Bereznegovatoe-Snigirevka Operation of 1944

Bereznegovatoe-Snigirevka Operation of 1944 

an offensive operation of the troops of the Third Ukrainian Front (commanded by General of the Army R. Ia. Malinovskii) from March 6 to March 18, a component part of the strategic operation for the liberation of the Right-bank Ukraine. On March 6 the troops of the Third Ukrainian Front went over to the offensive, striking the main blow with the forces of the Eighth Guard Army (under Colonel General V. I. Chuikov), the Forty-sixth Army (under Lieutenant General V. V. Glagolev), and Lieutenant General I. A. Pliev’s horse-mechanized group from the region south of Krivoi Rog, from a base of operations on the Ingulets River; troops of the front in other sectors, north and south of the main blow, opened an offensive simultaneously. After breaking through the enemy defenses on the right bank of the Ingulets River, the troops of the main grouping began to be successful in the Novyi Bug-Novaia Odessa axis. Novyi Bug was taken on March 8. From there units of the horse-mechanized group struck a blow to the south at the rear of the German Sixth Army (under Colonel General K. Hollidt), and on March 12–13 they reached the Ingulets River south of Snigirevka, thus cutting off the enemy’s retreat to the west. The troops of the front’s left wing, after forcing the overflowing Dnieper, took Kherson on March 13. The main forces of the German Sixth Army (up to 13 divisions) were threatened with encirclement; abandoning heavy weapons, motor vehicles, and the wounded, they began a hasty retreat to the west. Since the Eighth Guard Army was drawn into heavy battles in the region of Vladimirovka and Bashtanka and the forces of the horse-mechanized group were insufficient to create a solid inner front of encirclement, the enemy succeeded, at the price of great losses, in breaking through to the west. Pursuing the enemy, the Soviet troops reached the Iuznyi Bug and the approaches to Nikolaev on March 16–18; in the course of forcing the Iuznyi Bug, they seized several bridgeheads on its western bank. As a result of the Bereznegovatoe-Snigirevka operation, eight German divisions were routed; they lost half their men and almost all their heavy armament and combat matériel. The Soviet troops had created the conditions for developing an offensive in the direction of Odessa and the lower reaches of the Dnestr.

A. N. GRYLEV