The deafening roars of Soviet artillery awoke the 3rd Romanian Army slumbering
inside their frozen trenches in the early morning of November 20, 1942.
The Axis troops were expecting an attack on the right bank of the Don River,
but they were totally unprepared for the sheer scale of the massive Soviet counter-offensive.
The Romanians fought hard as a brutal battle ensued, but so did the Soviets,
who overwhelmed them with their imposing tanks.
By mid-day, Commander Petre Dumitrescu told German Army Group South that it was a matter of time
before the front at the Don River collapsed. And when it did, the USSR unleashed its master plan.
It was called Operation Uranus, and it called for the encirclement of the Axis forces in
the vicinity of Stalingrad. The Soviets were ready to take their territory back!
A Rats’ War
The autumn of 1942 was the turning point of World War 2, in which the
uninterrupted territorial gains of the Axis powers across all fronts finally stopped.
In Africa, the Anglo-American forces dealt a significant blow to the Italians and
General Erwin Rommel’s Afrika Korps at El Alamein, Morocco, and later Algeria.
Meanwhile, in the Pacific, the US Army, Navy, and Marines turned to the offensive following
the conquest of the Island of Guadalcanal and the destruction of the entire Japanese landing force.
However, the Soviets still lacked a decisive offensive to reconquer
the occupied regions of the Motherland.
The Wehrmacht and its allies had stormed Stalingrad in August of 1942,
swiftly seizing most of the city. The Soviets fought back with all they could, but Joseph
Stalin’s order to not abandon the city that bore his name led to massive civilian casualties.
Despite their valiant defense, the Sixth Army pushed the Red Army beyond the Don
River and advanced toward the Volga River banks.
Once there, the Soviets reinforced their lines in preparation for a counter-offensive.
The Axis expected retaliation but instead focused on conquering Stalingrad before
addressing the Soviets scattered on the city’s outskirts.
On the other side, General Vasily Chuikov and his soldiers engaged the Axis forces in
brutal close-quarters combat, employing the city’s ruins to their advantage.
Crumbling buildings were transformed into fortifications, and the rubble was
repurposed as trenches while minor hand-to-hand skirmishes took place all around the city.
Subsequently, the Germans coined the term ‘Rattenkrieg’ or ‘Rat’s War.’
Know Thy Enemy
After suffering a blast injury when a projectile hit his headquarters,
General Chuikov decided it was time to launch the counter-offensive ordered by Stalin.
Thus, the Red Army began amassing thousands of soldiers, artillery, aircraft, and armor for a
new operation. Eventually, over 500,000 troops, 1,400 aircraft, and some 900 tanks would engross
the Soviet numbers to face more than 200,000 Germans under the command of Marshall Paulus.
The Soviet Stavka or High Command included Generals Aleksandr Vasilevsky and Gueorgui Zhukov,
who prepared a series of attacks to crush the Axis formations at Stalingrad, the Caucasus,
and central Soviet Union. The operations were codenamed Uranus, Saturn, and Mars.
The first one launched was Uranus or Operatsiya Uran, which aimed to conduct a pincer attack
on the city’s flanks and isolate a critical salient in which Paulus’s men were fighting.
Stalingrad was located within the salient, and the German 6th Army was entrenched with
the Soviets there. The operation’s first stage involved attacking the Axis flanks,
which were held by the 3rd Romanian, the 8th Italian, and the 2nd Hungarian armies.
Having weakened the enemy’s flanks, the Soviets would rally from the rear,
encircling the Germans and trapping them inside the city.
By then, the Axis forces were already stretched thin in a front over 500 kilometers wide.
And while the best units were engaged in the main battle, Romanian, Italian,
and Hungarian men were to maintain the frontline. However, these Axis
armies were not only under-equipped but also lacked the cohesion of the Heer.
Knowing the enemy’s weaknesses, the Soviets planned to exploit them to the fullest.
But during the last days of October, the Germans
grew wary of a massive Soviet buildup and summoned more troops of their own.
Storming the Don
The Soviet High Command split the attacking forces into three army units,
namely the Stalingrad Front, the Don Front, and the Southwestern Front.
Zhukov and his generals amassed more than a million men between the three.
The operation was scheduled for November 9 but had to be postponed because the aircraft
and tanks were not ready. However, the Soviets used the time to perfect the plan,
which called for a double envelopment maneuver by attacking both flanks of the enemy formation.
Meanwhile, they continued draining the Axis of irreplaceable supplies and manpower, and when the
Soviet fighters and tanks were finally ready for battle, the Red Army prepared to attack.
