With its northward advance stalled, III Panzer Corps now moved the Leibstandarte Division and the army's 1st Panzer Division southwards so they could attack directly eastwards towards the pocket. This switch confused the Soviets, and the advance moved forward again, with the Waffen-SS on the left and the 1st Panzer on the right. Again frost helped the tank advance, and the 1st Panzer Division was able to throw a bridgehead over the Gniloy Tikich at Lyssinka, only 8km (5 miles) from the trapped troops. A huge pak-front of 52 anti-tank guns and 80 T-34s barred its way, though. The 16th Panzer Division and the Bake Regiment tried to outflank the enemy defences by pushing north, but they were soon stopped by heavy enemy fire.

A tenuous link

As the Leibstandarte Division tried to keep up with the advance, it was hit by huge Soviet tank attacks. First V Rifle Corps, followed by XVI Tank Corps, surged forward. It was all the understrength Waffen-SS division could do to hold off the non-stop attacks that swept forward out of the thick forests.

The battle went on for days. Soviet tanks washed around the small German units holding open the 1.6km- (1-mile-) wide corridor eastwards. Several times the Russians cut the corridor, and counterattacks had to be mounted to clear out their infantry and tanks. By 16 February, the 1st Panzer Division, helped by Leibstandarte panzergrenadiers, was holding on to its bridgehead by its fingernails. Only 60 men and a dozen Panther tanks were across the river, holding off daily attacks by V Guards Tanks Corps. III Panzer Corps just did not have enough strength to mount the final push to open a corridor to the trapped troops. During the afternoon, Manstein ordered XI and XLII Corps to break out west that evening. He avoided consulting the Führer's headquarters to prevent his orders being countermanded.

Stemmermann breaks out

Inside the pocket, General Wilhelm Stemmermann was not going to repeat the mistakes of Field Marshal Freidrich Paulus at Stalingrad, and he immediately prepared to follow Manstein's orders. There was no time to lose.

The trapped troops were organized into three assault columns and a rearguard for the breakout. Wiking formed the southern column. Its last remaining Panzer IIIs and StuG IIIs led the advance, which began at 23:00 hours on 16 February. The first assault went in silently, with German infantry bayoneting Soviet sentries. This established paths through the Soviet inner ring, and then the Wiking's tanks fanned out to provide flank protection for the ragged column.

Ragged survivors

The other two columns, made up of two infantry divisions, used guile to slip through the Russian lines to link up with 1st Panzer Division. Wiking's column soon ran into trouble when a storm of Russian machine-gun and tank fire started to rake it. SS-Obergruppenführer Herbert Gille, Wiking's commander, ordered one of his battalions to deal with this threat, while the rest of his division skirted around to the south of the Russian blocking position. When the Waffen-SS grenadiers reached the Gniloy Tikich, they abandoned all their heavy equipment and swam the freezing river before finding safety.

prev | next