Chapter Ninety-nine: Crash Through or Crash
(1-13 May 1947)
Polish infantry and armour cross the Dnieper River north of Dnipropetrovsk in early May 1947. The Poles had to cross the great river at multiple points north, east and south during the offensives to expand from the Dnieper Salient in April and May. [Leonardo AI, Phoenix 1.0, using a reference image]
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1-4 May: Breakthrough Battles
As May began, the Polish-Allied Spring 1947 Offensive was in full swing. Having debilitated the Soviet defensive line considerably over the last five months, the Polish High Command believed now was the time to crack the whole front open and execute a series of pincer movements as part of a general offensive across the southern theatre of the Eastern Front.
First up were the battles to try to close off the Kiev-Chernigov pocket. This was close to fruition by 0400hr on 1 May as the lead Polish division advanced from the south and briefly joined in the attack coming from the north.
However, the Soviets counter-attacked the exposed troops, forcing them back. Reinforcements arrived soon after to hold the province open but they were under attack by a whole Soviet corps and would need more of the relief column approaching from the south to be able to hold the position, which remained under severe pressure by midday.
After advice from several naval advocates, a flotilla of 10 Polish subs (a mix of five each of their more modern 1944 hulls and 1940 models) to the Black Sea that afternoon, to be based out of Samsun. They would hopefully support the next offensive in the south if any Soviets were cut off in ports, as the drive to cut off Kherson gathered pace:
The last of the troops in Odessa were also sent forward to assist with that operation and to be ready to support a planned bridgehead over the Dnieper north of Dnipropetrovsk, where Polish forces were advancing after an earlier victory.
And a major naval battle between a British-commanded cruiser-destroyer fleet (comprising British, French, Turkish and Romanian vessels) and a smaller Soviet force had already seen two Soviet destroyers sunk. Eight would be sunk by 0100hr on the 2nd.
The battle to close the Kiev pocket continued into 2 May. The defence of the southern pincer by
93 DP was boosted by the arrival of more divisions during the night, permitting victory by 0600.
More divisions also arrived to reinforce the attack from the north, however that eroded from favourable to unfavourable by 0900hr on the 2nd as the Soviets also boosted their defence.
The four 4th Army divisions in Iraq (three pushed there after the fall of Basra and one of the previously evacuated German Mexico Corps divisions) were deemed no longer necessary for the defence, which had now been thoroughly handled by the Allies. They were put on trains to begin redeployment to Ukraine to support the burgeoning offensives on the Eastern Front.
In the Dnieper Salient, after the first Allied victory the day before, the enemy managed to slip another division into their last toehold in Dnipropetrovsk early on 2 May that afternoon, requiring another Polish-British attack to finally defeat them.
The Kiev gap was closed, counter-attacked and closed again in three battles over 2-3 May. While that was playing out, two encircled, disorganised and unsupplied Soviet divisions and another that retreated there were attacked and surrendered by the afternoon of the 3rd, with another 20,000 Soviet troops marched into captivity.
NB: 93 DP sat out this attack as they held the eastern flank of the pocket.
At the same time, Dnipropetrovsk was finally secured and the Poles welcomed significant Allied reinforcements which had now solidly held the line of the Dnieper and in some cases made their own or supported Polish attacks in the sector. This would largely free the Poles to concentrate on their breakthrough battles.
Soon, the reinforcements in the Kherson bridgehead in the south were attacking to close up on the coast of the Sea of Azov. Their aim was to seal off Kherson from Crimea and encircle as many Soviet divisions as possible.
In the north, the thinned Soviet line offered an uncontested crossing point north from Dnipropetrovsk which three Polish divisions were soon taking advantage of.
In the Ukraine air zone, the Allies maintained heavy air superiority, aided by the Polish Air Force. New TAC production was added to the 57 available miscellaneous lend-lease bombers to form a new wing – 4 DB – on the 3rd, to be based in Bialystok, where there was some spare airfield capacity.
Another six divisions (three of them light tank) were peeled away from the static Belarus sector and fed down into the Kiev-Chernigov breakout zone. And persistent warnings about Byelorussian SSR partisan resistance, especially in the Minsk state, were examined more closely. It was causing equipment shortages, including now in AT guns as well as infantry equipment.
