24.09.1942
Beginning 05:25AM ending 08:45AM
Bokov at the device.
Eremenko, Khruschev at the device.
We ask you to receive and pass the following to com. Stalin.
To comrade Stalin.
The battle at Stalingrad continues for two months now. The most active actions happen on the front in the area of river Don, Stalingrad, Krasnoarmeisk.
By all means of reconnaissance is established that 13 infantry divisions operate here (384, 305, 76, hungarian of unestablished number, 95, 389, 295, 71, 94, 297, 371 infantry divisions are German, 20th and 2nd infantry divisions are Romanian), three motorized divisions (3, 60, 29), four tank divisions (16, 24, 14 and tank division of unestablished number). Twenty divisions altogether, 480-550 tanks, 1100-1200 artillery, 600-650 aircraft of all types (the data about the airplanes is verified many times by aerial photographing)
Of these enemy forces seven divisions, oriented to the North, operate against the left part of the Stalingrad front. Of those in the region of Rossoshka, Akatovka - 5 divisions (76, Hungarian infantry division, 95, 60, 3 motorized division, 16 tank division). At most a division of forces from 60th motorized division, 3rd motorized and 16th tank division are operating oriented to the South against the right flank of the 62nd Army.
Two thirds of German forces from the composition of all the forces operating in this region are operating against Stalingrad: 9 infantry divisions (unestablished number, 389, 295, 71, 371, 297, 94 are german and 20, 2 are Romanian); three tank divisions (24, 14, and one unestablished number); Motorized division one (29th).
Characteristics of enemy forces.
Units of enemy forces have sustained considerable losses and at the current moment on average each division counts 65-70% of manpower and up to 60% of combat vehicles. Enemy being in such a high quantitative number of divisions can be explained by the fact that he constantly sends in reinforcements by using march battalions, penal companies, rear units, sappers who did not participate in the fighting as infantry before (for example: 71nd division, frayed and filled with march battalions consisting of Austrians and Poles, 296 infantry division received 4th and 9th penal companies to reinforce them, 14th tank division received a sapper battalion as reinforcements and etc.).
At Stalingrad the German army consists of the following nationalities: Germans, Austrians, Poles, Hungarians, Romanians. The air force consists of German aviation, Romanian and Italian.
All this was mixed up during the battles. This evidence that according orders by Paulus from 6th army and Gott from 4th army are issued not from a good life. It should be noted that in the North the enemy forces are commanded by the general of the 6th army while from South and West - commander of the 4th tank army. Both these commanders who lead the armies do not have any exceptional abilities being stupid but stubborn scoundrels [sic]. The main figure who keeps rescuing them is the commander of the 8th Air corps, colonel general Reichtchoffen. We can mention other capable and brave generals such as commander of the 29th mechanized division general Frommery, commander of the 14 t.d. [tank division] general Kyun and 24th t.d. - Huanschield. On the other hand such generals like the commander of the 6th Romanian artillery corps Dragolina, commander of the 20th Romanian i.d. [infantry division] Grigoresku, 2nd Romanian i.d. Tudose we can only speak as a retreating generals, retreating divisions and that they are not a formidable force.
Enemy forces have sustained colossal damage at Stalingrad: according to even the modest calculations from 6th of August till 20th of September 25-32 thousand soldiers and officers were killed, 80-112 thousands were wounded, 1156 planes were shot down or damaged, 250-300 artillery units destroyed, burned or knocked out 550-600 tanks.
Secondly. That offensive momentum which the enemy had is reducing from day to day despite them trying to gather reinforcements and send them to battle, trying to keep up their unit combat capabilities at a defined level and keeping the initiative in their hands. But the numbers are falling and the enemy is visibly losing his breath. Our unit tenacity at Stalingrad has considerably broken the spirit of faschist forces and their offensive pace is reducing, despite the best units infantry, motorized infantry, tank and most importantly aviation forces that are concentrated here and their will to take Stalingrad. Despite all that, they were unable to take Stalingrad.
Thirdly. After thorough observation of enemies approaching reinforcements, it was established that there are no fresh units among them, but as pointed out earlier reinforcing is done with various teams, penal units, aerodrome crews and other stubs. This shows that enemies' reserves are dwindling.
What can we say about our own forces?
Firstly, during this battle which is far from being finished, the forces of South-Eastern front have survived I would say attacks unprecedented by their strength, artillery power and especially the aviation. They inflicted colossal damage to the enemy despite having very imperfect defensive structures near Stalingrad which were constructed in three thin lines without needed depth and mostly placed stupidly from tactical point of view, not to speak about the operative defence in total.
Secondly. There were almost no cases when our units trembled, gave in to panic and fled from the battlefield. It is surprising to see that after concentrated massive aviation strikes it seems that there is nothing left in the area, moreover tanks and infantry attack after the bombing, but still the defenders of Stalingrad are stopping tanks and infantry and repelling their attacks and counterattacks.
We must mark a solid and well-proven 64th army commander major general comrade Shumilov. Comrade Chuikov also works well lately. Commander of the 133 tank brigade colonel Bubnov must be noted too. For a month he and his brigade took part in countering the most important attacks and counter attacks of the enemy, constantly preserving the force of the brigade on the level of 20 KV tanks.
What is happening near Stalingrad now?
