Chapter Eighty-three: A Blanket of Dead Leaves
(16 to 30 September 1946)
A Polish 9TP light tank advances to the front during the massive Battle of Salihorsk, September 1946.
=
==
==
==
The Americas
The US managed to push a division over the Rio Grande on 16 September, through a large gap in the Allied line but they did not seem to be following it up in any strength.
However, northern Mexico remained largely quiet for the rest of the month. It was on the diplomatic front that things hotted up. On 27 September, President Truman dropped a ‘news bomb’ with the announcement of the formation of a new US-led faction.
Many Caribbean, Central and South American nations joined the Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance (TRA) – but not the key powers of Brazil or Argentina, nor Bolivia, Venezuela, Paraguay or Peru.
By 28 September, all US resistance on the Yucatan Peninsula had ended, with thousands more American prisoners crowding south-east Mexican POW camps.
A few days after the TRA was concluded, the first three members joined the war as active combatants on the US side – though no others did before the end of the month.
The closest of these new participants to the main front in Mexico was Honduras but it did not share a land border with the Allies.
As the month ended, the 7th Army had not been involved in any further combat
[the irony of Sosabowski commanding German troops gets me every time]. The US incursion over the Rio Grande had been ejected, though troops under Mexican command were trying to get back over again.
The modest US build-up in eastern Canada continued to squeeze the Allied enclave in the west, while a previously promising Allied counter-offensive on its south was now starting to go against the attackers.
The Black Sea and the Middle East
This sector was also comparatively uneventful during the second half of September. Fighting continued, but little ground traded. Two fresh Soviet attacks on the perimeter of the Georgian enclave were in progress on 27 September and three along the Turkish border, with all being resisted strongly by the Allies at first.
Along the Tigris, another Soviet attack had been repelled on 26 September, while another between it and Basrah had almost been defeated.
Early on the 28th, 718 Infanterie Division finally landed in Beirut and was transferred to 4th Army, ordered across to provide an operational reserve for the Tigris defensive line.
By the end of the month, the Georgian province just north of Batumi had been retaken by the enemy, though with Turkey now in the war this loss was only a minor setback.
The line through Turkey and Kurdistan remained unchanged since the 16th, with substantial Allied reinforcements bolstering the Turkish divisions at the front.
=======
Iran
Similarly, the situation in Iran had almost stabilised by mid-month. In the east, a Polish spoiling attack in north-east Kerman was launched to save the still-disorganised Polish division that had just arrived in east Kerman to come under Soviet attack.
This worked within five hours and was then persisted with until the Poles won in north-east Kerman as well that night.
More widely, by the end of the 16th the areas behind the lines had all been reoccupied by the Allies, while the Poles continued to advance to retake north-east Kerman.
Two weeks later, Soviet advances in the north and the Poles in north-east Kerman, the front line in Iran was more regular as the Poles once again helped to secure that north-eastern sector, the Allies holding the rest of the line strongly enough.
The Asia-Pacific
The Japanese invasion of New Guinea seemed to be expanding easily by the evening of 16 September. They still only controlled one port of entry but the Allied defence was being fragmented.
The fight for Naha on Okinawa continued, with another Manchurian division having been shipped in to bolster against the Japanese attack, which had become badly disorganised and was running out of supplies.
The Japanese had spread further through New Guinea in just five days as the Allied defence looked to have largely collapsed.
Things got worse for the Allies with the capitulation of Tibet on 22 September.
Across the Middle East and Iran, the Allies had largely stabilised the front by the end of September but the position in Western China and Tibet had continued to worsen.
And in New Guinea the ports of Lae and Rabaul had fallen to Japan and Port Moresby was surrounded, being held by a lone French division. The Allies still held Jayapura in West Papua.
While on Okinawa, the Japanese had given up their attack and languished, out of supply, in the north of the island. Though the Allied presence was back down to two divisions, one of them very disorganised and they did not appear to be pressing a counter-attack.
The Eastern Front and the USR
As it had in the first half of the month, the fighting on the Eastern Front remained the most significant and busiest theatre in the sprawling global war. Within an hour of each other, the Poles led large defensive victories against the Soviets in the Khmelnytskyi sector, where over 14,000 enemy soldiers fell attacking prepared positions, for around 2,200 Allied casualties. The southern sector currently sat largely on the defensive on 16 September.
The vicious fighting for Salihorsk continued with two more Polish divisions – 52 and 90 DP – being thrown into the fight at 1700hr on 17 September as others tired and pulled out of the attack, putting it back in the balance. Poland now fielded most of the divisions in contact in Salihorsk.
This initially gave the Allies the upper hand, but by 2300hr the pendulum had once more swung back the Soviet’s way. Some survivors of the battle would later recount how bodies lay on the ground in many places like ‘a blanket of fallen leaves.’
