"There is no force capable of stopping them."
The year 1943 was approaching. For the second winter, Leningrad suffocated in the ring of the blockade. The Road of Life, linking Leningrad with the country along the ice of Lake Ladoga, worked at maximum load, but could not cope with providing the besieged city. The country's leadership understood: Leningrad must be liberated in the coming months. The Soviet troops no longer had the right to make a mistake.
Inaccessible "Bottle throat"
In 1941−42, Soviet troops tried three times to break through the enemy's encirclement and punch the road to besieged Leningrad. All three times the attempts ended in failure and large human losses. By the beginning of 1943, Lieutenant General Leonid Govorov's Leningrad Front defended itself in positions that had remained practically unchanged since the blockade was established. The troops of the Volkhov Front, General of the Army Kirill Meretskov, were located on the eastern side of the Shlisselburg-Sinyavinsky ledge between Lake Ladoga and the Kirov railway. The two fronts were separated by a narrow strip of no more than 16 kilometers south of Ladoga. The Germans called it "fleaschenhals" - "bottleneck" - and defended by the forces of the 26th army corps of infantry general Ernst von Leiser, consisting of five divisions of 10-12 thousand people. They weren't worried about this position. They considered the bottleneck to be a strong point in their defense. And so it was: the space of the Shlisselburg-Sinyavinsky ledge was filled with resistance nodes, strong points, connected by trenches. It is no coincidence that the left bank of the Neva was called “ice Izmail” - the steep coastal slopes were mined and were under the crossfire of all types of weapons. And nevertheless, this "Izmail" had to be assaulted. We built training grounds, for training on them, units of the Leningrad Front took turns withdrawing from the front line. It is no coincidence that the left bank of the Neva was called “ice Izmail” - the steep coastal slopes were mined and were under the crossfire of all types of weapons. And nevertheless, this "Izmail" had to be assaulted. We built training grounds, for training on them, units of the Leningrad Front took turns withdrawing from the front line. It is no coincidence that the left bank of the Neva was called “ice Izmail” - the steep coastal slopes were mined and were under the crossfire of all types of weapons. And nevertheless, this "Izmail" had to be assaulted. We built training grounds, for training on them, units of the Leningrad Front took turns withdrawing from the front line.
The scheme of battles for the "bottleneck".
Terrain conditions complicated the task. The swampy, deeply ditched area of the Sinyavinsky peat extraction made the free movement of tanks and artillery almost impossible. Partly because of this, previous attempts to break the blockade were thwarted. The Germans, on the other hand, were in advantageous conditions - in their hands were the Sinyavinsky Heights, which made it possible to control the surroundings. A continuous forest south of Sinyavino made it possible to secretly pull up reserves from other sectors of the front.
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Surprise attack
Operation Iskra was being prepared in the strictest secrecy. The date for the start of the operation was set for January 1, 1943, but the warm weather interfered with the plans of the commanders: the freezing temperature did not allow the Neva and the surrounding swamps to freeze enough for the safe movement of infantry and tanks. The start of the attack was postponed to 12 January.
The offensive was preceded by a powerful shelling - artillery and aircraft were to clear the way for infantry and tanks. Heavy fire was opened at 9:30 am and took the Germans by surprise. One of the prisoners recalled: “In the morning the Russian artillery started shooting. Everyone, including the officers, fled, leaving us … The Russian attack was very unexpected. The Russian artillery hit splendidly: I have never heard German artillery shoot so well."
At 11:50 am, a simultaneous volley of 16 Katyushas served as a signal for an attack. The rifle lines of four divisions of the 67th Army of Leningraders simultaneously rushed to the 10-kilometer stretch of the Neva. Consolidated divisional brass band played "Internationale". The fighters stormed the icy steep slope of the left bank with the help of hooks, ladders, ropes and "crampons". Somewhere the assault was swift and passed without loss - after 10 minutes the first Soviet soldiers broke into the German trenches and fought hand-to-hand with the enemies. Somewhere the Nazis met the attackers with intense mortar and machine gun fire, most of our soldiers died.
Operation Iskra is rich in the exploits of Soviet soldiers. The emotional impulse was so great that even the wounded did not leave their lines and continued to go forward. The commander of one of the regiments, Afanasy Shcheglov, wrote about it this way: “… the dead fell, and the wounded, those who could not stand on their feet, crawling, straining their last strength, tried to help their comrades. It seemed that all the pain of Leningrad, all its hatred for the enemy bubbled in the hearts of these heroes, and there is no such force that could stop them."
Afanasy Shcheglov.
The second and third days of the operation were no less bloody than the first - the enemy recovered from the blow and launched a counterattack. The pace of the Soviet offensive was reduced to one kilometer a day. Each meter had to be taken with a fight and paid for it in blood. Difficulties also arose with the tank crossings across the Neva - there were three planned. The right ferry was bombed by the Germans at the construction stage. The first tank that set off along the Neva through the left ferry sank near the coast. Only the central crossing near the village of Maryino was put into operation on January 14, two days after the attack. For all the days of the fighting, about 200 tanks crossed the Neva.
