Lvov-Sandomierz Offensive

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Lvov-Sandomierz Offensive
Part of World War II
Grenadiers of the 14.Waffen-Grenadier-Division der SS Galizien (ukranische Nr.1) take cover during the Brody encirclement.
Date July 13, 1944 – July 29, 1944 Location Brody , Western Ukraine Result Soviet Victory
Combatants
Nazi Germany Hungary	Soviet Union
Commanders
Josef Harpe (Heeresgruppe Nordukraine)	Ivan Koniev (1st Ukrainian Front)
Strength
370,000 men 340 AFVs 4,800 guns	1,200,000 men 1,979 AFVs 11,265 guns
Casualties
350,000 men 520 AFVs [citation needed]	198,000 men 1,285 AFVs [citation needed]

Eastern Front
Barbarossa – Baltic Sea – Finland – Leningrad and Baltics – Crimea and Caucasus – Moscow – 1st Rzhev-Vyazma – 2nd Kharkov – Stalingrad – Velikiye Luki – 2nd Rzhev-Sychevka – Kursk – 2nd Smolensk – Dnieper – 2nd Kiev – Korsun – Hube's Pocket – Belorussia – Lvov-Sandomierz – Balkans – Hungary – Vistula-Oder – Königsberg – Berlin – Prague

The Lvov-Sandomierz Offensive^[1] was the general attack by Soviet forces to clear the Germans from Ukraine and Eastern Poland. Launched in mid July 1944, in just under one months fighting, the Soviets achieved their objective. The Lvov-Sandomierz Offensive is generally overshadowed by the overwhelming successes of the concurrent Operation Bagration and the destruction of Army Group Centre.

Contents 1 Bagration - the stage is set 2 Opposing forces 3 The assault begins 4 Encirclement at Brody 5 Annihilation at Brody - objectives redefined 6 Renewed attack - capture of Sandomierz 7 Orders of battle 8 References 9 Footnotes

[edit] Bagration - the stage is set

By early June 1944, the forces of Generalfeldmarschall Walter Model's Army Group North Ukraine had been pushed back beyond the Dniepr and were desperately clinging to the north-western corner of Ukraine. Stalin ordered the total Liberation of Ukraine, and STAVKA set in motion plans that would become the Lvov-Sandomierz Operation. In this stage, the offensive was known as the Lvov-Przemyśl Operation. The objective of the offensive was for Ivan Konev's Soviet 1st Ukrainian Front to occupy Lvov and clear the German presence from Ukraine.

STAVKA was also planning an even larger offensive, codenamed Operation Bagration to coincide with Konev's offensive. Bagration aimed at the capturing of Belarus, pushing the Germans from eastern Poland. Bagration was launched on June 22, 1944, the three-year anniversary of Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion. Bagration tore through the weakened and demoralised forces of Army Group Centre, and it soon became clear that the offensive would be more successful than had been hoped. Eagerly, Stalin ordered the Army Group be pushed back to the Vistula. By its conclusion, Bagration would result in the collapse and subsequent annihilation of an entire army group.

[edit] Opposing forces

Meanwhile, Model was removed from command of Army Group North Ukraine and replaced by Generaloberst Josef Harpe. Harpe's force comprised two Panzer armies, the 1.Panzer-Armee, under Generaloberst Gotthard Heinrici and 4.Panzer-Armee under General der Panzertruppen Walter Nehring. Attached to the 1.Panzer-Armee was the Hungarian Hungarian First Army. Harpe could muster only 420 tanks, StuG's and assorted armoured vehicles. His Army Group comprised around 370,000 men, however the Hungarian force was seen as unreliable by the German OKH (hence its subordination to 1.Panzer-Armee). The only positive was the presence of the 700 aircraft of Luftflotte IV including the veteran air units of VIII.Fliegerkorps. However, due to the chain of command, Harpe could not directly control the Luftwaffe units without much communication through the Nazi bureaucracy.

