No Zapad

The grey, drizzly dawn broke at 3 a.m. over the rain-soaked fields and forests north of Orel (pronounced Oryol). The thundering artillery barrage which had been splitting the night lifted and the Red Army surged forward along a 25-mile front. The attack was led by 42-ton KV tanks, made in large Soviet plants in the Urals. Lend-leased British Churchills and U.S. Shermans were close behind. Then came the infantry, battle-toughened and well equipped, spirited by the news two days before of the invasion of Sicily. Their battle cry: Na Zapad (Westward).

Toward the front over muddy roads and fields went thousands of tanks, armored cars, trucks and guns. Heavily gunned German blockhouses, pillboxes and fortified ravines were reduced by the famed, straight-shooting Russian artillery. Overhead U.S. and British-made bombers dropping three-and four-ton bombs cooperated with Soviet Stormoviks in attacks on enemy tank and troop concentrations and on German nerve centers at Orel and Bryansk. In a vain attempt to stem the tide, the Luftwaffe flew as many as 1,500 sorties in a single day, but the sky was full of Russian planes. The Germans could not win the air supremacy they needed.

The Germans fought fanatically, but the Russians pressed on. In the first three days they advanced 25 miles toward Orel from three directions, liberating no towns and villages. They routed five German divisions; five others "suffered a heavy defeat." By last week's end, twelve days after the counterattack began, they had pressed on past Orel, to within 35 miles of Bryansk. German communications with the Orel garrison were being pinched off (see map). For the first time in Russia, where the main forces of Germany were still engaged, the Red Army had the summer initiative. A test was under way, a victory was in sight which could mean more to the Allied cause than last week's gains in Sicily and Italy (see p. 33).

The Bone-Grinder. Orel was for the Germans, like Stalingrad, a Knochenmuehle (bone-grinder). A Nazi war correspondent wired the Voelkischer Beobachter: "Today's setting sun has seen more soldiers dying than soldiers sleeping. For every single minute during the entire day all of us, from the last private to the highest staff officer, have been conscious of the monstrous Russian superiority. Our battalions had to be spread out very thin to meet the Russian attacks everywhere. Last night we were forced to retreat hastily. .. . All we could take with us were a few artillery pieces and a few anti-tank guns. But many of our units managed to keep only their machine guns and rifles. It is with those weapons that we have been meeting since this morning wave upon wave of Russian tanks. . . . The grey sky is marked by swarms of enemy planes. . . . They add to our plight by swooping down upon us without being hindered. . . . Our soldiers have long ago thrown away all their belongings, keeping only their rifles and ammunition. . . ."

The entire eastern front blazed into action as other Red attacks were launched south of Leningrad, against the Belgorod, Donets and Mius River salients, at the Nazi bridgehead in the Caucasus. But to the Soviet Supreme Command many of these operations were not of general importance. Said one Moscow communique: "South of Izyum, fighting of a local nature continued. ... A regiment of German infantry and 80 tanks counterattacked one of our units. ..."

But the Berlin radio voiced alarm: "The enemy is attacking with terrible numerical superiority at Orel. . . . The entire Russian super-offensive shows that the Russians want to enforce a decision in the war this summer. ..." A Nazi spokesman said 600 divisions were deployed on the eastern front on both sides. (In Sicily not more than 20 divisions are engaged on both sides.)

For the German High Command, Orel is not of overwhelming strategic importance. Key Nazi anchors at Bryansk and Smolensk, 145 miles northwest of Bryansk, might be defended effectively, even if Orel is lost. But another Stalingrad, another German army chewed up, and German army morale might not survive.

Red Star referred to German tankmen's "indecision, bordering on cowardice" in the Orel battle. Wrote Red Star last week: "Victory is approaching. The emaciated German divisions are now unable to check our offensive." This week Moscow dispatches reported that the Germans in Orel were demolishing the city, preparing to retreat through a narrowing corridor in their rear.

Objectives. Marshal Joseph Stalin was reported at the front personally coordinating the Russian offensives. This week he assumed operative command of the Orel drive. His main strategic objectives perhaps were: 1) to draw German forces away from Kursk, where some 38 Nazi divisions under Field Marshal Guenther von Kluge have made small gains at great costs (TIME, July 19); 2) to eliminate the Orel salient, which pointed menacingly at Moscow. If the Russians can chew off the German salients at Leningrad, Orel, Belgorod, on the Donets and the Mius Rivers, wipe out the Caucasian bridgehead, a general push westward toward Germany should be possible in 1943.

The Germans had lost the initiative. Their objectives were simple: to defend themselves as best they could, selling everything they lost at the highest possible price, so that the weakened Red Army would be unable to launch decisive offensives later.

Achievements. By last week Stalin's objective 1 had been achieved. In a special order of the day he announced that "the German offensive of July [against Kursk] . . . had been finally liquidated."

Then Stalin reported: "In the period between July 5 and July 23 the enemy sustained the following losses: more than 70,000 killed; 2,900 tanks destroyed or disabled, 195 self-propelled guns, 844 field guns, 1,392 planes and more than 5,000 trucks destroyed." (The Germans claimed 350,000 Russians killed, wounded or captured since July 15; 4,964 Russian tanks, more than 2,000 planes, 2,310 cannon destroyed.)

Hitler's Orel salient seemed doomed. If it fell and if the Red Army also succeeded in liquidating the Belgorod salient, the Russians would be free to make the move the Germans probably feared most --a push southward toward the Sea of Azov, which would cut off the industrial Donets basin and trap large German forces. If this operation could be executed, the great westward march would be under way.

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