Episode 29 - The noose tightens and Hoth’s elastic withdrawal delays the Russian attack on Rostov

On the 28th December 1942 Joseph Stalin was fuming back in Moscow. There were at least seven Russian armies tied down trying to defeat General Paulus and they had still not taken the city back from the Germans. He was also growing very tired of hearing the mostly exaggerated reports from his field commanders including impossible boasts such as “3 250 tanks captured and 1 800 aircraft destroyed”. The Germans didn’t even have 1 800 in the area, let alone three thousand tanks. Stalin seemed to be aware of these discrepancies. The Russian commanders failed to understand that the boasts would lead to Stalin eventually asking a fundamentally logic question – if so many were being taken prisoner and all their equipment was being destroyed, why hadn’t the Sixth Army surrendered? On the same day that Stalin was pacing about his office, General Vatutin at Soviet Southwest Front headquarters on the upper Don phoned him with news of another overwhelming victory. “The Italian Eighth Army’s entire right wing had melted away,” warbled Vatutin “ .. sixty thousand prisoners and about the same number killed.. stores seized by our forces.. the pitiful remains .. are not putting up any resistance..” Stalin listened to Vatutin who was clearly excited and puffed up. The Russian dictator was more worried about the possibility of a German counter-attack and there were signs already. The main problem was Tatsinkaya airfield, taken by the Russians only four days before and watched by the Luftwaffe 2IC General Martin Fiebig. Last episode we heard how he’d only just managed to make it out flying to Rostov which lay to the South west of Stalingrad. But a Russian armoured column had ended up being trapped at Tatsinskaya airfield by lead elements of the German Panzers rushed from their aborted relief drive towards Stalingrad. The major issue he was facing was in the command structure. Remember there were two generals in charge in the south – Rokossovsky and Yeremenko. Field Marshal Zhukov for once said nothing when Stalin asked “Who gets the assignment?” There was silence a first, then one of those present suggested Lieutenant General Rokossovsky. “Why don’t you say anything?” Stalin prodded Zhukov. He said either general was capable, sitting very firmly on the fence. “Yeremenko’s feelings will be hurt, or course…”