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The Melitopol Offensive was a successful Soviet offensive operation from September 26 to November 5, 1943, during the Second World War, as part of the second stage of the Battle of the Dnieper. It resulted in the liberation of Melitopol and the entire northern coast of the Sea of Azov.
After the Donbas strategic offensive (August 1943), the troops of the Southern Front (from October 20, 1943 - the 4th Ukrainian Front) had driven back the German 6th Army of Army Group A, behind a pre-prepared line on the Molochna River. This was a 2-3 deep defensive line, part of the Panther–Wotan line, with a developed system of trenches, long-range firing structures, numerous anti-tank and anti-personnel barriers. The main center of defense was the city of Melitopol.
The goal of the Melitopol operation was to break through this line and to access the lower reaches of the Dnieper, cutting off a large German force in the Crimea from the main German Army.
During the offensive, which began on September 26, it was planned to deliver two blows - the main blow with the main forces north of Melitopol (4 armies, 2 tank and 2 cavalry corps) - and a secondary one, by the forces of the 28th Army, from the area south of Melitopol, bypassing the city from the south west.
The offensive was launched with virtually no operational pause at the request of the Headquarters, in order to prevent the enemy from settling on the defensive line. Without proper preparation and reconnaissance, and because of the fatigue of the troops and the depletion of materiel, the Soviet offensive stalled after 5 days with heavy losses, and an advance of only 2–10 km.
From September 30 to October 9, the offensive was temporarily stopped. After a thorough analysis of the situation and finding that Karl-Adolf Hollidt, commander of the German 6th Army was transferring significant forces from his southern flank to the northern, Fyodor Tolbukhin regrouped the main forces in the opposite direction and delivered a massive blow to the weakened enemy grouping. The transfer of troops of the 51st Army, tank and cavalry corps to the zone of the 28th Army made it possible to achieve the greatest success in the southern direction, and two weeks after the resumption of the operation, on October 23, Melitopol was liberated by the 51st Army in cooperation with the troops of the 28th Army. At the same time, the troops advancing north of the city also broke through the defenses and cut the Zaporizhzhia-Melitopol railway line.
A mobile cavalry-mechanized group "Storm" was formed to advance through the gap south of Melitopol, as part of the 4th Guards Kuban Cavalry Corps and 19th Tank Corps, supported by aviation. On October 24, all German troops were forced to begin a general retreat. Pursuing the enemy, on October 30, Soviet troops liberated Henichesk and reached the coast of the Sivash Bay. On November 1, having overcome the Turkish Wall, they gained a foothold in the Perekop Isthmus.
By the night of November 5, the troops reached the lower reaches of the Dnieper and captured a bridgehead on the southern bank of the Sivash Bay.
The advancing troops, however, failed to dislodge the enemy from the last bridgehead he occupied on the left bank of the Dnieper south of Nikopol.
As a result of the operation, the troops of the front had advanced 50–320 km to the west and south-west, liberated almost the entire Northern Taurida and cut off the Crimean group of German troops from land, creating conditions for the upcoming liberation of Crimea and the south of Right-Bank Ukraine.
18 most distinguished units and formations received the honorary titles of Melitopol.
For the liberation of the city of Melitopol, 87 soldiers received the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, of which 12 soldiers were born in Melitopol.
Operation Bagration was the codename for the 1944 Soviet Byelorussian strategic offensive operation, a military campaign fought between 22 June and 19 August 1944 in Soviet Byelorussia in the Eastern Front of World War II, just over two weeks after the start of Operation Overlord in the west, causing the Germans to have to fight on two major fronts at the same time. The Soviet Union destroyed 28 of 34 divisions of Army Group Centre and completely shattered the German front line. It was the biggest defeat in German military history, with around 450,000 German casualties, while 300,000 other German soldiers were cut off in the Courland Pocket.
The Battle of Uman was the World War II German offensive in Uman, Ukraine against the 6th and 12th Soviet Armies. In a three-week period, the Wehrmacht encircled and annihilated the two Soviet armies.
