Chapter One Hundred and One: The Wind in Their Hair
(13-31 May 1947)
Polish infantry defend against a Soviet counter-attack in the Poltava Pocket, 13 May 1947. [Leonardo AI, Phoenix 1.0, using a reference image]
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13-17 May: Poltava, Crimea and the Donetsk Offensive
By 0800hr on 13 May, as the Soviets tried to break out of their encirclement in Poltava, Poland sought to sub-divide the pocket into two with a new attack. They also pushed outwards towards Sumy to further widen the vice-grip on the pocket.
The two attacks would both end in victory that evening, while the defence of the pocket’s ‘bridge’ would take until the following morning to repel the Soviet attack after further reinforcement help to secure the province. This in turn sealed the fate of the seven trapped Red Army divisions.
The following day, with the division of the pocket complete, at midday a full corps-sized attack from three directions was launched at Poltava itself, even as the Soviets tried to break out to the south in two places.
Neither of these breakouts stood any chance of success and the Poltava attack took just ten hours to dislodge the Soviets from the town, sending them fleeing south and further from potential rescue.
In the Black Sea, with Sevastopol under siege, that night the Polish Sub TF4 was deemed ‘ready enough’ to begin patrolling for Soviet convoys, whether freight or troop carrying.
As they set sail, the Poles attacked both Sevastopol and Yalta in force while forces moved to occupy Kerch and more reinforcements were brought up to see the job through. The Yalta attack would find victory the following afternoon but Sevastopol would take longer.
On the morning of the 15th, the bridgehead over the Dnieper was large enough to allow a major breakout aimed at two targets. Immediately to the south, one thrust sought to cut off the Soviets still defending the Kherson peninsula through a gap in the Soviet line.
The other aimed to create a wider envelopment by driving towards Donetsk. A third thrust to the north-east was made in support of the attack on Kursk. These drives were made with the full weight of reinforcing divisions having not yet reached the front line.
In the Poltava Pocket, an hour later another concentric attack was made on the single Soviet division isolated in the east that surrendered that afternoon. While four Soviet divisions retreating towards the bank of the Dnieper south of Poltava and two more trapped in it would progressively surrender between 1100hr on 16 May and 1800 hr on the 17th, when they arrived after the province had already been occupied by the Poles.
The Poltava Pocket had been eliminated fairly quickly, which would soon free up more units to continue the main offensive to the north.
Panning outwards, the picture at 0800hr on the 16th in the southern sector of the Eastern Front (just before the final liquidation of the Poltava Pocket) showed initial progress on the three thrusts begun just a day before, with Kharkov now under attack and being flanked to its east.
The Zaporozhe advance had taken the first objective but was being subjected to a strong counter-attack that may require some reinforcement to hold off. Drawing back even further, ground gained since the start of the month made it clear the largely Allied-held Belarus sector had remained static with the big Polish advances being made towards Sumy-Kharkov and in the Crimea.
Even as the final holdouts in the Poltava Pocket were being rounded up, on the afternoon of 16 May a major new offensive was opened along the Shostka-Sumy line, while as many divisions as possible were redeployed early from the Poltava Pocket that night to reinforce those attacks and the existing drive on Belgorod, with Kharkov having just been taken that day.
The two Sumy attacks would be won against fairly weak resistance that night and the following morning.
In Crimea, another Soviet division had appeared to contest Kerch on the evening of the 16th but would be defeated early the following morning after a brief but expensive attack. Polish and Czech EF divisions of the 1st Army had fully surrounded Sevastopol.
The four divisions trapped there would eventually surrender just after midnight on 18 May and that retreating from Yalta four hours later, with another 38,000 Soviet troops killed or captured.
Allied logisticians were doing their best to support the advance, but the rapid gains naturally put pressure on stock holdings as demand outstripped supply at the front.
An Allied advance south from Estonia looked promising by the morning of the 17th, though it did not look to yet be in sufficient strength to maintain momentum and link up with the Allies in Belarus. However, signs of Allied activity in this sector was at least welcome.
17-22 May: The Shostka-Sumy Offensive and the Azov Pocket
Late on the 17 May, the first line of Soviet defences in front of Sumy was breached, with Polish mechanised troops on the outskirts of the city in strength and more reinforcements on the way. To the north and south, the Poles were working hard to expand the breach and would do so by the following afternoon in the north.
Having noticed the Allies had apparently pushed their main aircraft strength forward, the ‘spare’ Polish fighters in Warsaw were tasked with preventing raids by a squadron of Soviet strategic bombers over Eastern Germany early on 18 May.
More widely, the Allies were sustaining strong air superiority over Ukraine and Belarus with a massive presence of 11,000 fighters (led by Germany) dominating the skies.
