in the Army in the Field: 15.10.1943 - 31.01.1945 03.03.1945 - 18.03.1945 05.04.1945 - 11.05.1945 09.08.1945 - 03.09.1945
1) Corps was formed from 10.01.1943 to 01.08.1943
2) temporarily
Zdroje: Sources:
Drogovoz, Igor Grigorjevič: Tankovyj meč Strany Sovetov. Minsk, Charvest 2001. Feskov, Vitalij Ivanovič - Golikov, Valerij Ivanovič - Kalašnikov, Konstantin Anatoljevič: Krasnaja Armija v pobedach i poraženijach 1941–1945 gg. Tomsk, ITGU 2003 http://tankfront.ru/ussr/mk/mk07.html ru.wikipedia.org 7mehkorpus.odessa.ua
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7. MECHANIZED CORPS IN 1945
One of the many Red Army units deployed in April 1945 during the liberation of our homeland was the 7th Mechanized Corps (commander Maj. Gen. F. G. Katkov). It was formed in August 1943 and was deployed, among other things, in the battles of the Kursk Arch. The corps was assigned to the 2nd Ukrainian Front on 5 April 1945. Before that it was deployed in the battles in Romania and subsequently in the battles in Hungary. The reason for its transfer to the 2nd Ukrainian Front was the command's dissatisfaction with the speed of the troops' advance in southern Moravia. Already on 8 April (and after the date was moved by order to 13.04.1945), according to the original plan, the Russian troops were supposed to be on the line of Zidlochovice-Brno and Slavkov, but not even Lanžhot had been liberated yet.
The corps was transferred to South Moravia after the liberation of Moravská Nová Ves (14.04.1945). It intervened in the fighting (towards Brno) on the morning of 15 April 1945. The Corps was embedded in the attack on Brno in a massive bundle consisting of 1st Guards Cavalry-Mechanized Group and 53rd Army (the latter was together with the 7th Mechanized Corps on the left flank of the attack). This assault group was later supplemented by 18th Guards Rifle Corps and 6th Guards Tank Army.
The initial situation on 15 April was as follows. After crossing the Morava River, the various brigades were concentrated in the occupied villages. The 41st Guards Tank Brigade of the 7th Mechanized Corps with T-34/85 tanks and the 78th Guards Heavy Tank Regiment with IS 2 machines in the village of Hrušky. There was a newly built fuel depot at Zahajka (Pears) at that time. In Týnec, the 63rd Mechanized Brigade was stationed. In Kostice, as of 8 a.m., the self-propelled guns SU 76 (probably from the 1289th Self-Propelled Gun Regiment) and SU 100 of the 16th Mechanized Brigade are concentrated, and finally in Moravská Nová Ves, the 64th Mechanized Brigade is concentrated with its T-34/85 and SU 100 machines.
Apart from the above mentioned units, there were of course also other support units in the villages, such as anti-aircraft and anti-tank regiments, motorcycle battalions, etc. The corps was newly replenished to table strength. If one can judge from the photographs, the T-34/85 tanks came for the most part from the N°112 "Krasnoye Sormovo" production plant in Gorky.
By order of the front commander, the corps' first-strength units boarded the Podvorov-Velke Bílovice line after ten o'clock. Again, the command demanded the occupation of Brno by the evening of 15 April! Although in the case of the 7th Mechanized Corps these were veterans of earlier battles, the advance on Brno was quite grueling and hard. The available literature gives the corps' starting strength as 164 (sometimes 165 or 163) tanks and 16,002 soldiers.
Another known figure as of 20.04.1945 gives a number of 95 tanks. Losses thus averaged 13 tanks per day. After the liberation of Brno on 26 April, the corps had only 46 tanks at its disposal. The neighbouring 6th Tank Army lost half of its 165 tanks in the fighting for Brno and on 26 April had to be replenished with 64 new machines (mostly of the M4 Sherman type).1)
Already the first fighting (15 April) in Velke Pavlovice, when three German tanks supported by jet throwers (nebelwerfers) attacked the advancing forces of the 16th Mechanised Brigade, delayed the advance by an hour. The 64th Mechanized Brigade's battle at Čejč was even worse. The brigade lost 5 tanks in the attack on the village. Second Lieutenant Peter I. Filimonov, then a twenty-three-year-old native of the village of Shchelbitsy in the Smolensk region, shone in the fighting in this village. Filimonov's crew distinguished itself by "...crushing 4 anti-tank guns and tank gunners with the tracks of its T-34/85, and a short distance later two more armoured personnel carriers with about fifty German soldiers".
