On the other side of the attack, Model had not sat idle. He had six infantry divisions east of the Don, but three were south of Voronezh, holding useless ground. His orders were to hold the city, and that he did, with three divisions, but those other three crossed the Don and moved west on the night of 29 December, and took up better defensive positions on the southern belly of the fish shaped pocket in which he found himself. This freed up his 24th Panzer Korps and allowed him to move 17th and 18th Panzer Divisions to join the units he already had fighting at Stary Oskol.
The relief attack was coming right up the road and rail line towards that town, and he massed whatever he could to make a breakout attempt as the sound of their guns drew ever nearer. In a strange way, the entire action resembled the relief attempt that had actually been mounted by Hoth to try and save Paulus, the original Operation Winter Storm. That had been eventually halted on the Myskova river by the arrival of Malinovski’s powerful 2nd Guards Army. Here, it was the 3rd Guards Army under General Dmitri Lelyushenko trying to bar the way.
Just before midnight, when all those troops would have much rather been pleasantly drunk in the arms of a woman, Balck’s intrepid division punched through and opened a hole. Behind him came the Fusilier Regiment of the Grossdeutschland Division, surging into the gap. And on the other side, they met a kampfgruppe of troops from Model’s army, jubilantly joining hands as the clock tolled out the coming of the new year. Whether they could hold that thin corridor remained undecided at that point, but they at least got through.
Manstein got the news right at midnight, pleased and proud that his troops had pushed through, but realizing the herculean task that now lay ahead. To secure that corridor, he now had to push back both those great arms of the bear trying to strangle it with the claws of their armored formations. 1st and 2nd SS were still pushing, on the left, and 3rd and 5th SS were pushing on the right, along the line of the Oskol River. Both enemy pincers had been stopped, and even pushed back in places, but for how long?
Even if they succeeded, he still had no permission to withdraw Model’s troops, there they would sit, with the the neck of that supply corridor the subject of constant enemy counterattacks. All they had accomplished, and with the best divisions in the German army, was to get back again the same dilemma Manstein had gone to OKW to try and solve. He was still enraged at Hitler’s stupidity and obstinate mindset. Steiner’s superb SS Korps would now be tied down here indefinitely. It was madness. What was he to tell Model now—sit there, like the nine panzer divisions were now sitting on the Northern Front?
Madness. There were now 15 infantry divisions, including two Luftwaffe field divisions, 3rd, 4th, 17th, and 18th Panzers, and the 10th and 29th Motorized Divisions in that pocket. That was a force on the same scale as the losses sustained at Stalingrad in Fedorov’s history.
He had to take some decisive action, and now again considered the desperate option of conspiring with Rundstedt and Model to simply do what was necessary, orders or no orders. They would certainly all lose their jobs, if not their heads, but he also had one more option—resignation. Yet if not even that could move Hitler, Manstein would then forfeit any further control or influence over the battles that surely lay ahead. His duty to the army itself weighed heavily in that decision. After having drafted his threat, he summarily tore it to pieces, shaking his head.
That night, as a column of vital supplies was pushed through the embattled corridor for Model, Steiner reported that he had stopped the northern pincer and stabilized that sector of the front. The line of the Oskol was also solid. The sour grapes that Manstein could pick would now rest in that report to OKW.
‘Front stabilized,’ he cabled. ‘Supply corridor reestablished to Model necessitates continued deployment of the Army’s best mobile divisions to hold it open, unless a force of at least 6 to eight infantry divisions is sent to relieve those troops. The threat to Kharkov has been put off for the moment, though a further push for Kursk against strong enemy reserves in that sector seems impractical. Redeployment of 2nd Panzerarmee through the corridor to bring it safely within the German front near Prokhorovka would also allow Steiner to redeploy and reorganize for a new counterattack aimed at recovering lost ground. Should Model be forced to remain in place, Steiner must as well, and no further offensive action can be contemplated until the matter is resolved, nor will Steiner’s SS be able to refit in time to participate in Operation Untergang. Model’s present position remains precarious, unless a strong force could be mustered east of Bryansk and Kirov to again drive on Voronezh and threaten to encircle the enemy forces in the Kursk sector. Otherwise, 2nd Panzerarmee will remain a useless liability that will continue to require a heavy commitment by both the army and Luftwaffe to keep it in supply.’
It was a blunt and grimly realistic appraisal, but also hinted that the Army had the means to resolve this crisis if it could get permission to use it. Manstein knew exactly where he could find that strong force, in the nine panzer Divisions presently refitting in three separate Korps along the Northern Front. He knew that asking for those troops directly would get him nowhere, but he would have been remiss if he did not suggest this option for OKWs consideration. Keitel and Jodl would certainly support it, but Hitler was again the great obstacle.
And so, 1942 would close with Armeegruppe South having cleared the Donets Basin, taking Rostov, establishing a strong foothold in the north Kuban region, and driving all the way to the Volga to make the linkup with Volkov’s troops. Armeegruppe Center still had both Moscow and Voronezh, pyrrhic victories owed only to the stubborn implacable will of Adolf Hitler. It would be some time before the Führer would answer that cable, and by then it would be 1943.
For Zhukov, supply was now becoming a critical factor for his forward units. Kursk was the new logistical center for the northern Group, but all the rail lines leading into that city had been badly torn up by the fighting, and would take weeks to repair, possibly months. With no direct rail connection, and few good roads, that arm of the Bear had been stopped by Hitler’s damnable SS divisions. They had also thrown up a steel wall all along the line of the Oskol River, their defense so determined that he could find no way to try and move more divisions across the river. He still had three tank corps in reserve, and reluctantly ordered them back to the railheads east of the Don for deployment elsewhere.
The enemy had reestablished contact with the Voronezh pocket, though he was surprised that no effort was now being made to extract those troops from the dangerous position he had forced upon them. It was now clear to him that Kharkov was not an attainable objective, and he reported as much to Sergei Kirov.
“We have more than adequate force at hand, but keeping them moving and fighting is an equally big problem. Supply deliveries to the front are now down to 50% of normal, and in the Kuban no more than 10%. I would therefore suggest that we now redeploy to build up forces along the line of the Oka for a drive west. It may yet be possible to take either Kirov or Bryansk back, and such a drive would also threaten communications to the enemy position at Moscow, and possibly force them to commit troops they are presently rebuilding for any planned offensive against Leningrad.”