The Soviet forces under Konev outnumbered the Germans considerably. The 1st Ukrainian Front could muster over 1,200,000 men, 2,050 tanks, 16,000 guns and mortars and over 3,250 aircraft of the VVS. Added to this, the morale of Konev's troops was extremely high. They had been on the offensive for almost a year, and were witnessing the collapse of Army Group Centre to their North. The Soviet attack was to have two points. The first, aiming towards Rawa Ruska, was to be led by 3rd Guards, 1st Guards Tank and 13th Armies. The second pincer was aimed at Lvov itself, and was to be led by 60th, 38th, 3rd Guards Tank and 4th Tank Armies. The Soviets achieved a massive superiority against the Germans by limiting their attacks to a front of 26 kilometers. Konev had set up around 240 guns and mortars per kilometer of front.

[edit] The assault begins

On 13 July 1944, the northern attack towards Rava-Russkaya got underway. The Soviet forces easily pushed through near Horokhiv. The German defenders, the weakened XLII.Armeekorps, managed to withdraw relatively intact, using strong rearguard actions. By nightfall, the 13th Army had penetrated the German lines to a depth of 20 kilometers. The Soviet breakthrough occurred to the north of the XIII.Armeekorps.

The next day, the assault aimed at capturing Lvov was launched, to the south of the XIII.Armeekorps, stationed near the town of Brody. Soviet units had punched through the line near Horokhiv to the north and at Nusche in the south, leaving the XIII corps dangerously exposed in a salient. The northern pincer towards Rava-Russkaya now began to split and turned several units of the 13th Army south, in an attempt to encircle XIII.Armeekorps.

The northern forces soon encountered weak elements of the 291. and 340.Infanterie-Divisions, but these were quickly swept aside. On 15 July, Generaloberst Nehring, realising his 4.Panzer-Armee was in jeopardy, ordered his two reserve divisions, the 16. and 17.Panzer-Divisions to counterattack near Horokiv and Druzhkopil in an attempt to halt the Soviet northern assault. The two divisions could muster only 43 panzers between them and despite their best efforts, the attack soon bogged down. The massively superior Soviet forces soon forced the 16.Panzer and 17.Panzer to join the retreating infantry divisions. Konev ordered Mobile Group Baranov into the breach to help exploit the breakthrough. The Mobile group, under a blanket of air support, advanced quickly and over the next three days managed to capture the town of Kamionka Strumilova as well as to seize and hold a bridgehead on the western bank of the Buh river, cutting the XIII.Armeekorps' line of communication and cutting off their path of retreat.

[edit] Encirclement at Brody

To the south, the major Soviet assault, aimed at the juncture of the 1.Panzer-Armee and 4.Panzer-Armee had been successfully repulsed on the 14th by the division sized Korpsabteilung C. The Soviets shifted their attack further south, and after an immense artillery and air bombardement, hitting the already weak 349. and 357.Infanterie-Divisions. The 349.Infanterie-Division collapsed under the assault, the survivors falling back in disarray. Due to Korpsabteilung C and the 357.Infanterie-Division's actions, the Soviet breakthrough was only 3-4 kilometers wide. Despite this, the Soviets continued to advance towards the towns of Zolochiv and Sasiv, driving a wedge between XIII.Armeekorps and the neighboring XLVIII.Panzerkorps.

German artillery from both corps began saturating the narrow salient, dubbed the Koltiv Corridor. A hasty counterattack by the 1.Panzer and 8.Panzer-Divisions as well as the Ukrainian Waffen-SS volunteer division 14.Waffen-Grenadier-Division der SS Galizien (ukrainische Nr.1) took place. While the Galizien and 1.Panzer fought well, 8.Panzer took a wrong turn and found itself in the XIII.Armeekorps area, cut off from the XLVIII.Panzerkorps and 1.Panzer and unable to take part in the attack. Despite initial gains, the Soviets finally managed to halt the German attack, with the help of the VVS who dropped 17,200 bombs on the attacking panzers. The absence of 8.Panzer meant that the attack was doomed to fail. The commander of 8.Panzer had ignored explicit orders, and attempted to lead his force on a short cut. Instead, the division was strung out on the Zolochiv / Zborov rollbahn and suffered immense losses from Soviet Jabos. Despite this, the southern attack was slowing.