The battle of Cheikh and Terezin was bloody on both sides. Filimonov was again sent against one of the local fortified points. He managed to destroy the headquarters of a German artillery battalion and capture its commander. During the action he destroyed 8 armored personnel carriers, 12 guns and the crew killed 17 Germans. Along with him, a trio of T-34/85 of the 177th Tank Regiment of the 64th Mechanized Brigade of the tank company commander, Lieutenant Nikolai Andreevich Isaenko, attacked the village. His squad destroyed 13 German guns and killed a large number of German soldiers. Isaenko himself was wounded after the Germans hit his tank several times. Subsequently, his arm had to be amputated.
Corps losses were compounded by relatively daring raids into the enemy rear. An example of this was a tank reconnaissance on the evening of 18 April. After capturing Popůvek, the tank units of the 16th Mechanized Brigade and the 41st Tank Brigade headed towards Bosonohy and Brno. At Bosonohy (already in darkness between 18 and 19:00) the first penetrating T-34/85 made contact with strong German defences on the exit of the village. It is reported that this Soviet tank pursued the fleeing "Tiger". The T-34 crew decided to turn back. Meanwhile, the Germans overran the returning tank through the gardens and destroyed it with a Panzerfaust. All crew members were killed (one of them was shot by the Germans after being left badly wounded in a ditch next to the wreck of the tank).
A few streets away, another tank battle was taking place. Here, however, one German machine (type unknown) was destroyed. At Veselka, another Russian T-34 tank was destroyed. Similarly, other T-34/85 tanks of the 41st Mechanized Brigade set off from Popůvek. One of these T-34s was destroyed in Bosonohy. Two of these T-34s succumbed to fire at the crematorium, and the last machine was destroyed by the Germans at the crossing of the Brno - Střelice line.
The crews of these tanks were seen by the inhabitants of Brno the next morning in the vicinity of the Central Cemetery retreating to their own. One of the destroyed tanks in Bosonohy was commanded by Second Lieutenant P. I. Filimonov, an ace from Cheich. According to Soviet sources, he destroyed in battle 3 German tanks standing camouflaged in battle positions and an artillery battery. However, the Germans began to defend themselves in time and hit the T-34/85, wounding Filimonov. The tank began to burn, yet the crew continued to fight and destroyed two more tanks and one assault gun2).
While searching for the fate of the crews, I came across a description of this battle at Veselka. A T-34/85 tank of the 2nd Battalion, 41st GTBr. destroyed 2 tanks and 3 anti-tank guns in this battle on 18 April on the approaches to Brno (Popůvky). Subsequently, the tank commander was killed by machine-gun fire, and Guards Petty Officer Jamaletdinov Shagyi Jamaletdinovich (Ямалетдинов, Шагий Ямалетдинович), by then in the capacity of "gun commander", i.e. gunner, took command. This Bashkir (born 1914, died 1968) joined the ranks of the Red Army at the call of the local Soviet in October 1941. He began fighting at the front in October 1942 with the Southwestern and later the 2nd Ukrainian Front. With this commander, they continued to fight at Veselka, destroying 10 "Panzerfaustnikovs", three tanks, 5 guns and three "armoured cars". So in total, during the 4-5 hour battle, 5 tanks, 3 armoured cars and 8 guns! Later it was also deployed (and decorated) in the fighting against the Japanese. In 1946, he was awarded the title Hero of the USSR and the Gold Star (№ 4764) for his actions that had a direct impact on the accomplishment of the objectives.
It was not only men who served in the 41st Guards Tank Brigade. The Hero of the Soviet Union title was also earned by Guard Lieutenant Colonel Irina Nikolayevna Levchenkova. As stated on Russian-language websites, she commanded a group of T-60 light tanks at the brigade.3)
I focused on the possible identification and consolidation of tank losses suffered by the corps. I have used the abundance of available photographs, memoirs and pre-revolutionary factual literature.