That first led, based on previous advisor input, to the standard garrison formation being changed from main line infantry divisions to essentially what were small infantry-only militia brigades. It may take more of them to patrol all the occupied zones, but the demand for under-pressure AT guns was reduced.
A new attack across the Dnieper was launched on the evening of the 3rd directly into Zaporozhe, which had been left temporarily unoccupied. However, defenders appeared on the morning of the 4th and put up a strong resistance, using the river and city streets to make the attack difficult.
Czech ER cavalry secured the northern Dnieper crossing on the 4th and were able to easily defeat a Soviet attempt to dislodge them just before midnight, while more Polish divisions continued their crossing operation.
Up near Chernigov, the last Soviet divisions trapped in the pocket there were under attack by the British on the evening of the 3rd. The Poles joined in would eventually force the enemy to surrender a day later: another 20,000 Soviet troops went ‘into the bag’, as they continued to defend Soviet attempts to rescue their encircled comrades from the east.
4-9 May: Kherson, Dnieper and Chernigov Offensives
Not all news from the front was good: one of Poland’s celebrated fighter aces was shot down on 4 May in an aerial duel with a Soviet counterpart. However, support for the war was too strong for this to do any damage to it.
By 5 May enough troops were across the Dnieper at Dnipropetrovsk to strike inland towards Poltava and Kharkov, though the fighting in Zaporozhe still favoured the Soviet defence.
On 5 May, Polish forces reached the Sea of Azov and, though counter-attacked strongly at first, more divisions began to arrive and the gain was secured by 1100hr. This enabled a new attack to be launched towards Kherson that saw victory the following morning as to the west, the British attacked across the river to the city itself.
Supply was now excellent within the Dnieper Salient, which helped to maintain attacking momentum, though far patchier in the Kherson pincer.
With the Kiev pocket now liquidated, new attacks were launched in the Chernigov sector towards Sumy from 6-9 May. A series of clear victories followed against some clearly disorganised Soviet divisions as the momentum was maintained. It did help to slow the advance somewhat though as each obstacle had to be cleared out.
In Kherson, good progress was made with a heavy attack on the northern approach to Crimea. Six Soviet divisions were defeated in a first attack on 7 May, then another two were pushed back the following day. It remained to be seen which way the retreating enemy formations would go – trapped to the west, or escaping to Crimea in the south.
Near Poltava, the advance was extended by 7 May but the advance guard was defeated before fresh troops arrived to secure the recently gained province at midday on the 8th. The Soviets were attempting to scramble a defence and continued to resist in Zaporozhe (now with three defending Soviet divisions in place), while getting across the river was slowing down Polish reinforcement of the bridgehead.
Kherson was cut off by the evening of 8 May and the two available armoured divisions led a quick attack across the land bridge to Crimea which quickly dislodged the exhausted Soviet defenders who had recently retreated from the north.
More Polish divisions were finally making it across the Dnieper, enabling the dagger thrust to the north to be continued from 8-9 May. At Zaporozhe, between 1800-2400hr on the 8th, additional Polish reinforcements finally managed to turn the tide and the victory would be won by the night of the 9th.
The Poles attacked Kherson itself on the night of 9 May after another larger battle, while they had secured the crossing into Crimea by their quick actions – though not before the bulk of the retreating Soviet divisions had made it across, avoiding encirclement in Kherson.
There was a brief stir in the often-dormant northern theatre when a sole Hungarian division tried to attack the Soviet capital of Petrograd on 9 May. A total of 74 Allied divisions were stationed in southern Finland at the time, but most seemed to be holding back in depth (much as they had done in other theatres, much to the frustration of the Poles).
The Archangelsk Enclave continued to hold strongly enough and even had an attack in progress. Estonia too had plenty of Allied troops, though again many were in depth and Narva had not yet been retaken from the Soviets. And even though a Polish ace had been lost a few days before, a new one – Maksymilian ‘Mouse’ Wojciechowski was acclaimed on 9 May.
