38th Army (Soviet Union)

Under the command of Lieutenant-General Dmitry Ryabyshev, 38th Army was based on the forces and headquarters of the 8th Mechanised Corps and incorporated other Soviet units then in the Cherkassy area.

German high command intended to develop this crossing into a bridgehead that would form the southern arm of an encirclement of much of Southwestern Front east of the Dnepr.

Tsyganov's forces abandoned Kharkov on 24 October, and by early November the frontline had begun to stabilize east of the Donets in the Kupyansk area.

Part of these new frontline positions were within the salient into German lines that Southwestern Front had established south of Kharkov in January (the so-called Barvenkovo Pocket).

By the end of the month the encircled force had been destroyed, less than one in ten of the surrounded personnel being able to effect an escape, and Moskalenko was left defending roughly the same positions in the Kupyansk area that 38th Army had occupied in November 1941.

On the morning of 28 June the main German strategic offensive of 1942 (Case Blue) opened with an attack from the Kursk area towards the Don at Voronezh.

By 6 July this objective had become clear to Soviet high command and the next day, in order to avoid a major encirclement, Southwestern Front was authorised to retreat to the east.

As the days passed this retreat became increasingly chaotic and by 12 July Moskalenko was struggling to maintain close control over his forces, which were in danger of being surrounded at Markivka.

The salient's frontline, in which 38th Army was positioned in the southwest corner on Voronezh front's right flank south of Koronevo, remained largely unchanged through the rest of March, April, May and June.

On 5 July 1943 Germany's last strategic offensive on the Eastern Front (Operation Citadel) opened with attacks on the northern and southern shoulders of the Kursk Salient.

Within a week 38th Army had crossed the Desna and had seized two small bridgeheads across the Dnepr north of Kiev in the Lutezh area.

The bridgeheads were subsequently linked to form a viable lodgement on the right bank of the Dnepr, but Chibisov's forces were unable to achieve a breakout.

In the last week of October Soviet forces in the bridgehead were strengthened considerably, much of this reinforcement going undetected by German military intelligence.

A renewed breakout effort, made with the assistance of a massive artillery bombardment, was launched on 3 November, with 38th Army attacking south towards Kiev from the southern sector of the bridgehead.

During January 1944 the forces of First Ukrainian Front (the former Voronezh Front, renamed on 20 October 1943) advanced further to the southwest to Berdichev (taken on 5 January) to Vinnitsa and towards Zhmerinka, but the advance to the upper Bug was repulsed by German forces and during February the frontline stabilised southwest of Berdichev and Kazatin.

On 25 March 1944 Pilipenko, who had been promoted to the rank of major-general in January 1943, was killed in a plane crash, and he was replaced as the army's chief of staff by Lieutenant-General Vasilii Vorobev.

Here the frontline stabilised during the late spring and early summer of 1944, during which, after some regrouping of First Ukrainian Front's forces, 38th Army was positioned west of Ternopil on the Lvov axis.

On 13 July Moskalenko's forces participated in a major offensive by First Ukrainian Front to advance from the Western Bug to the Vistula.

As the offensive developed the forces of First Ukrainian Front began to diverge; the bulk of its forces on the right and centre advanced west on the Lvov axis striking across the river San and towards the Vistula, while the two armies on the Front's left flank (to the left of 38th Army) advanced southwest on the Stanislav axis towards the northern Carpathians.

Moskalenko's forces continued to advance to the west, crossing the San southwest of Przemysl and establishing a stable frontline north of the Carpathians in the Krosno area by the end of August.

The offensive was renewed on 28 September, but it took more than a week of hard fighting before Moskalenko's forces were able to secure the Dukla Pass on 6 October.

For a further three weeks 38th Army continued to advance slowly to the south, fighting off German counter-attacks on its right flank, and eventually reaching the village of Kapisova a few kilometres north of Svidnik.

By early January Moskalenko's forces had been pulled out of Slovakia to be concentrated west of Krosno in preparation for the Red Army's major winter offensive in Poland.

Thereafter the rate of advance began to slow, though by mid-February Moskalenko's forces had reached the area west of Bielsko Biala.