Forcing Prony

Soviet side

The Red Army, which defeated German troops on the Kursk Bulge in the summer of 1943, entered the eastern regions of Belarus in September: on September 23, 1943, the troops of the 13th Army of the Central Front liberated the first regional center of Belarus - Komarin of the Polessye Region ; On September 26, the 3rd and 50th armies of the Bryansk Front liberated the first regional center of the Mogilev region - Khotimsk ; September 29 Krichev released; September 28 - Mstislav , Dribin . After that, the front went to Prone ^[2] .

Hitler Army

Since the end of September 1943, the German command, preparing in advance for a long defense, began to create a deeply echeloned fortified area along the high western coast of the Prony in the strip between Prone and Dnieper . By attracting more than 200 thousand local people from the Mogilev and Vitebsk regions, as well as the forces of the reserve units of the Wehrmacht , a large number of trenches , bunkers , bunkers and dugouts were built on the rivers Prone, Dvina and Dnieper ^[3] .

By the summer of 1944, the depth of tactical defense was 15–20 km ^[3] , and the total, which included intermediate and rear army lines, reached 60 km. The main line of defensive lines consisted of 3-4 lines of trenches and ran along the river at a distance of 300-500 meters from the coast and had a width of 5-6 km. From almost anywhere, the opposite shore was visible. In front of the front edge , several rows of wire fences, slingshots , and subtle obstacles were installed. Directly in front of them were deep ditches with water. Solid anti-personnel and anti-tank minefields were laid, and a well-developed line of artillery and machine-gun points was deployed ^[1] .

All villages have been converted to strongholds. The town of Chausy , the railway bridge over Pronya and the station were heavily fortified. The tank and artillery installations were disguised along the line of defense ^[1] .

The plan of the operation to force the Prony was provided to the Headquarters of the High Command on September 30, 1943, according to them the offensive was to begin at the turn of the Mereya and Pronya rivers. The hostilities began in early October 1943, when units of the 10th and 49th armies of the Western Front came to the eastern shore of the Prony (at that time the front was on the line of the Nevel , Pronya, Pripyat rivers ) ^{[1] [3]} .

From October 1943 to June 1944, dozens of Red Army divisions fought in positional battles at the Prony line from Dribin to Propoisk ^[4] . The territory of the Chausky district was in the zone of operations of the 49th and 50th armies of the Second Belorussian Front .

In Propoisky district, the strongest battles for seizing bridgeheads took place north of Propoisk and in the area of ​​the villages of Uluki , Rabovichi , Krasnaya Sloboda , Zavod-Virovaya and south, near the village of Rudnya , the enemy put up stubborn resistance, often turned into counterattacks by large infantry and tank forces ^[4] .

October 1943

Army commanders V. S. Popov І І. T. Grishin planned to force the river in the shortest possible time. On October 2, 1943, units of the 385th Krichev Rifle Division and the 212th Division made an unsuccessful attempt to cross the Pronya River.

About a month there were fierce battles with attacks and counterattacks, which reached melee fights.

In October 1943, the 324th Infantry Division entered the river. For a month, units of the division were engaged in offensive battles ^[4] .

To capture the bridgeheads on the eastern shore of the Prony in the Petukhovka section - the mouth of the Rasta, the troops of the 50th Army began storming the enemy fortifications on October 12 with the help of four divisions ^[4] .

On October 12, the 858th Infantry Regiment crossed the Sozh south of Propoisk and, expanding the bridgehead on the west bank of the river, attacked Rudnya ^[4] .

The 238th , 108th , 324th rifle divisions, fighting south of Kuzminich in the Propoisky district, also fought hard battles for the capture, retention and expansion of bridgeheads ^[4] .

On October 15, the 1093th rifle regiment with combat crossed the Pronya in the Zavod-Virovoy area . However, it was not possible to expand the site and at the end of October, acting with three regiments, broke through the enemy’s defenses on Prona in the Uluk region. The fights were fierce. In them, the Germans lost more than 1,100 soldiers and officers, 10 tanks, 6 aircraft and 12 field guns were destroyed, more than 100 German soldiers were captured ^[5] .