The 3rd Ukrainian Front was a Front of the Red Army during World War II.
The Battle of the Dnieper was a military campaign that took place in 1943 in Ukraine on the Eastern Front of World War II. One of the largest operations of the war, it involved almost 4,000,000 troops at a time stretched on a 1,400 kilometres (870 mi) front. Over four months, the eastern bank of the Dnieper was recovered from German forces by five of the Red Army's fronts, which conducted several assault river crossings to establish several lodgements on the western bank. Kiev was later liberated in the Battle of Kiev.
The second Smolensk operation was a Soviet strategic offensive operation conducted by the Red Army as part of the Summer-Autumn Campaign of 1943. Staged almost simultaneously with the Lower Dnieper Offensive, the offensive lasted two months and was led by General Andrei Yeremenko, commanding the Kalinin Front, and Vasily Sokolovsky, commanding the Western Front. Its goal was to clear the German presence from the Smolensk and Bryansk regions. Smolensk had been under German occupation since the first Battle of Smolensk in 1941.
The Dnieper–Carpathian offensive, also known in Soviet historical sources as the liberation of right-bank Ukraine , was a strategic offensive executed by the Soviet 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th Ukrainian Fronts, along with the 2nd Belorussian Front, against the German Army Group South, Army Group A and elements of Army Group Center, and fought from late December 1943 to early May 1944. The battles on the right-bank Ukraine and in the Crimea were the most important event of the 1944 winter-spring campaign on the Eastern Front.
The Zhytomyr–Berdychiv offensive operation was a part of the strategic offensive of the Red Army in the right-bank (western) Ukrainian SSR, the Dnieper–Carpathian offensive. The successful offensive operation was conducted by the forces of the 1st Ukrainian Front commanded by General of Army Nikolai Vatutin during World War II, from 24 December through to 14 January 1944.
The Separate Coastal Army, also translated to English as Independent Coastal Army, was an army-level unit in the Red Army that fought in World War II. It was established on July 18, 1941, by the order of the Southern Front from the forces of 9th Army’s Coastal Group and was stood up on July 20, 1941.
The 3rd Guards Volnovakha Red Banner Order of Suvorov Motor Rifle Division was a division of the Soviet Army from 1957 to around 1992. It traced its history from the highly decorated 3rd Guards Rifle Division of World War II. 3rd Guards Rifle Division was formed from the 153rd Rifle Division.
The 111th Infantry Division was a major unit of the German Wehrmacht. Formed in late 1940 in the further expansion of the German army it was committed to the campaign against Russian, and spent 3 years on the eastern front. The division was finally trapped in the Crimea and destroyed in the spring of 1944.
The Donbas strategic offensive was the second of two strategic operations of the Soviet Red Army on the Eastern Front of World War II,, with the goal of liberating the Donetsk Basin, or Donbas, from the forces of Nazi Germany.
The Nikopol–Krivoi Rog offensive was an offensive by the Red Army's 3rd Ukrainian Front and elements of the 4th Ukrainian Front against the German 6th Army in the area of Nikopol and Krivoi Rog in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast in central Ukraine between 30 January and 29 February 1944. It took place on the Eastern Front of World War II and was part of the wider Dnieper–Carpathian offensive, a Soviet attack against Army Group South to retake the rest of Ukraine that fell to Germany in 1941.
The 315th Rifle Division was a standard Red Army rifle division formed for the first time on February 12, 1942, in the Siberian Military District before being sent to the vicinity of Stalingrad, where it was engaged in the futile efforts to break through to the besieged city from the north near Kotluban. After rebuilding, it was part of the southern thrust of Operation Uranus in November, helping to encircle the German 6th Army and also to hold off its would-be rescuers. During 1943 and early 1944 the division advanced through the southern Donbas and into Ukraine, where it was honored for its role in the liberation of Melitopol, before taking part in the liberation of the Crimea in April and May, 1944. The men and women of the 315th ended their war on an anticlimactic note, serving for the last year as part of the garrison of the Crimea. However, the unit, and its successors, continued to serve well into the postwar era.