In the Zaporozhe sector, the initial breakthrough towards the Sea of Azov had been successfully defended by the afternoon of the 17 May and by late on the 18th had been extended closer to securing another cut-off. Progress was also being made towards Donetsk as other Allied units began to close up to the front line as well.
However, further movement was being delayed for now by Soviet spoiling attacks as the enemy tried to prevent this latest encirclement, even though the attacks were unlikely to succeed.
In Crimea, the entire peninsula had been secured by midday on 19 May as the majority of the units involved began redeploying north to assist with the Azov-Donetsk offensive. Kerch would be secured but there were no plans to attempt pushing across the strait as the Soviets quickly built their defences on the other side of the significant obstacle.
At 1300hr on the 19th the British initiated attacks on the western edge of the Azov salient. In part to pin the enemy in place and because both British attacks were already making headway, the three co-located Polish divisions joined in, further improving the odds. And a couple of hours later, the enemy attack on the lead elements south of Zaporozhe was defeated, meaning the advance could soon be resumed.
As Polish divisions rushed to close off the Azov Pocket to the east, another British attack south of Zaporozhe was also reinforced, putting further pressure on the isolated Soviet divisions, another eight of which were now in grave danger of encirclement by the night of 19 May.
Early the following morning, a Polish cavalry division had broken through to the Azov coast to complete the cut-off. The Soviets were frantically trying to reopen a narrow corridor to their trapped comrades and the Poles did not yet have great strength at this spear-point. But within the pocket, the collapse had already begun. To the east, the first Polish divisions had just reached the outskirts of Donetsk.
At 1100hr, the attack south of Zaporozhe succeeded and the province was occupied before two Soviet divisions to the north, themselves defeated later that afternoon, could complete their retreat. Over 16,000 troops surrendered without a fight the following morning. Of note, Allied naval gunfire was consistently supporting offensive and defensive battles along the coast throughout this phase of the offensive.
By the night of the 20th, the battles in the south to keep the Azov Pocket closed had all turned in the Poles’ favour. More widely, the Allies began a complementary front-wide offensive in addition to the main Polish thrusts. Not all of these attacks were meeting with success but all efforts were welcome and served to increase the pressure on a Soviet line the Poles were trying to smash through.
The fighting was somewhat tougher in the Shostka-Sumy sector at that time; advances were being made but no more dramatic breakthroughs or encirclements were in immediate prospect. A new attack on Shostka itself began late on the 20th, while one of the British attacks to its east was supported by a ‘spare’ Polish heavy division.
No Soviet troop convoys had been spotted trying to escape from Sevastopol during its fall a few days before. However, the Polish TF4 participated in another major battle in the Black Sea from 2200hr on 20 May through to the 22nd. It was a disaster for the Soviet fleet, with only two of the 12 vessels engaged escaping. None of the enemy ships was sunk by a Polish sub, though perhaps they contributed to some of the damage caused.
The last Soviet division was forced out of Kherson on the morning of 22 May, then it and the other five remaining divisions were eliminated in the final battle of the Azov Pocket on 23 May. Another almost 47,000 Soviet troops had been killed or captured. In that final battle, a significant proportion of the enemy losses had come from intense aerial attacks.
23-31 May: Kursk, Donetsk – and then Moscow?
As the Poles prepared to lead the Allies deeper into Russia and Allied air superiority over the Belarus and Ukraine air zones held, the PAF began searching for spare room in some of the forward air bases that had been seized from Russia during the recent offensives, at the same time largely disengaging from the air war as they prepared for the next phase, Beyond Belarus and Ukraine. This started on the morning of 23 May when six fighter and CAS wings transferred from Lwów to Kiev. Those not transferring from Lwów and in Nowogródek were put on standby. The newly raised ‘bits and pieces’ TAC wing simultaneously transferred forward to Mozyr in Belarus.
Moscow was now confirmed as the ultimate objective for the 1947 campaigning year, with the aim being to take it – and its crucial rail nexus – before winter set in once more. A more conventional rolling offensive now played out from Belgorod to the Belarus border.
By the morning of 23 May attacks on Belgorod itself, Voroshilovgrad and Donetsk were under way. These would be won either by the end of the day of in the next few, with Donetsk occupied at midday on the 24th and in Voroshilovgrad by 25 May when another Soviet division was overrun and destroyed.
In the northern sector, the brief Allied thrust to link up with northern Belarus had been thrown back and Narva remained in Soviet hands. The Allies still held Pskov but once more – to resigned Polish frustration – the bulk of their forces had pulled back to lurk in depth, perhaps transferring out again.