On 20 September, the C-Y offensive resumed across much of the front while the terrible fight for Salihorsk had swung back in the Allies’ favour. Over that day and the next, two more large Allied defensive victories (as usual, the only ones statistics were available for as they involved Polish divisions) were won in the Khmelnytskyi sector.
Up in the north, the Allies had driven a surprising spearhead through the south-western Soviet perimeter, however Polish observers were concerned that this spearhead had been driven into the most remote part of the line and risked becoming isolated.
Around Salihorsk, the new C-Y offensive had managed to take the province to its north and after a tricky start was now holding the newly gained ground, further isolating the Soviet defence. The Battle in Salihorsk would swing from evenly poised on the night of the 22nd through to a clear Allied advantage by the following morning as one of the recently amalgamated cavalry divisions was brought up and thrown into the meat-grinder.
One of the great battles of the war to date would carry on for another two days before General Roman Abraham could claim victory on the morning of 25 September. Over 20,000 men from both sides would never leave that bloody patch of ground alive. For the Allies, of course many of those casualties were not Polish, though thousands had fallen.
The news was not as favourable in the north. As the Poles had feared, the ill-advised Anglo-German breakout had been isolated and surrounded by the time the victory in Salihorsk was being grimly ‘celebrated’.
Salihorsk was duly occupied by the Poles later that morning, with a brief Soviet counter-attack easily defeated an hour later. By the 26th, the C-Y formations to the north were trying to push forward but without enough strength to seriously threaten the next line of Soviet defences.
Two days later, the C-Y second phase offensive continued, though most of its attacks were beginning to peter out and the Soviets were trying to counter attack in a few places, having reclaimed the small enclave along the Romanian border seized earlier in the month.
Of great interest were a couple of Turkish divisions that had appeared on the Eastern Front, keen to make a contribution there even as many Allied units had been assisting their own defence against the Soviets in eastern Turkey.
A quaint piece of diplomatic news was received on 28 September, when Trotsky annexed their supposed small ally, Tannu Tuva. This was cynically framed as resulting from a ‘request by the Tuvan parliament’. No-one was taken in by
that statement!
By 30 September the Allied pocket south of Archangelsk had been further compressed and isolated; their sad fate was clear.
As the month ended, the second C-Y push was largely over, though a couple of attacks continued. The Soviets were attempting a limited counter-offensive but that was being held solidly for now. It seemed another landing was being attempted in Crimea, to little effect. Estonia had remained largely quiet and unchanged since mid-month.
Promisingly, the hard-won gains of the C-Y offensive and the Polish effort in Salihorsk remained secure, providing a potential springboard for the planned operation that was now less than three months away.
And the KBK had finally arrived after its long journey from China, then Iran and all the way to southern Poland. They merged with the other remaining cavalry brigade to join Abraham’s 1st Army as the KDK: the Kresowa Dywizja Kawalerii.
=======
Industry and Technology
Poland developed the doctrine for paratroopers on 28 September, with researchers next working on upgrading the engineering equipment integral to all line infantry divisions.
All the recent fighting in Salihorsk had resulted in a shortage of light tanks, with a deficit of 24 vehicles by 28 December. This oversight began to be corrected with a factory switching from medium to light tank production, which had been suspended when it was thought the stockpile was sufficient. It was a timely reminder of the likely attrition of armour in the coming offensive: production would likely need to be ramped up in the coming weeks to rebuild the stockpile, if possible into a surplus by December.
Just a few days later the deficit had been reduced to 15 (perhaps some equipment trickle-back had been at play). The AA deficit had been reduced well below 900 and there were now 17 operational jet fighters to hand, though not yet deployed.
=======
Summary
In Eurasia and Africa, the three main factions controlled almost all the nations, with relatively few neutrals left.
The German elections had been held during September (the date was unclear) and against all expectations Adenauer’s democratic Zentrum party had retained government, despite being the third most popular party. How he managed to contrive this (some kind of coalition, or just luck of the draw) was unknown but there was considerable relief in the UK and Poland as a result.
Konrad Adenauer sworn in for another term as German Chancellor, September 1946.
The monthly casualty analysis showed Allied losses outweighing those of the enemy during September, though not by an enormous margin. Poland had lost only 12,430 men on all fronts in combat during the month, despite some hard fighting in Salihorsk and eastern Iran. Of those, 10,400 had fallen to the Soviets, with an estimated 49,900 of them being killed by Polish troops
[given their casualties to Polish action are now only recorded in increments of 100k, this was estimated by subtracting those attributed to others from their overall total].
Polish reserve manpower had risen by around 100,000 during the month, while the estimated Soviet reserve had decreased by approximately 280,000 over the same period, after they suffered an estimated 330,000 casualties, the Czechs in particular taking a large share of the total so far. This gave the Polish High Command some limited optimism for their prospects in the winter, even if the Allied effort in the Americas, the Middle East and Asia Pacific remained concerning.