Composition of the 7th Mechanized Corps and individual brigades: - 16th Mechanized Brigade 240th Tank Regiment - 63rd Mechanised Brigade 84th Tank Regiment - 64th Mechanised Brigade 177th Tank Regiment - 41st Guards Tank Brigade - 1440th self-propelled artillery regiment - 1821st self-propelled artillery regiment - 109th Anti-Tank Artillery Regiment - 614th Mortar Regiment - 1713th Anti-Aircraft Artillery Regiment - 40th Independent Guards Mortar Division - 94th Independent Motorcycle Battalion - 649th Independent Signal Regiment - 136th Independent Engineer Battalion - 547th Field Tank Company and 548th Field Motor Company - 163rd Independent Anti-Chemical Company - 612th Independent Motor Company - air navigator - 40th Field Bakery - 1759th Field Treasury (Госбанка ) - 2649th field station (post)
The so-called "aces" are an almost unploughed field for ground troops. I managed to trace at least the memories of a member of the 16th Mechanized Brigade and the 41st Guards Tank Brigade. Both show very well the different way of fighting on the battlefields of the 7th Mechanized Corps.
The fate of Lieutenant-Commander Ivan Stepanovich Mirenkov, a member of the 16th Mechanised Brigade of the 7th Mechanised Corps, shows the severity of the fighting in southern Moravia. He reached the front through Hungary and Bratislava. However, he crossed both of these important battlefields without a fight until he reached South Moravia. As he himself recalls, he did not see the first German until 15 April at Starovice. Together with Mirenkov, the T-34/85 of Second Lieutenant Krasnov attacked Starovičky from the right and the T-34/85 of Second Lieutenant Pestrikov from the left. Before them, 3 tanks PzKpfw V. Panther.
While advancing his T-34 took a hit, luckily the shell bounced and exploded nearby. The shot was spotted by Mirenkov's tank gunner "Slava" Babushkin. A German gun was firing against the tank, the other was nearby. Babushkin's shot hit the German cannon precisely. The Germans then retreated, leaving the second gun on the road. This exposed the road and allowed their T-34 to enter the village. There, Mirenkov decided to wait for reinforcements. He was soon joined by Lieutenant Konstantin Pestrikov's tank. From this fight, only radio operator Marshenko was slightly wounded. That was the end of the first encounter with the enemy. One gun destroyed, another captured and several Germans killed.
Only the second day was fatal for the crew. In the morning there was a heavy fog. A reconnaissance consisting of two tanks (Mirenkov, Krasnov) got into a fight with a German PzKpfw V tank. Panther. The latter fired several shots, and the second T-34/85's commander, Second Lieutenant Nikolai Krasnov, reported to Mirenkov that he had been hit and was on fire! Gunner Babushkin promptly dispatched the firing Panther, but the joy of victory was tempered by the explosion of Krasnov's tank, which buried the entire crew except the driver. In the fog, Mirenkov's crew then managed to destroy two more Panthers and a PzKpfw IV (Mirenkov himself mentions a self-propelled gun on a "T-IV" chassis)5). Their tank, however, took several hits and began to burn violently. The promising gunner I. Babushkin was killed in the battle, and Mirenkov himself and the loader A. Ljubin were badly wounded. It is reported that Mirenkov's tank had the number "200" on the turret, but the number "white 44" can also be found in the literature.
Tank crew: Commander - Second Lieutenant Ivan Stepanovich Mirenkov; driver/mechanic - junior sergeant Vasily Kudryashov (18 years old); gunner - Izyaslav "Slava" Babushkin (24 years old, former mathematics teacher); charger - Alexey Ljubin; radio operator - Mikhail Marshenko.
In general, tanks of the 7th ms can be seen all over the territory of the former Czechoslovakia. The route of this unit's advance is roughly along the axis Breclav-Brno-Jihlava-Prague.
Another member of the 7th Mechanised Corps, Guards Senior Sergeant Vladimir Zakharovich Davidov, has fond memories of Prague. He joined the 41st Guards Tank Brigade after graduating from tank school in Pyatigorsk in September 1944 as a mechanic driver. He arrived in Prague on 10 May 1945. He stopped with his tank at Vinohrady, with cheerful and cheering crowds around. The very next day (11 May) the tanks of the 41st Guards Tank Brigade moved to a new place of concentration in Bukovany near Benesov, where they stayed until 10 June 1945.