In Crimea generally and Kerch in particular, a large number of Allied divisions had arrived to take up garrison duty by the morning of 24 May. The Soviets attempted a cross-strait attack with a single division and no assigned general, perhaps before these new troops could reorganise and fully dig. But they were met three fully prepared and entrenched Polish division who were still holding the port and summoned air and naval support. The Soviets lost over a thousand men in just four hours before abandoning the disastrous attack.
In the Donetsk salient, on 24 May the front line was advancing on a broad front as quickly as possible, with more Polish and other Allied reinforcements coming in behind them to maintain momentum in the coming days (logistics permitting).
From 26-31 May, a series of attacks had been conducted in the Kursk-Belgorod area. Most had been successful, though one had to be abandoned due to stronger Soviet resistance. By the end of the month, Shostka had been taken in the west and Belgorod in the east, with the Allies now on the outskirts of Kursk. But as can be seen from the casualties being sustained, in this area at least Soviet resistance was stiffening, with many of the victories that were won (not all battles are shown below, just some of the larger ones) becoming quite expensive.
Note: From this point onwards, the narrative has already begun to pan back a little, with less emphasis on the tactical and more on the operational level picture.
Supply was again beginning to catch up with the front line even in the Donetsk salient, where the most rapid advances had been made in recent days. The High Command would soon need to decide whether the next phase would see an attempt at a general advance or a more targeted series of encirclements.
One option was using the Donetsk salient to sweep north and then west as the hammer on the Kursk anvil. Another might be to continue east against thinning resistance as the rolling advance on Moscow was maintained, threatening the 4thInt in the Caucasus-Middle East-Persia region and also opening up a wider sweep north. The answer would rely in large part on opportunities presented and the degree of Allied back-up received, as the Poles could not hope to maintain such long lines of communication themselves.
In preparation for this next phase, the six remaining wings from Nowogródek were pushed forward to Belarus (north of Mozyr) on 27 May.
By 28 May, Voroshilovgrad had been taken and the approaches to Rostov secured as Polish and Allied support troops kept pushing forward and secured the line of the Don River.
In the crucial category of infantry equipment, the heavy toll of recent operations had created a deficit of over 4,300 units by early on 29 May. Fortunately, large small arms lend-lease deliveries from Hungary, Switzerland and Italy soon arrived and by 31 May, that deficit had been reduced to just 800 units.
TF4 in the Black Sea had its first confirmed kill when a single Soviet freight convoy was sunk near Istanbul on 31 May.
As the month ended, the Polish gains in the south since the beginning of the month were clear, with the Don Basin now almost completely occupied, along with Crimea. Risks and opportunities awaited the Polish-led Allied forces who still advanced “with the wind in their hair” in the south.
Of course, the great question was whether this momentum could be maintained into the summer, or whether the Soviets would be able to regroup and consolidate. Along with the impact of any decisive developments in the wider war.
After another month of intense attacking operations, the total Polish casualties for the period (36.7k) were roughly comparable to April. Only 45 of these had come from air attacks, reflecting the strong air superiority the Allies had maintained throughout. Despite these losses, the raising of the new air wing during the month and increasing garrison demands, free manpower had only decreased by 3,000 despite conscription remaining down on the 5% level.
All the recent fighting and especially land occupation meant Poland now ranked third among the Allies in assessed war participation, only behind Britain and Germany. And despite the ceding of Minsk to Belarus during the month, Poland retained 10 factories in total (not including naval dockyards, which were for now largely redundant for Poland). Overall Allied casualties for the month had been around 200,000 while for the three enemy factions these had totalled 540,000: a good proportion of that due to the series of pockets Poland had liquidated on the Eastern Front.
Of interest, the Soviets had finally enacted service by requirement to try to stem their severe manpower shortages. As at 31 May, their pool of free manpower had increased but remained very low, while the increased conscription would impact industrial output, construction speed and training times, which would hopefully create problems of their own. Especially as the Allies occupied more of their industrial heartland.
In net terms, the Soviets had an estimated 23 divisions fewer than the month before. Of course, it was not known whether they had managed to produce any new ones during the month to offset those destroyed on the Eastern Front. Despite their air losses, estimates indicated the Soviets had actually increased their aircraft numbers somewhat, but these figures were quite vague and difficult to assess. Also of interest, the USR was now estimated to be a quarter of the way to capitulation. A long way to go yet to force them out of the war, but real progress nonetheless.
How the overall strategic situation might resolve itself – and whether the potential take-down of the USR would be enough to shift the war meaningfully in the Allies favour remained difficult to tell. But the Poles at least had optimism and had no choice than to keep pushing as hard as they could. Like Winged Hussars with the wind in their hair!