The 333rd Rifle Division began forming in the North Caucasus Military District in August, 1941, as a standard Red Army rifle division, as part of the massive mobilization of reserve forces very shortly after the German invasion. In 1942 it served in the late winter and early spring fighting near Kharkov, taking a beating both then and during the opening stages of the German summer offensive. Withdrawn into the reserves, the division was rebuilt in time to take part in the Soviet counteroffensive at Stalingrad in November, and played an important role in driving the German forces out of the Caucasus region during the winter. In the autumn of 1943 the division shared credit with the 25th Guards Rifle Division for the liberation of Sinelnikovo in the Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, receiving that place name as an honorific. After battling through Ukraine and into the Balkan states, the 333rd completed its combat path on a relatively quiet note doing garrison duties in the Balkans.
The 346th Rifle Division began forming in late August, 1941, as a standard Red Army rifle division, in the Volga Military District. It was assigned to the 61st Army while both it and its Army continued to form up before moving to the front lines in December to take part in the winter counteroffensive south of Moscow. In September, 1942, it became part of the 5th Tank Army, and joined the offensive that encircled German Sixth Army at Stalingrad during Operation Uranus. During 1943 and early 1944 it continued to serve in the southern part of the front, taking part in the liberation of Crimea, before being transferred to the Baltic States region, serving in Latvia and Lithuania until February, 1945, when it was once again reassigned, this time to be part of the follow-on forces in the conquest of eastern Germany. The division ended the war with a distinguished service record, but was disbanded shortly after the German surrender.
The Southern Front was a front of the Red Army during the Russian Civil War, formed twice.
The Northern Taurida operation was a military campaign of the Russian Civil War between the Red Army and the Wrangel Russian Army for the possession of Northern Taurida. The campaign can be divided into 3 stages: the White offensive, trench warfare around the Kakhovka Bridgehead and the counterattack of the Red Army.
The 417th Rifle Division was formed as an infantry division of the Red Army in the spring of 1942 and served in that role until after the end of the Great Patriotic War. Although it was formed in the Transcaucasus, unlike the 414th and 416th Rifle Divisions formed in about the same place at the same time it was never designated as a National division. After its formation it remained in service in the Caucasus under direct command of the Transcaucasus Front until the summer of 1942, when it was redeployed first to the Northern Group of Forces in that Front and then to the 9th Army. As German Army Group A retreated from the Caucasus in January, 1943 the division was reassigned to the 58th Army and a few months later to 37th Army in North Caucasus Front. In July it redeployed northward to join Southern Front, where it was assigned to the 63rd Rifle Corps in 44th Army in mid-September as the Front fought through south Ukraine, eventually reaching the land routes to the Crimea. It took part in the offensive that liberated that region in April and May, 1944, fighting in the 51st Army and winning both a battle honor and the Order of the Red Banner in the process. After the Crimea was cleared the 51st Army was moved far to the north, joining 1st Baltic Front. During operations in the Baltic states the 417th was further distinguished with the award of the Order of Suvorov. In March, 1945 it joined the Courland Group of Forces on the Baltic coast containing the German forces encircled in northwest Latvia. It ended the war there and was soon moved to the Ural Military District before being downsized to a rifle brigade. This brigade was briefly brought back to divisional strength during the Cold War.
The Bereznegovatoye–Snigirevka offensive was an offensive on the Eastern Front of World War II by the Red Army's 3rd Ukrainian Front against the German 6th Army in the area to the east of Mykolaiv in southern Ukraine between 6 and 18 March 1944. It was part of the wider Dnieper–Carpathian offensive. The offensive was named after the two settlements around which the fighting was centered: Bereznegovatoye and Snigirevka.
The Donbas–Rostov Strategic Defensive Operation was a defensive operation of the Southern Front and the left wing of the South–Western Front of the Red Army on the territory of Donbas during the World War II. During it, the Donbas and Rostov front–line defensive operations were carried out.
