The 25th Rifle Corps is a military unit of the Armed Forces of the USSR during the Great Patriotic War .
 25th Rifle Corps | |
| 25sk | |
| Type of: | rifle |
| Type of army: | infantry |
| In the army: | 19th Army |
| Commanders | |
| S. M. Chestokhvalov P.S. Vinogradov I.V. Khazov | |
| Combat operations | |
| 1941: Vitebsk battle | |
Content
History
Formed in August 1939 in the Kharkov Military District . Before the war, he was replenished with personnel called up for training, and secretly relocated to the north of the district:
- management of the corps from Stalin to Korsun ;
- The 127th Rifle Division , formed only in 1940, from Kharkov to the Rzhishchevsky camps (Kiev region), to the territory of the Kiev Special Military District ;
- 134th Infantry Division from Mariupol to Zolotonosha, Poltava region;
- The 162nd Infantry Division , re-formed in 1940, from Artyomovsk to Lubny, Poltava region. [1] .
After the start of World War II on June 25, the corps was included in the 19th Army of Lieutenant General I. S. Konev , which was included in the Army Group of the Reserve of the High Command. Soon, in connection with the defeat of the Western Front in the Bialystok-Minsk battle , the transfer of the corps to the Vitebsk region began.
However, German troops advanced east so rapidly that they had already invaded Vitebsk on July 9th .
According to the memoirs of A. V. Gorbatov , “ echelons of the 25th Rifle Corps were unloaded at stations southeast of Vitebsk. Not expecting the concentration of divisions, let alone corps, regiments, and even battalions, barely having finished unloading, they took up defense and entered the battle six to ten kilometers from Vitebsk ... "
On July 11, the corps received orders to cross to the right bank of the river. Zapadnaya Dvina on the site Prudniki, Senkovo and go to the line Gorodok, lake. Losvido, Sloboda, contributing to the rest of the 19th army in the capture of Vitebsk. The headquarters of the corps is located in the village of Mishutki (now the Vitebsk region).
By the beginning of the fighting, two of the three rifle divisions (134th and 162nd) and a corps artillery regiment arrived in the Vitebsk region. To fulfill the order, they had to make a march with a length of 50-60 km. After crossing the Dvina, the corps was supposed to subordinate the 186th Infantry Division , which had been thrown back from the Western Dvina in the Ulla region, but could not establish contact with it.
However, the enemy owned the initiative. The German 39th Motorized Corps of the 3rd Panzer Group completely occupied Vitebsk on July 11 , and on July 12 attacked the main defense zone of the Surazh , Yanovichi, and Kolysh corps.
On July 13, the enemy broke through the defense of the 25th Corps, occupied Surazh , Velizh and rushed to Demidov , bypassing the troops of the Soviet Western Front in the Smolensk region from the north.
The 25th building was in a semicircle and began to move east. The corps administration was defeated, the commander of the corps, Major General S. M. Chestokhvalov went missing on July 16 , and P. S. Vinogradov was appointed acting commander. Soon, the 25th Rifle Corps was disbanded, and the remnants of command were sent to form the 52nd Army .
Command
- Corps commander - Major General Chestokhvalov, Sergei Mikhailovich (April 1940 - July 16, 1941)
- Corps commander - Colonel Vinogradov, Pavel Semyonovich (July 17 - August 25, 1941)
- Corps commander - Major General Khazov, Ivan Vasilievich (November - December 1943)
- Verid of the corps commander - Colonel Lavrentiev, Mikhail Afanasevich (December 24 - 27, 1943)
- Deputy corps commander - brigade commander Gorbatov, Alexander Vasilievich
- Chief of Staff of the Corps - Colonel Vinogradov, Pavel Semenovich
- Military Commissioner of the Corps - Brigadier Commissioner Kofanov
- Head of Political Department - Regimental Commissar Lavrentiev
Battle
July 1, 1941
- 127th Infantry Division (Major General T. G. Korneev)
- 134th Infantry Division (brigade V.K. Bazarov)
- 162nd Infantry Division (Colonel N.F. Kolkunov)
- 442nd corps artillery regiment
- 263rd Separate Communications Battalion
- 248th Separate Engineer Battalion
July 11, 1941
- 134th Infantry Division (brigade V.K. Bazarov)
- 162nd Infantry Division (Colonel N.F. Kolkunov)
- 442nd corps artillery regiment
- 263rd Separate Communications Battalion
- 248th Separate Engineer Battalion
Links
- ↑ [1] A.V. Gorbatov wrote in his memoirs: “ On the first and second day of the war, our divisions brought themselves into combat condition. The command and headquarters of the corps left for the Dnieper, to the two divisions there south of Kiev ... The divisions of our corps were first concentrated in the forests near Kiev, but in connection with the abandonment of Minsk, they returned to the left bank of the Dnieper and plunged into the train at Darnitsa and Brovary stations for transfer to the West front »
Sources
- A.V. Gorbatov. Years and wars. - M .: Military Publishing, 1989.
- The rout of the 25th Rifle Corps near Vitebsk - letter from the Chief Military Prosecutor to L.Z. Mehlis (Publication by N. Geyets // Military Historical Archive , No. 6 (21), 2001)
- Collection of combat documents of the Great Patriotic War. Issue 37