World Battlefronts: BATTLE OF RUSSIA: Zero Hour?

As days grew longer and the last snows melted in the scrubby birch forests south of Leningrad, millions of men and women on both sides of the front prepared to die in Hitler’s third bid for victory in the east. All along the 1,500-mile front, artillery unlimbered. Moscow claimed 1,894 German planes destroyed in four weeks of intensive air battles. Each night some 200 Russian heavy bombers plastered Nazi communication centers. Counterattacking Germans in the Kuban were beaten back in fierce but local encounters. The Luftwaffe raided Kursk, lost 65 planes. Russia’s Black Sea Fleet sank six bargeloads of Germans near Kerch.

Berlin reported the Russians massing troops for major operations in three strategic sectors: 1) south of Leningrad; 2) south of Moscow; 3) in the Kuban. No matter what the Russians did, Hitler would have to strike hard and soon in the south to secure the diminished, but still vast, Ukrainian grain crop so badly needed in Europe. With perhaps 500 divisions en gaged on both sides of the front, it might well be the biggest battle in history.