On 16th July, Konev took a great risk and committed Lieutenant General Pavel Rybalko's 3rd Guards Tank Army to the southern assault. This meant that the Army would have to travel through the narrow Koltiv Corridor, constantly under artillery fire and fierce German counterattacks. The 3rd Guards Tank tilted the balance, and soon the Soviet advance resumed. XIII.Armeekorps realised that it needed to retreat if it was to avoid encirclement. The order was given for all corps units to fall back to the Prinz Eugen Stellung, unmanned defensive positions built in June 1944. Strong Soviet attacks throughout the 17th managed to capture parts of the Prinz Eugen. The Galizien went into action attempting to recapture these points, and after meeting with some success ran into a unit of Soviet IS-2 tanks, which put an end to the advance. Despite repeated warnings from his subordinates, the Corps commander,General der Infanterie Arthur Hauffe, did not order further withdrawal, condemning the four divisions in the Brody salient to their fate.^[2]

On 18th July, renewed Soviet attacks resulted in a breakthrough for the southern wing. Late in the day, the Soviet spearheads met near the town of Busk. The encirclement was complete. 45,000 men of XIII.Armeekorps were trapped around Brody, and a 200km hole had been torn in the defence of Army Group North Ukraine.

[edit] Annihilation at Brody - objectives redefined

For the men trapped at Brody, help would not come. Despite several desperate attacks by the exhausted and understrength forces of XLVIII.Panzerkorps and XXIV.Panzerkorps, the Soviet cordon continued to tighten. Under continued Soviet attacks, Harpe ordered his forces to fall back, abandoning the trapped XIII.Armeekorps. Under constant artillery and aerial bombardment, the beleaguered forces attempted several breakout attempts, but these were easily rebuffed by the Soviet armoured forces and the Germans suffered heavy casualties. On 22nd July, a Soviet attack cut the pocket in two, and by nightfall almost all resistance had been eliminated. The scattered survivors broke up into small groups and attempted to break out. Few reached allied lines, but among them were 2,000 Ukrainian volunteers of the Galizien. Before the battle, the division had numbered 15,000 men. Konev was elated at the unexpected success of the operation. Harpe's Army Group was falling back, 4.Panzer-Armee to the Vistula River and 1.Panzer-Armee along with 1.Hungarian Army to the area around Karpaty.

The city of Lwów itself was captured by the Polish partisans of the Armia Krajowa in what is called the Lwów Uprising, a part of Operation Tempest. (In Lvov over 40,000 German troops were encircled. During the fighting for the city nearly half died and the remainder surrendered.^{[citation needed]}) The city was liberated in four days, after which the Red Army entered it. After that the Polish civil and military authorities, loyal to the Polish government in exile, were summoned for a meeting with Red Army commanders and arrested by the NKVD. Thus the city had been occupied relatively easily. The Germans had been forced from Northern Ukraine. Seeing this success, STAVKA issued new orders on 28 July. Konev was to attack across the Vistula and to capture the city of Sandomierz, in the Nazi-occupied southern Poland.

[edit] Renewed attack - capture of Sandomierz

The renewed Soviet offensive got underway on 29 July, with Konev's spearheads quickly reaching the Vistula and establishing a strong bridgehead near Baranów. Strong German counterattacks near Sandomierz halted the expansion of the Soviet bridgehead. In early August, Harpe gained some respite. five divisions, including one panzer division, were transferred from Army Group South Ukraine. These were immediately thrown into action around Sandomierz. Soon after, another five German divisions, three Hungarian, six StuG brigades and the schwere-Panzer-Abteilung 501 (equipped with Tiger II tanks) were placed under Harpe's command.

