Article

2024-07-24 Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia

Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
by Danila Grigoriev

[RedStar] The combat journal of the 8th Guards Army tells how Soviet troops opened the gates to Berlin.

Continued from Page 4

On the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the start of the Lublin-Brest Offensive Operation of the Red Army, the Central Archive of the Russian Ministry of Defense, together with the Russian Military Historical Society, published for the first time declassified archival documents dedicated to the liberation of Western Belarus and Eastern Poland by Soviet troops. Among these documents is the combat journal of the 8th Guards Army of the 1st Belorussian Front for August 1944. The document describes the tactics of the Red Army, which led to the successful crossing of the Vistula River and the retention of the captured bridgehead.

On July 18, 1944, the Lublin–Brest Offensive Operation began. During it, on August 1, 1944, the 8th Guards Army of the 1st Belorussian Front, under the command of Guards Colonel General Vasily Chuikov, crossed the Vistula River. The combat journal of the 8th Guards Army for August 1944 notes that, despite the short preparation period—only a day—thanks to the surprise of the Soviet troops, they managed to cross the Vistula River on a 21-km front and capture a bridgehead on its western bank.

The surprise effect in crossing the Vistula, as noted in the journal, was achieved in the battles preceding the crossing: “After the troops of the Army of Defense broke through west Kovel and reached the Lublin line, the axis of the army’s movement was directed to the northwest. in the direction of Warsaw and could not go unnoticed by the enemy, units of the army reached the Vistula River on 27.7.44, without making any attempt to force it, having its main grouping with its front on the northwest and its left flank on the eastern bank of the Vistula River.

The German command concluded that they were threatened with an attack on Warsaw by the 47th and 8th Armies, and prepared to repel this threat by strengthening the grouping defending Warsaw at the expense of weakening other sections of the front, including the section of the creation of the Magnuszew bridgehead by the 8th Guards Army. In addition, the surprise of the operation was also achieved by the fact that in the section of the river crossing, Soviet troops misled enemy reconnaissance, creating for it the false impression of the inaction of the Red Army.

“If we take into account that the crossing section, right up until the second half of 31.7.44, "... gave the impression of the absence of a front at all /our soldiers and the enemy freely swam in the river/ and the short preparation period for the crossing /one day/, with sufficient camouflage of the starting areas, the surprise of the crossing was fully observed and contributed to the success of the operation," the document says.

Realizing that they had been outwitted, the fascists regrouped their troops and brought in fresh forces from Warsaw:

"With the approach of two tank divisions /19 TD, TD "Hermann Goering"/ the enemy launched a counteroffensive with the task of eliminating the bridgehead, striking at the central section of the front, trying to dismember our troops into two parts with subsequent defeat.

The army troops, having consolidated their positions, began to wage fierce battles with the advancing enemy, mainly with its tanks, operating simultaneously in groups of 35-50 units, and on some days 75-110 units, providing the breakthrough area with bombing and assault strikes from the air and a high density of artillery fire."

The guardsmen coped with their task. The Soviet troops consolidated their position on the bridgehead, and the enemy suffered huge losses in tanks. The losses incurred and the lack of success forced the fascists to stop their attacks and begin regrouping their troops to prepare for the next counteroffensive: "The enemy's second attempt at a counteroffensive was again thwarted by the stubborn defense of our troops of the line they had reached in this area. The enemy again lost a huge number of tanks and manpower and, having lost its offensive capability, went over to the defensive along the entire area."

After eliminating the enemy's offensive potential and having firmly established itself on the occupied line, the 8th Guards Army went on the offensive twice in the third ten days of August with the aim of expanding the bridgehead. Despite the fierce resistance of the fascists, it was successful in both cases, further expanding the bridgehead and by the end of the month, on the orders of the commander of the 1st Belorussian Front, Konstantin Rokossovsky, went on the defensive.

The success of the operation, according to the army commander Vasily Chuikov, was due to the experience of the guardsmen acquired in previous battles:

"The experience of the army's troops in forcing water obstacles in past battles contributed to the successful overcoming of such a wide obstacle as the Vistula River, the ability to seize a bridgehead on the opposite bank and hold it, despite strong enemy resistance."

The importance of the operation to force the Vistula River is difficult to overestimate. As a result, the Magnuszew bridgehead was captured – one of three bridgeheads (Magnuszew, Pulawy and Sandomierz) from which the offensive on Berlin began.

This example of military glory during the Great Patriotic War demonstrates the unbending will of the Red Army before the enemy, the strength of the military thought of its command, the valor and courage of its soldiers.
Now, when our servicemen continue to bravely carry out tasks in the special military operation zone, we must remember the history of our victories. Victories were not easy to forge back then either.

Despite the fact that in December 1941, the Hitlerite army managed to reach Moscow, the Red Army broke the back of the fascists, mobilized its forces and began to conduct successful military operations, including the operation of the 8th Guards Army to force the Vistula River.

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