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10-13 May: Poltava-Kursk, Dnieper and Crimea
With the entry to northern Crimea secured and Kherson cut off, the Poles decided to push hard to cut off the rest of Crimea with a drive by limited forces along the coast towards Kerch while the enemy was in disarray, relying on follow-up formations to support them.
This tactic paid off during 10-11 May with the trapped Soviet divisions in Kherson surrendering on the evening of the 10th and a quick breakout victory on the Azov coast of Crimea on the 11th.
Supply remained strong within the Dnieper Salient and even into the northern breakthrough zones. Logistic support was weaker south of the river in the Kherson-Crimea breakout sector but remained enough to sustain the advance against the disorganised and back-pedalling opposition.
A new operation in the Shostka-Sumy-Poltava sector kicked off with attacks on 10 and 11 May to create another encirclement, even as the Poles sought to secure the approaches to Shostka after the advance guard was defeated on the night of the 10th. A follow-up division had renewed the defence by the morning of the 11th and was trying to hold on until the rest of the advancing troops could reinforce them.
NB: 93 DP sat out this attack.
Meanwhile, a series of victories in the east of Poltava from the Dnipropetrovsk breakout expanded the south-eastern pincer of the encirclement attempt.
It was at this point, as equipment losses from the high operational tempo accelerated and re-oriented production priorities were unable to immediately remedy them, that a decision was taken to release the state of Minsk to the control of the Allied Belarus government.
Poland’s aims in the war were not strictly imperialistic, while this would bolster Belarus and decrease the increasing burden of occupation management as more Soviet territory was taken in the east. Whether this was a sound decision would no doubt be debated in the Polish (largely state-controlled) papers.
During the afternoon of the 11th, the eastern pincer was extended and the breakout extended both north around Poltava and towards Kharkov as more troops were fed into the bridgehead. The battle for the western approach raged on against determined opposition but was running in the Poles’ favour.
NB: 93 DP also sat out this attack.
In Crimea, the bold cut-off drive had succeeded by the evening of 11 May. Some of the Soviet divisions in the enclave tried to break out towards Kerch. Their attack, though initially making progress against the advance guard, was defeated by the end of the day as another light tank division came to their aid and a spoiling attack by mechanised formations from the north debilitated the enemy and defeated them four hours later.
The occupation of Zaporozhe was secured on the night of 11 May, with freshly arrived divisions enabling it to combine with a militia division from the Dnipropetrovsk breakout to link up the two bridgeheads on 12 May after a comprehensive victory.
As preparations to collapse the new Sevastopol Enclave were being made, the Polish TF4 sub flotilla arrived in Samsun in Turkey to establish its new Black Sea base of operations. It would take some days yet for them to be ready for operations after the transfer, with the subs only rated at 20% organisation after their arrival early on the 12th.
A precarious link was made to shut off the Poltava Pocket on 12 May, though as before the first division into the ‘cork’ province was counter-attacked and driven back as more Polish troops advanced to keep the precarious block in place.
NB: 93 DP are part of the attack west of Sumy.
In Crimea, the Poles continued to squeeze the trapped Soviet divisions into the south-west of the peninsula as more forces freed from the Kherson battles became available. And an attack was made towards Kerch, seeking to close off the ability for the Soviets to reinforce counter-attack across the narrow strait. Victories on 13-14 May north of Sevastopol would see the Soviet defence compressed further into the port and neighbouring Yalta.
Those 4th Army divisions sent from Iraq finally arrived in Krivoi Rih early on 13 May and were reallocated to the 3rd and 5th Armies.
As they arrived, the recovered veteran General Źeligowski was brought it to take over the crucial 1st Army command. Roman Abraham had served well, but Źeligowski’s peerless experience from fighting in China and elsewhere for the years before the Soviets had invaded had made him the leading exponent of offensive operations in the Polish Army.
Two more encirclements were now under way, while the current attack on Kharkov would see it taken the following morning. The tough breakthrough battles had already led to two smaller encirclements being completed at Kiev-Chernigov and Kherson. The Poltava and Sevastopol pockets promised even greater rewards, though more hard fighting would no doubt be required.