Large German counterattacks were launched in an attempt to throw the Soviets back across the Vistula. Using the towns of Mielec and Tarnobrzeg on the eastern bank of the river as bases, these attacks caused heavy casualties to the Soviet forces. By mid August, Konev's spearhead, the 6th Guards Tank Corps had only 67 tanks remaining. The Germans launched a fierce counterattack with Schwere Panzer Abteilung 501 and 16.Panzer-Division, totaling around 140 panzers including 20 Tiger IIs. Despite being outnumbered, the 6th Guards held the bridgehead, knocking out 10 Tiger IIs. By 16 August, the German counterattacks were beginning to lose steam, and Rybalko, commander of the Bridgehead, was able to expand the Soviet controlled area by a depth of 120 kilometers, capturing the city of Sandomierz. Both sides exhausted, the fighting died down and the Soviet Offensive was deemed completed.

[edit] Orders of battle

Heeresgruppe Nordukraine (Generaloberst Josef Harpe) - 12 July 1944

1. ^[3]

• 4.Panzer-Armee (General der Panzertruppen Walther Nehring)
  • VIIIth Corps
    • 12th Hungarian Reserve Division
    • 211th Infantry Division
    • 5th Jaeger Division
  • LVI. Panzerkorps
    • 26th Infantry Division
    • 253rd Infantry Division
    • 342nd Infantry Division
    • 1st Ski Jaeger Division
  • XXXXII.Armeekorps (General der Infanterie Hermann Recknagel
    • 213th Security Division
    • 214th Security Division
    • 72nd Infantry Division
    • 88th Infantry Division
    • 291st Infantry Division
    • 340th Infantry Division
    • 16th Panzer Division
    • 17th Panzer Division
    • Group Beutler
• 1.Panzer.Armee (Generaloberst Gotthard Heinrici)
  • XIII.Armeekorps (General der Infanterie Arthur Hauffe)
    • Korpsabteilung C - Generalmajor Lange
    • 454th Security Division
    • 361st Infantry Division
    • 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS Galizien (1st Ukrainian)
  • XXXXVIII.Panzerkorps (General der Panzertruppen Hermann Balck)
    • 349th Infantry Division
    • 357th Infantry Division
    • 96th Jaeger Division
    • 359th Infantry Division
    • 1st Panzer Division
    • 8th Panzer Division
  • XXIV.Panzerkorps (General der Panzertruppen Fritz-Hubert *** Graeser)
    • 20th Panzer Grenadier Division
    • 100th Jaeger Division
    • 75th Infantry Division
    • 311th Infantry Division
    • 254th Infantry Division
  • XXXXVI. Panzer Corps
    • 208th Infantry Division
    • 20th Hungarian Division
    • 1st Hungarian Division
• 1.Hungarian Army (Lieutenant General Ferenc Farkas - acting)
  • XI.Armeekorps (General der Infanterie Rudolf Bünau)
    • 168th Infantry Division
    • 68th Infantry Division
    • 101st Jaeger Division
  • VIth Hungarian Army Corps

[edit] References

• Hinze, Rolf - To the Bitter End: The Final Battles of Army Groups A, North Ukraine, Centre, Eastern Front 1944-45
• Konev, I.S. - Aufzeichnungen eines Frontbefehlshabers
• Lange, Wolfgang - Korpsabteilung C, Neckargemuend 1960
• Lysiak, O. (ed). Brody: Zbirnyk (Munich 1951)
• Thread on the battle att forum.axishistory.com

[edit] Footnotes

1. ^ The Soviets named their offensives "Offensive Operation" so the full title for this offensive in Soviet histories is Lvov-Sandomierz Offensive Operation.
2. ^ Lange, W. Korpsabteilung C; the encircled divisions were Korpsabteilung C, 349th Infantry Division, 14th SS Division 'Galicia', and 454th Security Division. The Soviet history claiming eight divisions in the encirclement is most likely counting the Divisional Groups 183, 217, and 339, which made up the regiments of Korpsabteilung C, as divisions.
3. ^ Lange, W. Korpsabteilung C; Map 10