At dawn on October 25, 1943, the 334th Guards Rifle Regiment crossed the river north of Propoisk near the village of Rabovichi and captured a bridgehead on its right bank. The next day, the Germans threw ^[4] large infantry forces with the support of tanks and self-propelled artillery to liquidate the bridgehead. Five enemy counterattacks were repelled with heavy losses for him. At the same time, the gun crew, which was guarded by the guard Private P.T. Ponomaryov , shot down three enemy tanks, two armored personnel carriers and destroyed up to 200 Wehrmacht soldiers and officers. During the sixth counterattack, the Germans threw three heavy Tiger tanks into battle, followed by chains of machine gunners and self-propelled guns Ferdinand . The enemy’s main shot fell on gunner Ponomaryov’s gun. During the battle, Pyotr Tikhonovich was wounded in the arm, but refused to leave the position. When the whole crew went out of order, he fought alone, having managed to knock out an enemy tank and use fire to destroy 35 enemy soldiers. Private Guards P. T. Ponomarev died from the burst of an enemy shell, but the enemy was thrown back to his original position. thrice ata forged the positions of the guards, but to no avail.On January 15, 1944, by a decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR , Private Ponomaryov Pyotr Tikhonovich was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union posthumously ^[6] .

November 1943

November was relatively calm, but at the end of the month the fighting resumed and showed that the balance of power was unequal. The firing points of the Germans were perfectly shot and had good support from tanks and artillery. On the other hand, Soviet troops had little firepower and were located in open areas, so they could only rely on surprise attacks.

On November 10, units of the 3rd Army launched an offensive during the Gomel-Rechitsa operation of the Belorussian Front from the bridgehead held by the 334th Guards Rifle Regiment. The offensive in the direction of the main attack was unfolded by the left wing of the front from the bridgehead on the western bank of the Dnieper near Loev ^[4] .

On November 22, the troops of the right wing of the front as part of the 3rd and 50th armies went on the offensive ^[4] .

Every day, attackers suffered losses of 350-400 fighters, but despite obvious failures, the offensive order was not canceled ^[1] .

The commander of the Western Front , Army General V. D. Sokolovsky and Stavka spokesman Marshal of Artillery N. N. Voronov, unsuccessfully tried to convince JV Stalin to pause for more thorough preparations for the offensive.

Winter 1943-44

In anticipation of winter, ski battalions and shock mobile units were created in the divisions. At the end of December 1943, a short artillery preparation was carried out, after which on December 25th the units of the 385th Rifle Division, which included the ski battalion of the 212nd Krichev Rifle Division, stormed the first line of German trenches and part of the second line half a kilometer from the village of Prilepovka . But already on December 27, as a result of continuous counterattacks, the Germans pushed out Soviet troops to their original borders before the offensive. During the December battles of 1943 on the Skvarsk -Prilepovka- Putki section, the 290th and 385th rifle divisions lost up to 1,500 soldiers. About the same losses were from the Germans. In the history of the Great Patriotic War, this episode went under the name " Prilepovsky bridgehead " ^[1] .

During the fall and winter, the Western Front made 7 unsuccessful offensive attempts.

Former chief of staff of the battalion of the 508th Infantry Regiment of the 174th Infantry Division M. Glazunov noted ^[2] :

The cruelty of the fighting in this region is also evidenced by the fact that during the month of fighting on the bridgehead the stronghold in the village of Kuzminichi passed more than ten times from hand to hand ^{[2] [7]} . According to the testimonies of the participants, the water in the river was red with blood ^[8] .

In March, an emergency commission was sent to the headquarters of the Western Front from the High Command Headquarters, headed by G. M. Malenkov , a member of the state defense committee, trying to identify the reasons for the unsuccessful offensive. The commission also included Colonel General A. S. Shcherbakov , Colonel General S. M. Shtemenko , Lieutenant General F. F. Kuznetsov and Lieutenant General A. I. Shimonaev .

As noted in a report to I. Stalin on April 11, 1944:

“ All of these operations ended unsuccessfully, and the front did not fulfill the tasks set by the Headquarters. In none of these operations was the enemy’s defense broken through, at least to its tactical depth, the operation ended at best with a slight wedging in of the enemy’s defense with large losses of our troops ” ^[9] .

Based on the results of the commission’s work, signed by I.V. Stalin on April 12, 1944, the State Defense Committee adopted Decree No. 5606ss “On the Shortcomings in the Work of the Command and Staff of the Western Front”, which listed all the commission’s conclusions and adopted a number of organizational measures.

Front commander VD Sokolovsky was dismissed with the wording “ as if he could not cope with the command of the front ”. The head of the front artillery I.P. Camera and the head of the front reconnaissance department were also filmed, and a number of generals were penalized. Earlier, on December 8, 1943, “ for inaction and a frivolous attitude to business, ” Colonel General M. S. Khozin, deputy front commander, was removed from his post.

