’s. It was ordered to begin boarding the trains for movement to Prokhorovka. Zhukov was taking no chances that Steiner would finally break through and begin a rampage toward Kursk. And so the ‘Man of Iron Will,’ as Chuikov was now known, was moving on the steel rails after midnight, his first major movement to battle since Volgograd. He would reach Prokhorovka that night and establish his headquarters there, but the troops would continue on south along the rail line to Belgorod.
Balck kept attacking that night as well, wanting to push back the line of 21st Army and secure the left flank. Hopefully, there would be infantry coming up to relieve him soon, but in the meantime, he ordered Hauser to scout out the situation north in the event the enemy had strong reserves at hand.
General Chmienko of the 31st Tank Corps would not get to Berezovka that night. The town had already been bypassed by the 6th Panzer, its mop-up mission complete. Hunnersdorff then moved quickly north to Verkhopenye, the new vanguard of the drive towards Kursk. That same night, as Katukov had feared, the Grossdeutschland Division turned east to meet 3rd SS, which had now exploited the work of its brother divisions and took the lead position in that pincer. The jaws closed sometime after midnight, and when the news reached OKW that the offensive had already encircled two Soviet armies in the Tomarovka Pocket, Hitler was elated.
General Katukov could not understand why Rokossovsky reacted the way he did. This was obviously a major German offensive, as big as the Backhand Blow that had defeated 1st and 2nd Shock Groups the previous month, and drove them well north of the Donets. But he did not know about Chuikov’s 8th Guards Army arriving until the Morning of the 26th, and so now he moved his 3rd Mech Corps into blocking positions north of Berezovka, glad to know that the Stone Man had something up his sleeve after all.
He wanted to get to Berezovka, but the Germans were already there, so he moved on Verkhopenye, where reports of fighting were soon on the radio. He could hear the distinctive sound of 88s firing in the dark, and being answered by the 85mm guns of his own tanks. His enemy had moved much faster than anticipated, and he quickly got on the radio to inform Rokossovsky.
“I could not get to Berezovka as ordered,” he said, “The Germans are already north of there, as far as Novenkoye, and we are fighting in Verkhopenye. I’m going to try and push them out.”
“Do so,” said Rokossovsky. “Bring your entire 1st Tank Army there. Here is your chance to march to the sound of the guns. You must keep them there. Keep fighting. If they pull out, I want to know which direction they go, immediately.”
“Very well,” said Katukov, his blood up with the new day, and ready for a brawl. As he moved south, 3rd Mech Corps was used to screen the western approaches to Berezovka, while 31st Tank Corps attacked Verkhopenye. The east was being covered by 8th Guards Army, and as their first divisions reached the main road to Oboyan between Pokrovka and Verkhopenye, they met the Grossdeutschland Division. Behind that front, both 5th Shock and 5th Tank Armies were now in a pocket, a great circle on the situation map, with a diameter of about 16 kilometers.
Yet the decision made by Rokossovsky did have a strong effect on the offensive as a whole. Instead of seven panzer divisions advancing north, Balck’s 11th was now widely deployed on the left flank against 21st Army and elements of Katukov’s 3rd Mech. On the left, most of Dietrich’s 1st SS was holding against 5th Guards Army. In the center, the bulk of Hausser’s 2nd SS and Scheller’s 9th Panzer were just north of the pocket. This left only three divisions now in the advance, 6th Panzer, Totenkopf, Grossdeutschland. That was only 40% of the initial offensive power that began the operation, and meeting two new strong Soviet armies brought the advance to a standstill.
All of 42nd Infantry Korps was wrapped around those two trapped Soviet armies, but it wasn’t quite enough, unless the enemy position could be compressed. The defense being weakest in the north led to the decision to use 9th Panzer and Das Reich to attack there instead of moving north. The plan was to drastically compress that pocket, which would allow it to be invested by the infantry, then freeing up the panzers to continue north.
The 2nd SS was tightly concentrated, and it fell like a hammer on the northern edge of that pocket, with the second blow delivered by 9th Panzer. The perimeter began to buckle like a dented shield, collapsing inward towards the center of the pocket. They would continue the attack until well after sunset, and into the early morning hours of May 27th.
Rokossovsky’s decision to expose 5th Shock and 5th Tank to the possibility of rapid destruction was a gamble that had at least done what he anticipated. If those troops had pulled out, then the infantry of the German 42nd Korps would be holding on the shoulders instead of Balck and Dietrich. And the Germans would still have all seven Panzer divisions available to continue to prosecute their attack. He did so because he knew one thing that Katukov did not know, Vatutin was preparing another massive counterblow in the south with 1st and 2nd Shock Groups—exactly what Manstein had predicted and feared.
That night another cable was sent to General Nikolai Vatutin, the dour faced commander of the newly established “Donets Front.” It read simply—ENEMY FORCES WELL ENGAGED – ADVANCE HALTED AND OUR LINES STABLE.
That sent a one word message to General Yeremenko of the 1st Shock Army, which rippled down the line between the Donets and Oskol Rivers—RUMYANTSEV. It was the code name for the Soviet counterattack aimed at unhinging the German Kursk offensive. In application, this started rifle regiments probing forward to come adjacent to the German front, marking their positions, and reconnoitering for potential weak zones. Messages were sent to Popov and Malinovsky to begin making final preparations to advance.