The front dipped closest to Morozovsk in the 3rd Shock Army sector, and that force put in a strong attack, committing all its mobile reserves in fast moving cavalry units. The ski brigades would also get their first chance to wax the boards and speed off over the light snowpack from the recent storm. 60th Light Tank Brigade found a hole open in the lines of the German 305th Infantry Division and raced on through, gaining ten kilometers and reaching the main road from Morozovsk to Chern.
That got Manstein’s attention immediately. He had already thinned out his cupboard, sending the three Reserve Don Group infantry battalions up to the front to facilitate the withdrawal of 336th Infantry. Now, with an enemy tank unit just six kilometers from his desk in Morozovsk, the 336th was immediately ordered to halt its eastward march, turn about, and come west along the main road.
Its 686th Regiment had been at the tail of the column, and now it quickly became the vanguard, the trucks racing west on the road to the crisis point. The division would assemble at a road mark known as Kilometer 161 on their maps, and deploy to push back the penetration the enemy had achieved here. Better motorized, the swift moving Motorcycle Recon Battalion raced ahead, following the rail line south of the main road to reach Morozovsk late on the 25th of October. They soon ran into Soviet cavalry and armored cars, but this had been designed as no more than a spoiling attack, meant to draw in any mobile reserves the Germans might have waiting behind the front. The real offensive was much farther west, but it was taking time to get underway.
The sometimes ponderous nature of Soviet operations at this stage was slowing Saturn down, but it eventually built up like too much snow on the roof of the German line. Now that roof began to collapse. The weight of the entire 5th Shock Army was soon falling on the 24th Panzer Division. II Battalion of 21st Panzergrenadier Regiment was simply overrun and destroyed, with III Battalion surrounded. Volsky’s big 4th Mech Corps had joined this attack, like a bear coming out of hibernation. And now the 1st Tank Army was reaching the scene in force, the landscape suddenly alive with the grind and growl of tanks again on every quarter. They were through the gap in the German ranks, trundling south.
The German 23rd Panzer had jogged right to come up on the flank of the beleaguered 24th, and its lines were reasonably secure and well organized. It was holding on the left, but the weight of 5th Shock Army, Volsky’s Mech Corps and all the tanks of 7th and 10th Tank Corps were simply too much on the right. 24th Panzer Division was being overrun. The Recon Battalion and four of the six Panzergrenadier Battalions were all but destroyed, the artillery park fleeing south in a mad chaotic rush. Lengsfeld’s 23rd tried to counterattack on the shoulder of the enemy penetration, but it felt like they were trying to force a hatch shut against a flood of onrushing seawater on a sinking ship.
Meanwhile, off to the east, Winter Storm continued to rage against 5th Tank Army. The 3rd SS had swung north off the main road and pushed right over the Chir against 24th Tank Corps, and now, relieved by elements of 3rd Motorized, the Reichsführer Brigade that had been defending near Oblivskaya swung right up the road to the east, and plowed into Surovinko. That was just the added wind in the storm that was needed, allowing Scheller’s 9th Panzer Division to drive the remnants of 1st Tank Corps out of the town. Meanwhile, Balck found Hauser by the river, still screening that site he had chosen for a good crossing point.
“The tanks have pulled out,” said Hauser. “Now the far bank is only screened by infantry.”
“Then it looks like we should try them here,” Balck decided. There was no other flanking move possible for his division. His right flank was just the increasingly marshy banks of the Chir as it wound down towards the Don. Now it was time to take 11th Panzer over that river, but half his division was very low on supplies. So he attacked with the other half.
Two hours later, Manstein got the report that Balck was over the Chir with a strong Kampfgruppe, ready to join the units of 9th Panzer. Thus far, Winter Storm had met his every expectation, a complete success in smashing 5th Tank Army and throwing its shattered tank corps back in considerable disarray. Yet it was still well over 40 kilometers to Kalach. The fight there had worn down his divisions, supply was needed, and he knew that the storm must soon abate.
Beyond that, the reports coming in from 14th Panzer Korps were most disturbing. The Russians had produced yet another fresh reserve army to throw at him, and Manstein could not understand how they were doing it. The 336th had stopped the penetration north of Morozovsk, but now, with the collapse of 24th Panzer, a new and more serious threat was developing from the northwest. He was going to have to pull his entire left wing back, trading space for time. Orders were sent that hour for the two Luftwaffe Field Divisions to withdraw with the 294th Infantry. Manstein wanted infantry to reform a defensive front so he could pull 23rd Panzer out of the storm and get some mobile reserve in hand again.
In a strange flip on either side of the map, the Germans had finished off the Soviet 24th Tank Corps, and they now had Surovinko back in the east. Yet the Soviets had nearly destroyed 24th Panzer Division, and they were coming for Morozovsk in the west. Manstein had laid down a nice flush, in spades, but Rokossovsky had a full house, Jacks and Queens high.
Chapter 24
Steiner had been pacing in his headquarters, eager to get on with the demolition of this city. It would complete his mission for the whole of Operation Blue, match Rundstedt’s accomplishment in investing Voronezh, justify his decision to pull 54th Korps east of the Don. After all, that was the direction they had been pushing. It wasn’t a retreat, he kept telling himself, but an advance on the primary objective with as much strength as he could get his hands on. He overlooked the fact that he was handing all the ground between Surovinko and Kalach to the Russians. Manstein was still out there, with his miracle workers like Hermann Balck and the others. They would get through in short order.
His old Wiking Division had broken through in the south, and this after fighting at Golubinskaya, then force marching to Surovinko and holding there. Now he was glad he gave the order for his Norsemen to pull back to Nizhne Chirskaya. They are truly Thor’s Hammer, he thought, and he was using them to pound away at the anvil of this city, crumbling its stone buildings further with every blow.
We’ve run them out of Beketova and Kupersnoye; pushed them back to Yelshanka. All in a day’s work for my iron men of the north. But I think the troops they had in Beketova went somewhere, did they not? The south may get more difficult, but if it comes to a race between the Wikings and Das Reich to see who can get to the Volga first, my money if on the fighting 5th. I have had to add the Korps Stug Battalions and Sturmpioneers to the attack in the north. There are some very tough Russian divisions up there, and Das Reich is fighting with only one good arm.
Infantry… I grabbed all I could get my hands on, but it is never enough. If I had another regiment or two, then Das Reich could pull its Grenadiers off the aqueduct line. Should I send for that reserve regiment at Kalach? That would be a very long march. The fighting is already five or six kilometers from Rynok. It would most likely be over before those troops even arrived.
In the center, both Hörnlein and Beckermann are sitting on most of their initial objectives. Only the old military base near the airfield remains in enemy hands. I’m counting on those two divisions to push right on through to Central Volgograd.