At midnight on November 18, Russian artillery began firing smoke shells
to disguise the troop movements on the eastern banks of the Don River,
where the mechanized infantry and the armored units were carefully allocated in bridgeheads.
At 2am, more than one million Soviet soldiers were told they were about to conduct a deep penetration
operation against the Axis. However, crucial details were omitted in case they were captured.
Besides the cover of the smoke shells, the snow and a thick fog concealed the tens of thousands
of Soviet Union soldiers. Additionally, the use of dozens of loudspeakers made it difficult for
the Romanian and Italian sentries to hear the roaring engines of the incoming Soviet vehicles.
At first, Soviet engineers in white uniforms discreetly approached the Axis lines,
cutting wire, clearing mines, and opening pathways for the rest of the Red Army.
Then, at 7:20am, a devastating bombardment began across the breakthrough sections.
Over 3,500 guns, including the infamous Stalin’s Organs or Katyushas,
pummeled the Axis lines for no less than 80 minutes.
Afterward, both the defenses and morale of the Third Romanian Army under Commander
Petre Dumitrescu quickly disintegrated. It was now time for the Soviets to strike.
Routing the Axis
At 8:50am on November 19, the 21st and 65th Soviet Armies stormed the enemy lines with the support of
the 5th Tank Army. Shortly after, the Soviets destroyed the Romanian trenches and caught the
front and rear units under artillery fire. Thousands of Soviet soldiers rushed to the
Romanian defenders while shouting the battle cry, “Urra! Urra! Urra!” But despite their ferocity,
the few Romanians left were able to hold their own against the first two waves.
Ironically, the T34 tanks struggled to find their way to the enemy strongholds
through the craters left by their own artillery.
Many were blown up by mines and the few anti-tank ordnance the Romanians had at their disposal.
Eventually, however, the heroic resistance of the 13th Romanian
Infantry Division collapsed as they ran out of ammunition.
Those who surrendered were ignored by the thousands of infantry soldiers pouring
through their lines alongside the 4th Tank Corps.
Soon, the entire Third Romanian Army was flanked and routed.
Meanwhile, the German Sixth Army attempted to send the 16th and 24th Panzer Divisions
to stop the Soviet armor and rally the retreating Romanians, but it was too late.
By the end of the day, over 27,000 Romanians were taken as prisoners.
Double Envelopment
The breakthrough would continue throughout the night, but in the morning,
the Red Air Force strafed the Axis lines with outstanding accuracy, unobstructed by fog.
When the Luftwaffe finally responded, it was swiftly overwhelmed by the Soviet aircraft
and could only provide little support to the retreating Axis forces. The fleeing Romanians were
rendered sitting ducks for S.A. Krasovsky’s 17th Air Army, and few made it to safety.
Meanwhile, the Stalingrad Front launched an attack against the
4th Romanian Army located on the right portion of the frontline.
Without proper anti-armor ordnance, the Romanians were soon outnumbered by the Soviet tanks.
In turn, the 29th Panzergrenadier Division engaged the Soviet 4th and
13th Mechanized Corps, destroying more than 55 tanks, including upgraded T-34s.
Even so, the Germans had to withdraw to reinforce the defenses farther south,
while the 4th Tank Corps advanced smoothly through the Axis lines
in the North and charged on the German 11th Corps from the rear.
As the double envelopment began to take form, the Soviet fronts gradually choked the invaders.
The exhausted and overwhelmed Panzer units attempted to break the advance
but were unable to catch up with the superior numbers of the Soviet tanks.
By November 21, the Soviets had penetrated more than 45 kilometers into occupied territory.
The Last Push
The Romanians were decimated in isolated battles,
while the Germans were scattered and forced to engage the Soviets under inferior odds.
Ultimately, the Soviet tanks got about 40 kilometers closer to General Paulus’ headquarters,
whom Hitler had promoted to Field Marshal as no Nazi with that position had ever surrendered.
But instead of approving a breakout, Hitler ordered the 6th Army to establish a defensive
perimeter around the Soviet pincer maneuver and press on. Then, the 4th Romanian Army, the
16th Panzergrenadier Division, and a few others managed to fight a way out of the encirclement.
By the following day, however, the entirety of the USSR forces crossed
the Don River to continue with the second phase of the operation.
Soviet tank corps destroyed German units defending the town of Kalach with ease. And at noon,
those in the city's surroundings were trapped in the double envelopment envisioned by the Stavka.
With no way out, the Axis troops caught between the
inner and outer pincer maneuvers were shattered within the next few days.
The outer encirclement, extending for over 320 kilometers, would be tightened in the countdown
for Operation Saturn. At that point, the Red Army was one step closer to liberating Stalingrad.
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