The expensive price of Iskra
On the morning of January 18, in the area of Workers' Village No. 5, the soldiers of the Leningrad and Volkhov fronts met. The blockade was broken - the Soviet Information Bureau told the whole country about it on the evening of January 18.
Soldiers of the Volkhov Front are going to break through.
A corridor 8-11 kilometers wide was pierced along the southern shore of Ladoga, where in 18 days a railway was built across the Neva, called the Victory Road. The very first train brought butter to the starving children of besieged Leningrad. It was a gift from residents of Chelyabinsk.
Rejoicing in the streets of Leningrad.
“The first victory near Leningrad was not easy for us,” says Tatyana Koptelova, senior researcher at the Museum-diorama “Breaking the Siege of Leningrad”. - We will probably never know the exact figure of the total losses. According to official sources, from January 12 to 30 for our troops, they amounted to 115 thousand people. The figure is impressive. Today, some visitors to the museum are critical - in recent years it is customary to talk about the mistakes of the command, that the victims are too great. But, in my opinion, in that situation it was impossible to act differently. After all, it was necessary to break through - Leningrad was fading away in the blockade. No one is immune from mistakes, especially in those conditions, but no mistakes of the leadership can diminish the heroism of ordinary inhabitants of Leningrad, the courage and valor of the soldiers who defended it.
Memorial “Broken Ring”.
Interesting Facts
Dance "Babies"
The feat of Dmitry Osatyuk and the driver-mechanic Sergeant Major Ivan Makarenkov went down in history, who saved the Soviet infantry in a light tank T-60 "Malyutka", luring two heavy German tanks into a trap.
The forces were unequal, even one such tank could easily deal with the "Baby". Then the lieutenant said to the driver: "Ivan, dance!" And a small tank, writing out a monogram and rushing from side to side, led the Nazi tanks behind him, luring them under artillery fire hidden at the edge of a small grove. Trapped enemy vehicles put the sides under the muzzle of our guns and were knocked out.
Four unsuccessful attempts
September 1941 - on the night of September 19-20, the troops of the Neva operational group crossed the Neva in the area of the Nevskaya Dubrovka village. They were tasked with small forces to break through the corridor to Msu and restore the communication lost with the country. The task was impossible, the attackers did not have the strength to successfully attack. They managed to capture only a small bridgehead on the left bank of the Neva, called "Nevsky Pyatachok" - three and a half kilometers along the front and only 800 meters deep. The very name "Piglet" comes from the ability to easily cover it on the staff card with a five-kopeck coin.
October-November 1941 - second breakout attempt. The blows were delivered from the Nevsky heel in the same direction of Mga. The crossing points were under fire by the Germans, the Leningrad divisions were small and weak, it was not possible to support the infantry with artillery and from the air. It was not possible to maneuver on the ultra-small section of the left bank. The blockade was not broken.
Spring 1942 - an attempt to break through the enemy front on the Volkhov River and enter the rear of Army Group North. The fighting unfolded between Lake Ladoga and Lake Ilmen. The offensive ended in disaster for the 2nd Shock Army and the capture of its commander, General Vlasov.
August-September 1942 is another attempt to break through a corridor to Leningrad between Mga and Sinyavino. The shock group of the 8th Army is surrounded, heavy losses. The offensive was terminated due to a lack of forces, means and shortcomings in the organization of troops. It is believed that this unsuccessful attempt to break through thwarted the new assault on Leningrad, which was being prepared by the German command in the fall of 1942.
Soviet heroes
- The feat of the private communications platoon of the 240th rifle regiment of the 136th rifle division of Dmitry Molodtsov remained in history. In a desperate attempt to suppress the flanking fire that mowed down our soldiers, he, having spent all available grenades, closed the embrasure of the enemy bunker with his body.
- On the same day, January 12, Senior Lieutenant Yakov Bogdan, the commander of the 523rd Infantry Regiment of the 128th Infantry Division, was killed in the battle for the village of Lipku. His fighters were already on the outskirts of the village, when suddenly a machine gun shot down nearby. The lieutenant rose to his full height and leaned his body against the embrasure of the disguised bunker.
- The senior political instructor Salnikov, being mortally wounded, grabbed the German officer's throat with a death grip and strangled him.
- Attack pilot Ivan Panteleev and gunner Pyotr Sologubov noticed fascist trains carrying reinforcements to the enemy in the Sinyavino area. Under a hail of anti-aircraft guns, the pilots bombed the trains. When their plane caught fire, Panteleev directed the plane, burning like a torch, into the thick of the enemy convoy and blew it up.
Author: Lyubov RUMYANTSEVA
