The news of this feat was soon broadcast and published around the USSR and a full-page photo of Boloto appeared on a motivational leaflet entitled "Learn to Fight With the Stalingraders!"

At this critical moment XIV Panzer Corps had to slow its advance due to acute fuel shortages and stiff resistance north of Kalach.

VIII Corps' 113th and 100th Jäger Divisions, supported by most of 16th Panzer's tanks, had to simultaneously contain two Soviet bridgeheads south of the Don, defeat and destroy Group Zhuravlyov, and fend off attempts to relieve the pocket.

Attacking southward on August 7 from the Maiorovskii region, 30km northwest of Kalach, multiple battlegroups of 16th Panzer smashed through the defenses of 33rd Guards and 131st Rifle Divisions and reached the northern outskirts of the town by nightfall.

The remaining units in the bridgehead fared no better from the tank and infantry onslaught and shortly after dark the 24th Panzer Division linked up with the 16th to complete its encirclement.

By 0400 hours the next morning they had reached to within 22-25km northwest of this objective, but on August 11 the Army stated it had lost communications with four encircled divisions including 33rd Guards.

6th Army announced the completion of the battle the following day, along with the elimination of eight rifle divisions; Soviet documents indicate that roughly half of the encircled troops managed to escape east across the Don but as of August 20 this included just 48 men of the 91st Guards Regiment.

When 6th Army began its dash for the Volga on August 21 the division was thrown in to help man defenses south of the corridor east of the Rossoshka River.

[citation needed] While this looked good on paper the division, along with the 196th and the 20th Motorized Rifle Brigade, were only shells of their former selves, with regiments numbered in the hundreds of men and battalions in the tens.

The 6th and 4th Panzer Armies went over to the offensive that day and continued to advance on Stalingrad on September 4, forcing the remnants of the two Soviet divisions back southeastward toward Opytnaia Station and the wooded northern slopes of the Tsaritsa River valley.

Moving all of this took time and the bulk of these forces didn't arrive at the front until December 18 although 1st Guards Corps had disembarked some distance to the north five days earlier.

The strategic position had also been altered when Southwestern and Voronezh Fronts launched Operation Little Saturn on December 16 which soon had Army Group Don and the other Axis forces in the Caucasus region scrambling to save themselves.

Late in the evening of December 31 the 2nd Guards Mechanized liberated Tormosin although due to a communications error this news did not appear in the STAVKA summary until January 2, 1943:Southern Front.

Overnight the 84th Guards Regiment, supported by two artillery battalions, penetrated into the farm but was met with a counterattack led by 15 tanks and was pushed back.

[19] At this time a powerful German reinforcement, in the form of the fresh and nearly-complete 7th Panzer Division, was beginning to arrive by rail at Rostov and Shakhty, the latter of which was the immediate objective of 1st Guards Corps.

On the 19th the division seized a bridgehead 5km wide and 7km deep over the Donets; at 1000 hours the 84th Guards Regiment was attacked by a company of infantry and five tanks which forced it to withdraw to the southern outskirts of Nizhne Kudriuchenskaia.

On January 25-26 the 33rd Guards and 387th moved south of the river; due to Soviet supply difficulties both divisions had to leave part of their artillery behind because of the absence of fuel.

The next day it attacked towards Manychskaia and Samodurovka without success due to strong enemy resistance from up to two German infantry battalions and 20-25 tanks of the 16th Motorized Division.

The 88th Guards, led by Lt. Col. Dmitrii Vasilyevich Kazak, was soon surrounded and subjected to up to 24 counterattacks from elements of 23rd Panzer, including attached Tiger tanks.

At 1600 German artillery fire destroyed the regiments' radio communications and after a final stand on Hill 105.8 for several hours the remnants infiltrated to safety in the rear.

After an outflanking landing by elements of the 387th Rifle Division the German Gruppe Konrad began a costly retreat to its second line at Ishun, which was already untenable and soon fell, giving the Soviet forces complete access to the Crimea.

Gabdelahat Gabdelganeevich Valiev, a squad leader of the 1st Company of the 91st Guards Regiment, would be posthumously made a Hero of the Soviet Union on the same day for his gallantry in the fighting near Belbek.

Two days later another massive artillery preparation blasted the top of Mount Sapun, followed by an assault by three rifle corps, including the 11th Guards,[32] to which the division was now assigned; this encountered very strong machine gun and mortar fire from still-intact German positions.

The troops who participated in the liberation of Sevastopol, by the order of the Supreme High Command of May 10, 1944, and a commendation in Moscow, are given a salute of 24 artillery salvoes from 324 guns.

The latest intelligence indicated the German forces in Belorussia, the target of the first offensive, were stronger than previously thought so 2nd Guards Army was alerted for a move to Yartsevo.

[37] On August 29 General Volosatykh was moved to the Front headquarters before being reassigned as deputy commander of 40th Rifle Corps; he was replaced by Maj. Gen. Konstantin Vladimirovich Vvedenskii.

The German forces put up heavy resistance and the lead divisions had to beat off 12 infantry and tank counterattacks before capturing the first trench line and parts of the second and pausing to consolidate.

On January 31 the Corps reached the Frisches Haff from the north along a 10km front, cutting off the German forces in and around Königsberg from contact to the west, but heavy counterattacks soon re-opened a corridor.

It was assigned to a front 7-8km wide on the south flank on the north shore of the Frisches Haff as a support for the three armies (5th, 39th, and 11th Guards) operating in the center.

The German forces, squeezed into an increasingly restricted space, put up stubborn resistance the next two days but on April 17 the 43rd assisted the 39th Army in capturing the town of Fischausen in a night attack.