Episode 22 - Zhukov finalises plans for Operation Uranus as Paulus' health fails

The Battle of Stalingrad

The struggle by the Sixth Army to take the remnants of the Russian 62nd Army clinging onto the banks of the Volga river is about to take another turn with General Paulus ordering a further assault starting the 11th November. This followed the German High Command’s realization that they had to do something urgently to beef up Paulus’ exposed flanks. The German’s had formed a salient or wedge as they pushed towards Stalingrad and it was ripe for the plucking. The 48th Panzer Corps had been based 50 miles south west of the ominous bridgeheads at Kletskaya and Serafimovich on the Don River when it’s commander Lieutenant General Ferdinand Heim received orders to move up to the threatened sector. That was to the North East and the unit duly clanked onto the road. But only a few miles after starting out major problems emerged and it involved mice.The column had ground to a halt and some of the tanks actually caught fire. In others, their engines were misfiring and many then failed to run at all. Mechanics swarmed over the vehicles and discovered that field mice had nested inside the vehicles and gnawed away at the insulation covering the electrical systems. It was days later that they limped on the way again eventually the 48th arrived at its new quarters. But it was virtually crippled. Out of 104 tanks in the 22nd Panzer Division for example, only 42 were ready for combat. And no-one notified the high command or Hitler – he would have had a fit. So on the 11th with their flank bolstered, the Germans attacked. I began just before dawn led by newly organized battle groups from the 71st, 79th, 100th, 295th, 305th and 389th infantry divisions, reinforced with four fresh pioneer of specialist engineers.They were aiming to dislodge the pockets of resistance or as the German’s put it – the rectangles. And above, Freihrer von Richthofen’s Luftwaffe prepared the way. The general had lost almost all patience with what he regarded as army conventionality – or in another word – slowness. He had complained repeatedly about the artillery failing to fire and the infantry not making use of bombing attacks. It was easy for him to say, his men were all hundreds of feet above Stalingrad – hardly feeling the pain of the most dramatic battle in history.The Russians had a big plan of their own, Operation Uranus. Stalin thought it was a bad plan initially – but soon realized that a large scale gamble was far better than piecemeal offensives. They’d tried the latter repeatedly and it had failed repeatedly. And of course, his great military advantage over Adolf Hitler was his lack of ideological shame. He was not embarrassed in the slightest to reinstate the military thinking of the 30’s he’d had Soviet officers executed for even suggesting some of the methods he was now signing off.

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