Luftwaffe in Barbarossa Part IV
Posted by Mitch Williamson in Air Warfare on Thursday, January 26, 2012
Even as these operations were going on, the most important
part of the drama was taking place neither in the Baltic nor in the Ukraine but
with Army Group Center north of the Pripet Marshes in Belorussia. The armored
forces, forming the spearheads of the army group, were put on its wings: 3d
Panzer Group (Gen Hermann Hoth) on the left and 2d Panzer Group (Gen Heinz
Guderian) on the right. Setting out from Suwalki and Brest Litovsk,
respectively-the distance separating them was about 200 miles-these spearheads
were to converge on Minsk, some 250 miles inside Soviet territory, in order to
form a gigantic pocket. Between the two armored spearheads marched the infantry
armies-Ninth Army to the north and Fourth Army to the south. This
well-thought-out plan, which gave the German forces shorter distances to cover
and enabled them to participate in the campaign by sealing off the pocket
formed by the armored spearheads, was designed to allow them to form a second
and smaller pocket inside the larger one by meeting at a point on the
Bialystok-Minsk road some 100 miles to the east of their starting positions. As
usual in maneuver warfare, everything depended on speed and boldness in finding
the weak spot and then, having burst through it, striking deep into the enemy's
rear. As usual, this could only be achieved by presenting to the enemy long,
open flanks that the Luftwaffe had the task of holding and protecting.
The starting positions of Guderian's tanks were on the river
Bug. As usual, when there was a river to be crossed, the effect was to divert
the Luftwaffe units on the spot (Fliegerkorps II) from deep strikes to close
support, especially since the crossing sites could be dominated by the guns in
the ancient fortress of Brest Litovsk. Fliegerkorps II was accordingly directed
to this task even before it could achieve full air superiority; its "rolling
attacks" (rollende Einsatz), a kind of operation already familiar from the
Battle of the Meuse in 1940, afforded Guderian's rear echelons a safe passage
until the fortress finally surrendered. Next, on 23 June units of Luftflotte 2
were instrumental in beating back a furious Soviet counteroffensive at Grodno.
It was only after these operations were over that the weight of the attack
could be shifted farther to the east. It now fell on the railroads leading into
the area of the prospective pocket (interdiction) and also on the roads leading
out of them through the Belorussian forest.
Even at this early point in the campaign, growing distances
were already creating a situation where the long-range reconnaissance and
bomber units could not be brought up fast enough for the latter to attack
targets identified by the former. With the results of photoreconnaissance often
many hours out of date, it became necessary to resort to armed reconnaissance
by having the bombers act in both roles at once and attack targets of
opportunity, a method that proved wasteful in terms of the time that the units
could spend on mission. Acting in this way, Fliegerkorps II was able to
obstruct but not entirely prevent the attempts by forces of the Soviet West
Front (Gen D. G. Pavlov) to retreat and break out of the pocket; also, since it
could not be everywhere at once, it was unable to intervene against the sorties
flown by the Red Air Force against the German cavalry division forming the
extreme right flank of Army Group Center. Further north, Fliegerkorps VIII was
instrumental in beating off a Soviet counterattack launched against Hoth's
flank on 24-25 June in the Kuznica-Odel'sk- Grodno-Dembrovo area. Since roads
in this area were few and far between, it also airlifted supplies to the
rapidly advanced 3d Panzer Group. By means of all these operations, the
Luftwaffe contributed substantially to the closing of the pocket at Minsk, the
first great German victory in this new campaign.
The Battle of Minsk was concluded on 3 July, when the Soviet
forces inside the pocket formally surrendered, although it was another five
days before resistance came to an end and 290,000 Russian prisoners had fallen
into German hands. Meanwhile, the arrival of the infantry had enabled the armor
to be disengaged and resupplied. On 9 July, Guderian and Hoth were off again.
This time the goal was to close the jaws at Smolensk, 400 miles from the
starting positions, thus building another one of those gigantic pockets that
were the specialty of the blitzkrieg. The Luftwaffe's principal task was to
prevent the Red Air Force from disrupting German preparations for the crossing
of the Dnieper, which it did most effectively but not without causing some
friendly casualties. On 23 July the pincers met and trapped a mass of Russians.
As one might expect from the vast distances, however, the pincers were at first
rather thin. The German infantry divisions, though marching hard, had been left
far behind by the panzers. Consequently, it again fell to Luftflotte 2 to do
its best to hold the pocket until they could arrive. It did so with only
partial success; unlike the French in the previous year, the Russians for the
most part did not surrender simply because the map showed that their units had
been cut off. Using the wooded terrain to hide during the day, many of them
were able to break out at night. Field Marshal Albert Kesselring of Luftflotte
2 later estimated that 100,000 Soviet troops had made good their escape in this
way, albeit at the cost of leaving their heavy equipment behind and watching
their large units disintegrate.
Although it was not until 5 August that the pocket west of
Smolensk could be regarded as properly closed-and even then gaps remained Fliegerkorps
VIII had already been taken away from Luftlotte 2. By Hitler's orders, it
joined Fliegerkorps I in its attack towards Leningrad. The remaining formation,
Fliegerkorps II, now found its forces strung out thinly across the hundreds of
miles forming the front of Army Group Center and attempting to protect its
flanks. It had to assist in sealing off the pocket, but at the same time it had
to beat off a series of determined Soviet counterattacks against the exposed
Yelnya salient across the Dnieper (occupied by Guderian's troops). To add to
its trouble, it was called upon to operate far in the south, using Stukas to
strike at Soviet armored boats that appeared unexpectedly on the northern edges
of the Pripet Marshes and inflicted stinging losses on the German cavalry
division there. By this time, the Red Air Force had found its bearings to the
extent that it was able to join in the army's attacks on the Yelnya salient.
Unable to be everywhere at once, the fighters of Fliegerkorps II were often too
late to interfere. Attempting to pursue the low-flying, heavily armored Soviet
attack aircraft, they were fired at from the ground by every possible weapon.
As a result, an order went out to the German ground troops to imitate the
Soviets and defend themselves against air attack with machine guns. This was
OKH's first admission that, in these enormous spaces, the army no longer had
nor could hope to have all the friendly command of the air it desired.
As the German forces consolidated their hold at Smolensk on
the Dnieper, Hitler and the Army High Command engaged in the famous debate as
to which objective, Moscow or the Ukraine, should be given priority. On
Hitler's orders, Hoth's 3d Panzer Group now followed Fliegerkorps VIII in
turning to the assistance of Army Group North, though without much success
since the country between Smolensk and Leningrad contains some of the largest
and densest forests in the whole of Russia. We cannot debate here whether or
not it was feasible, let alone desirable, to pursue the offensive against
Moscow at this time. Suffice it to say that this author's research indicates
that the logistic basis for this action was not available since the railways
supplying the German infantry forces in particular (unlike the armored groups,
they did not have their own motorized transport capable of bringing up supplies
from the rear) had been left hundreds of miles behind.
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