After that, the T-34/85 were mounted and as V. Z. Davidov recalls "...we thought we were going home. We traveled through Poland and Czechoslovakia to the Soviet Union. However, when we left the Urals behind, everyone understood where and why we were going. Time to enter the war with Japan. On the morning of July 15, we arrived at Bain Tümen Station. We then drove 350 kilometers across the desolate steppes of Mongolia to a starting area 20 kilometers from the town of Tamsag-Bulak. Here we heard the Soviet government's announcement of the USSR's entry into the war with Japan. Early in the morning of 09.08.1945 the tanks of our brigade crossed the border with Manchuria. We advanced unopposed and in the afternoon stopped for rest in small towns." From this Davidov remembers the very dirty children in the small villages ("... it seemed to me that they were dirty from birth...") and the omnipresent heat and thirst. He himself was shaken by the difference to Europe.
"As we proceeded, the traffic conditions became even worse: loose sand with low dunes. On 11 August, the brigade began to prepare for the journey across the Great Chingan. It was the tanks of their 41st Guards Tank Brigade that had the honour of finding a suitable route and crossing the mountains first. The day before our move, three Japanese planes showed up. The fighters shot down one of them and drove two of them to retreat south. After crossing the deserts and mountains, monsoon rains completed the journey. Heavy sustained downpours of 30-40 minutes raised the level by more than half a metre in a short time. This completely paralysed our progress. Nevertheless, we managed to advance to the Tutsyuan area, where the Japanese forces quickly retreated. The townspeople warmly welcomed us as liberators. After two more days of night marches through the swamps, we arrived in Kaytun. On that day, August 20, the war was truly over for our unit." On August 23, 1945, I was demobilized by order of Stalin, the Supreme Generalissimo of the Soviet Union.
Legend:
1)Unfortunately, the losses in the available text are not given in detail as in the case of German equipment, where it is often possible to trace whether the machine was repaired or completely destroyed. Without a detailed study of contemporary archival material, it is not yet possible to determine more accurately if it is a 100% loss in all cases. 2) Unfortunately, I again state that there are shortcomings regarding the death of P. I. Filimonov. [A: The names given are P. I. Filimonov and Filomonov Peter Yakovlevich. This is also how it was listed in the central cemetery in Brno. Officially, according to the Russian website, his name was Filimonov Пётр Ивлевич B: More interesting, however, is his death and the circumstances surrounding the event. It all took place on the route Popůvky-Bosonohy-Brno. The Russians officially give the death as 19.04.1945, which would be relatively accurate. But! They put Filimonov's death in Popůvky!! But Popůvky was liberated already on 18.4. between 18-19 hours and 6 nameless heroes were taken to the central cemetery. An interesting fact is that the Russians further state the place of burial in Bosonohi! From this I conclude that he certainly did not fall directly in Popuvki, but in Bosonohy, sometime between 7pm on 18 April 1945 and the morning of 19 April 1945. Prof. V. Žampach states in the publication Direction Brno (pp. 45 - 46) that from Popůvky, if it can be called so, there were two trips to Brno. The first time the fight is mentioned, as mentioned above, in Bosonohy itself and then, according to this author, another reconnaissance of 4 tanks went up to Brno. It is impossible to trace whether Filimonov belonged to these four or to the one that had been destroyed before (Direction Brno pp.45-46. Zhampah). The parallel of the fate of J. Š. Jamaletdinovich and Filimonov. Same date, not too distant location, death of the commander and subsequent further fight with the enemy. The only difference is in the number of enemy assets destroyed (J. Š. Jamaletdinovich 2 tanks and 3 anti-tank guns - in the original противотанковые пушки, vs. two tanks and a StuG - in the original штурмовое орудие u Filimonova.) and the location of the battle. Due to limited access to original archival materials, the names of the crews of both tanks cannot be determined with accuracy. 3) They are probably light tanks T-70. The older type T-60 was not used much in 1945. The 4) table does not claim to be 100% accurate. It has been compiled as carefully as possible based on available photographs and information in the memoir and factual literature. For example, it is very difficult to trace the machines destroyed in Brno. 5) According to the photographs, it was clearly a Panzer IV J late with Thoma type guns. Unless some other machine was also destroyed. The T-IV designation is a globalized version of the Soviets' designation of German tanks during World War II. The tanks were usually referred to generically as Tiger (T) and the numeral indicated the type (T-IV is Panzer IV, T-V is Panther and so on). Similarly, self-propelled guns (i StuG III, Jagdpanzer IV) are all referred to as Ferdinand.
https://reut.ru/news/34/ https://rkka.ru V.Žampach - Direction Brno (1975) T.Jakl - May 1945 (MBI 2004) J.Břečka - Brno Spring 1945 (2005) V.Žampach - From the Hron to the Vltava (2006) HPM magazine
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