The offensive command did not take into account the enemy’s strong defense and expected to conduct the operation at a record speed. Despite the advantages of the relief for the German side (the western shore is higher and covered with forest, in contrast to the flat meadow on the eastern shore), artillery preparation was insufficient ^[3] .

The Commission also found that in the operations carried out, Soviet artillery, despite its large number and superiority over enemy artillery, did not destroy the enemy’s fire system either during the artillery preparation or during the battle, sometimes firing at an empty place, and sometimes even at its own rifle units. The infantry went on the attack on unsupported firing points in the enemy’s defense, suffered " enormous losses and did not move forward " ^[3] .

In the battalions there were many unfired soldiers. Not enough shells, min. Conducting successful attacks, often the soldiers did not have sufficient support to secure the lines, which forced them to retreat, causing significant losses of personnel ^[3] .

In a letter addressed to the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, the chief of the operational department of the headquarters of the 33rd Army, Colonel I. Tolkanyuk noted ^[3] :

The Commission also noted the inefficient use of tanks in battles, according to its estimates “the command of the Western Front threw the 2nd Guards Tank Corps on the unsettled enemy defenses, as a result of which the corps could not advance forward and suffered heavy losses” ^[3] .

In the spring of 1944, preparations began for Operation Bagration . The 49th Army of General Grishin was replenished with the forces of the 10th Army.

On the 2nd Belorussian Front, 10 rifle divisions were concentrated. They were supported by more than 2000 guns and mortars, 343 rocket launchers. All equipment was more than provided with a supply of ammunition and fuel, and people with food ^[1] .

Also, the actions of the rifle formations of the 49th army were supported by 253 tanks ^[1] .

With this force, in the 49th army, under the command of Grishin, they managed to force Pronya, Basya and Rasta , and later the Dnieper.

On the night of June 22-23, 1944, while forcing parts of the 81st rifle corps of the Pronya River, soldiers of the 1st Separate Guards Assault Engineering and Sapper Brigade equipped with strong enemy fire equipped a ford and built a bridge for loads of up to 60 tons, which contributed to the rapid the offensive of parts of the 81st Rifle Corps of the 49th Army and the breakthrough of the enemy’s defense line on the Pronya River ^[10] .

On the night of June 23-24, night air bomber of the 4th Air Army bombed German positions and equipment in tactical depths, and before dawn a powerful bomb hit the front edge of the enemy’s defense.

Tank units and self-propelled artillery regiments advanced to their original positions; the German defense fire system was refined.

After a strong two-hour artillery preparation, the enemy’s weapons were almost completely suppressed and partially destroyed.

With the beginning of the artillery preparation, special reinforced companies extended from each rifle regiment of the first echelon advanced rapidly and crossed the river until 9.30, overcame minefields, wire fences and burst into the enemy’s first trench. Not meeting serious resistance here, the companies quickly advanced forward into the second and, in some places, into the third trench of the enemy.

Under the cover of these companies, sappers built 78 assault bridges for infantry, completed additional passages in minefields and wire fences, and made bridges for tanks and artillery over the Pronya river. The main forces of the regiments began to cross the Pronya along these bridges, and after crossing they began to occupy the trenches of the enemy.

By the end of June 23, the front attack group (the 49th Army , overcoming the stubborn resistance of the Germans, reached the Perelog , Olkhovka , Perevoz lines. The main German defense line was broken through at the front to 12 km and to a depth of 5 to 8 km.

During the offensive, the front troops occupied the district center of the Mogilev region - the city of Chausy and liberated more than 200 other settlements, including Chernevka, Zhdanovichi, Khonkovichy, Budina, Vaskovichi , Temrivichi and Bordinichi ^[11] .

On June 25, 1944, on the day of the liberation of the city of Chausy, a salute was given in Moscow - 20 volleys of 224 guns in honor of crossing the Prony ^[11] .

During the breakthrough of the defense of the Nazi forces on Prona and Bas, more than 40 soldiers and officers were awarded the Stars of the Hero of the Soviet Union - the country's highest state award ^[12] .

Events of the work of Vladimir Uspensky “Unknown Soldiers”, noted ^{[13] by} M. A. Sholokhov as “the best work about the Great Patriotic War ”, as well as in the books “Shooted Kilometers” ^[14] and M. G. Khomulo by Deev and Petrenko Regiment, to the battle! ”Occur including during the crossing of Proni.