In mid-March, during the “Second Stalinist Coup,” troops of the 1st Ukrainian Front arrived in the ancient Ukrainian town of Proskurov. In the area of the most important transport hub of the South Bug River, Soviet units entered into a fierce battle with 19 German tank and infantry divisions. The Wehrmacht was assisted by units of the 1st Hungarian Army.
Archive of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation
Residents of western Ukraine greet Red Army troops in the spring of 1944.
One of the characteristics of the spring campaign of 1944 was that the Red Army advanced in conditions of technical superiority of the enemy: the German Tiger and Panther tanks were superior in protection and armament to the huge Soviet T-34-76 tanks. The situation improved somewhat with the arrival of the IS-1 and IS-2 heavy tanks, which were assigned to Andrei Grechko’s combined-arms 1st Guards Army.
At approximately 5 pm on March 25, Soviet tank crews and infantrymen began the assault on Proskurov. The blow was struck simultaneously from three directions. The attack was so fast that the enemy did not have time to blow up all the mined bridges, the power plant and several enterprises. Only the bridge over the Ploska River, which connects the old and new cities, was damaged.
As a result of the liberation of Proskurov, elite German tank units transferred from France ended up in the so-called Kamenets-Podolsk pocket. The losses of the Wehrmacht and the Hungarian army in dead and wounded amounted to more than 180 thousand people and about 25 thousand people were captured.
“For a long time it has been difficult to surprise my imagination with such things and yet, arriving here, day after day I am surprised by the number of vehicles of all makes and systems abandoned by the Germans, both combat and transport. They are the notorious “Tigers” and “Panthers”, and the burned and intact ones, and the tanks of older types, and the self-propelled guns, and the huge armored personnel carriers, and the small transport vehicles with one driving wheel , similar to motorcycles, and huge blunt-nosed vehicles. Renault trucks stolen in France, and countless Mercedes and “Opels”, personnel vehicles, walkie-talkies, camp kitchens, anti-aircraft installations, disinfection chambers: in one In other words, everything that the Germans devised and used in their former rapid offensives.
And now, destroyed, burned and simply abandoned, trapped in the mud of these roads,” Red Star war correspondent Konstantin Simonov wrote in his memoirs.
In honor of the liberation of Proskurov, 12 artillery salvos from 124 guns were fired in Moscow. Military units that distinguished themselves during the assault were awarded the honorary name “Proskurovsky”.
