1943 Dnepr airborne operation: lessons and conclusions

Military Thought, July, 2003 by Nikolai Viktorovich Staskov

On routing, in summer 1943, 60 years ago, a German battle group near Kursk, the Soviet forces pressed home an attack in the South-Western strategic sector in a bid to reach the midstream Dnepr area and, without a halt, to seize a beachhead on the river's western bank. They did cross the Dnepr without a pause in operations and seize a number of beachheads, something that made it possible to deploy there several major battle groups of the Voronezh Front (commander Army General N.F. Vatutin) that had scored the most spectacular advances. The objective was to perform a subsequent swoop in order to capture the Left-Bank Ukraine. The enemy resistance flagged in early September: no longer hoping to withhold the Soviet advance in the Kiev sector, the German command started pulling back its forces to the right bank of the Dnepr, where it organized defenses.

The rapid advance of the friendly forward units prepared the ground for a major airborne assault landing with a view to capturing a beachhead on the western bank of the Dnepr and aiding a crossing by the forward combined units of the friendly forces. The command of the Voronezh Front had conceived a plan to use an airborne assault force on the Dnepr as far back as summer. It was intended to land troops in the Kiev area in order to prepare the ground for a rapid taking of the Ukrainian capital. The Supreme High Command had approved the idea, but the operational situation shaped differently, calling for an urgent airborne landing in the environs of the Dnepr's Bukrin bend, where there was a promise of bigger successes.

Three airborne brigades were assigned to conduct the operation. Since all three were intended for a joint action in one area, the plan was to merge them in an airborne corps under Deputy Commander of the Airborne Troops Maj. Gen. I.I. Zatevakhin, with a number of Airborne Troops Staff officers selected to form the staff of the corps. To assist the landing, Long-Range Aviation (LRA) set aside 180 Li-2 planes and 35 gliders. Air support was due to come from 150 I1-4 and B-25 (U.S.-made) planes. The forming-up place included the Bogodukhov and the Lebedin airfield complexes (five airfields all in all). It was planned to complete concentration of forces and assets assigned to the airborne assault two days before the landing that was due to take place in the night of September 24.

Planning the operation was the Front's operations directorate, mostly an Airborne Troops Staff command group, which joined the Voronezh Front Staff in early September. Informed about the decision to use an airborne assault force on the Dnepr, the AT Commander, Maj. Gen. A.G. Kapitokhin, ordered the brigades to the forming-up place. Before September 17, the brigades were preparing, in their permanent deployment locations (1st AB, Teikovo; 3rd AB, Shchyolkovo; 5th AB, Kirzhach), for the forthcoming airdrop in the enemy rear area. Preparations finished, they moved in by rail to the forming-up place.

A delay in material delivery and an extremely intense military rail traffic in the Front's rear area were the reasons why the brigades massed at the airfields three days later than the planned date. Thus, in the forming-up place they had less than one day to prepare for the airdrop. In addition, at first only eight transport planes had arrived. For that reason the landing was postponed by one day. But even then all detailed airborne transport aircraft failed to appear. LRA Deputy Commander Lt. Gen. N.S. Skripko, who was in charge of the air action, was doing his best, if with little effect, to get the planes and prepare them for the mission. The result was inadequate and that subsequently led to grave pilot errors.

Forward units of the 40th Army and the 3rd Guards Tank Army, using means at hand, crossed with some guns, in the evening of September 22, to the western bank of the Dnepr and were fighting in the environs of Rzhishchev, Traktomirov and Zarubentsy, holding a beachhead that was later called the Bukrin beachhead. The main forces were not expected to come to the Dnepr before September 29.

Back in early September air reconnaissance had established that the enemy had failed to create defenses in and bring considerable reserves to the territory inside the bend on the river's western bank, where the friendly forward units were operating. But the Germans, using their combat engineer units and the local population had built a defensive zone two to three kilometers deep, consisting mostly of trenches and separate earth-and-timber emplacements, which were yet to be occupied by troops.

These were the circumstances behind the final decision to drop airborne troops in the area. The plan of the airborne operation had been mostly drawn up by that time, with the Supreme High Command representative, Army General G.K. Zhukov, who was based at the staff of the Voronezh Front, approving it on September 19. The plan assigned these responsibilities for the air and airborne action: the long-range aviation command was supposed to suppress the enemy before the operation and to perform the airdrop; the Front's air army commander, Lt. Gen. S.A. Krasovsky, was due to provide cover for and support the force after the drop; the Airborne Troops Commander was to prepare the force for its mission in the forming-up place and to arrange all organizational matters.