The enemy has wedged in to the city in its western part at the area of 6-7 kilometers and near Kuporosnoe, outskirts of Minino and approached the bank of Volga. 9/10 of the city are in our hands as well as industrial regions both in the South and in the North of the city. The main difficulty is that the enemy has a big impact on our ferries with his mortars, artillery and aviation and makes transfering reinforcements, food and ammo, evacuating wounded across the Volga river extremely difficult. The most important is not that the enemy keeps the ferries under fire, but that they destroy our ships and ferry facilities.
Help from the North has dragged on. Mostly this has made things more complicated for the defenders of Stalingrad. But the spirit of the defenders is nevertheless high, firm and unshakable.
Regarding the Stalingrad front.
I returned from the Stalingrad front only on 23.09.1942 at 7:00AM. There on the spot I made sure that there are enough forces and reinforcement units. On the front of the main direction (left wing) there are twenty two divisions operating along with considerable reinforcing unit count. It may seem that with these units one could not only attack, but even crawl [sic] and already be in Stalingrad.
Where is the main reason for our failures?
The main reason:
a) is the inability of the division commanders organize a fight and overview it, influencing the course of battle;
b) low exactingness
c) and the worst and even obscene I would say is that the commanders of the divisions and regiments do not know what is in front of them, what enemy, they do not study their adversary and frequently at the start of the battle they call artillery barrage at almost empty spots. I have spoken to 17 different division commanders and three army commanders (66, 24, 1st guards). It appeared that for ten days of operation none of the divisions have captured a single POW (considering that this is an offensive operation). And no one knew, this is simply amazing, no one knew(!) who is in front of them, what adversary and how much.
During the offensive on 18.09.1942 on the front of two strike armies 24th and 1st guards, there were only 4 enemy regiments, against 12 attacking divisions. The enemy was clearly surprised and still, the operation didn’t succeed.
What is the main reason for failure?
If first offensive failures were explained by the lack of time and haste, then in this case there was time and superiority over the enemy, except for the aviation. But there was no success.
What is the reason?
Because the regiments of the division did not have proper data about the adversary, they attacked the no man's land and their artillery fire was in essence aimed at the empty field.
And the second: the infantry did not follow the tanks into battle {That was a common flaw in the RA, Isaev frequently mentions this in his books}. [German] submachinegunners {sic, most likely he meant machinegunners} have stopped the first units which stalled all the rest because of overly deep battle order {again a common RA flaw noted by various historians: overly deep battle order on the offence and overly thin in the defence}. The appearance of strong enemy aircraft over the battlefield has forced the units to stop and lie down because it is very difficult to hide in an open place. The impact of the aviation was very strong because the attacking divisions had only 1-1.5 kilometers wide front and created too dense formations. Because of this almost every bomb dropped from the enemy airplane hit some target. The commanders did not understand that the longer they remain in place, the higher the losses inflicted by aviation {once again a big problem of the RA of the time. It is counterintuitive to go forward in such conditions, however this is what seasoned soldiers do and it does save a lot of lives that way, but there was no experience to understand that at that point of time}. On the contrary, after you engage in a firefight with the enemy, wedge yourself into his battle formations, the losses are less, because that makes the aviation actions very difficult due to fear of friendly fire. Besides, our infantry has lost the soul of infantry: those powerful automatic weapons we have, powerful infantry weapons they are armed with, they do not use and fire upon the enemy, do not conduct real infantry combat, that is, what they are strong with.
The enemy with only tens of machine gunners, being in the defence is holding off our entire attacking regiments, but our infantry does not engage into a firefight. We only hear artillery RS {Katyusha} and aviation on the battlefield. Hand grenades are almost completely forgotten on the battlefield. It is very good for the enemy when we attack on a narrow front, because his mobile units are quickly moved to this direction and also he can conduct concentrated airstrikes.
I think that in these conditions and given superiority in ground forces which we have here, we must attack in three - four directions to disperse enemies' effort and better utilize our forces and combat vehicles. I have made such a decision on the spot: to strengthen the strike on the flank of the 1st guards army and on the left flank of com. Malinovsky. Comrade Zhukov has approved this decision.
The failure of the offensive largely depended on the Stalingrad fronts lack of ability to control the forces. Com. Gordov himself is not a particularly clear-cut person and control is not perfectly organized by him. But the main thing is that com. Gordov makes mistakes in selecting people and cannot form his own staff. He praised Nikishev a lot, but Nikishev appeared to be incapable of running the staff. He praised com. Kovalenko, who was allowed to be the head of the staff, but he also appeared to be a bad manager and not an administrator, a completely incapable man. Chief of operative staff Ruhle is a worthless person who fears responsibility, not precise, sloppy and also a coward.
Despite the huge work performed there by com. Zhukov and com. Malenkov to organize the offensive and to help the front, the staff did not cut it and was unable to ensure the leading and management of the ongoing operation.
I think that Kovalenko’s further presence as the chief of staff, whom I asked to allow to be on such a duty on behalf of Gordov, as well as comrade Ruhle being chief of operative department, is impossible.
I ask for your order to appoint someone to their places from the reserve of Stavka, because I have no other candidates.
About all the questions I addressed while on the spot with comrade Khruschev, we have taken a series of measures to eliminate all the organizational, tactical and operative flaws.
From 7:00AM 23.09.1942 I am at the command post near Stalingrad.
Eremenko, Khrushchev. 23 of September 1942, 08:30 AM.
Comrade Bokov, I ask you to immediately report this to comrade Stalin. Eremenko, Khruschev.
Bokov.: it will be reported to com. Stalin today. I have no further questions. Good bye. Bokov.
8:45AM 24.09.1942
ЦАМО. Ф. 96а. Оп. 2011. Д. 26. Л. 182—190. Копия.
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