Operation Iskra (Leningrad, 1943)

Background

German and Finnish forces had closed the ring round Leningrad by 8 September 1941. The first drive on the city failed and a siege followed. Through 1942 the city lived on what could cross Lake Ladoga, by boat in summer and over the ice in winter, and every Soviet attempt to break the ring failed, the last being the Sinyavino offensive of autumn 1942. After it, the Leningrad and Volkhov Fronts were again separated by a German salient only about 16 km wide, running south from Shlisselburg on the Ladoga shore: the "bottleneck".

The ground favoured the defender. South of the lake it is flat, forested and full of peat bogs, hard going for guns and vehicles even in winter, and overlooked by the Sinyavino heights. The front had barely moved since 1941, and the Germans had turned every workers' settlement of the peat industry into a strongpoint behind minefields, wire and bunkers.

Planning for a new attempt began in November 1942 and Stavka approved it in December under the codename Iskra ("Spark"). The moment was good. Stalingrad and the Soviet attack at Velikiye Luki had put Army Group North on the defensive; the 11th Army, which had beaten the September attempt, and nine other divisions had been sent elsewhere. The directive was to defeat the enemy around Lipka, Gaitolovo, Dubrovka and Shlisselburg, break the blockade and finish by the end of January. Unlike the September attack, which had gone in south of Sinyavino and been undone by flank attacks from the north, Iskra would strike north of Sinyavino, along the lake shore: safer, but it gave up any hope of encircling most of the Germans in the bottleneck. The start, set for 1 January, slipped to 12 January because the Neva ice was too weak.

The armies

The Soviet strike groups numbered 302,800 men by Krivosheev's count. West of the bottleneck, Govorov's Leningrad Front used the 67th Army under Dukhanov, with four rifle divisions in the first echelon and two in the second, each reinforced with a tank battalion, four or five artillery and mortar regiments, an anti-tank regiment and engineers; about 1,870 guns and mortars (including Baltic Fleet guns) and the 414 aircraft of the 13th Air Army backed it. Its first task was to cross about 12 km of frozen Neva between the Nevsky Pyatachok bridgehead and Shlisselburg. East of it, Meretskov's Volkhov Front attacked with Romanovsky's 2nd Shock Army (six divisions up, four behind, two in reserve) on a 12 km front from Lipka to Gaitolovo, with part of the 8th Army on its left, some 2,885 guns and mortars and 395 aircraft. Both fronts had trained through December; specialist units included three ski brigades and four aerosani (propeller sledge) battalions.

Lindemann's 18th Army held a 450 km front with 26 divisions and no divisional reserves. The bottleneck belonged to Leyser's XXVI Corps, about 60,000 men, with the 96th Infantry, most of the 5th Mountain Division and the 502nd Heavy Tank Battalion near Mga. That battalion had nine of the new Tiger tanks, alongside Panzer IIIs. The Soviets outnumbered the defenders several times over; the Germans relied on their fortifications.

The battle

Over the ice, 12 January. CDB90's Leningrad (Operation Spark) engagement (492) covers 12–19 January from the 2nd Shock Army's side. After a night of bombing, both fronts' artillery opened at 9:30: 2 hours 20 minutes for the 67th Army, 1 hour 45 minutes for the 2nd Shock. At 11:50 the 67th Army's four first-echelon divisions crossed the Neva behind a rolling barrage, with light tanks and armoured cars, the only vehicles the ice would bear. The 268th and 136th Divisions broke the German 170th Infantry Division in the centre near Mar'ino and Gorodok No. 2 and by nightfall held a bridgehead about 5–6 km wide and 3 km deep. On the flanks the attack failed: the 45th Guards got barely 500–600 metres out of the Nevsky Pyatachok, and the 86th Division could not cross at Shlisselburg. A crossing for medium and heavy tanks at Mar'ino was not ready until 14 January. In the east the 2nd Shock Army went in at 11:15; its 128th, 372nd and 256th Divisions advanced up to 2 km into the 227th Infantry Division but could not take the strongpoints at Lipka and Workers' Settlement No. 8, and the 327th took most of the Kruglaya grove. The 8th Army's supporting attack made nothing. Lindemann at once sent battle groups from the 96th Infantry Division, with Tigers, to Gorodok No. 2 and Workers' Settlement No. 1.

Grinding through the settlements, 13–17 January. Low cloud grounded Soviet aircraft on 13 January and both fronts gained almost nothing for heavy losses. Both fed in their second echelons, while the Germans pulled battle groups from the 1st and 61st Infantry, 5th Mountain and SS Police Divisions off quieter sectors. On 14 January the air came back and the 12th Ski Brigade crossed the Ladoga ice to strike Lipka from behind; the 256th Division took Podgornaya station and Workers' Settlement No. 7. That day the Soviets disabled a Tiger near Workers' Settlement No. 5 and towed it away on the 17th. On 15 January the 372nd Division took Settlements No. 8 and No. 4, while the 86th Division and the 55th Rifle Brigade, attacking over the lake ice, closed on Shlisselburg. By the evening of 17 January the two fronts were only 1.5–2 km apart, between Settlements No. 1 and No. 5.

The link-up, 18 January. The Germans now let the troops cut off around Shlisselburg and Lipka break south while Group Hühner held Settlements No. 1 and No. 5. At 9:30 a battalion of the 67th Army's 123rd Rifle Brigade met the 2nd Shock Army's 372nd Division on the eastern edge of Settlement No. 1. At No. 5 the 136th Division beat off a counter-attack, broke in and met the 18th Rifle Division before noon (11:45 in Glantz's account). Shlisselburg was cleared that day and Lipka fell to the 128th Division and 12th Ski Brigade. The ring was broken. The Soviet line was still thin, and about 8,000 Germans abandoned their heavy weapons and slipped south past Settlement No. 5, reaching Sinyavino on 19–20 January.

Against the heights, 19–30 January. Zhukov wanted the offensive to roll straight on south to the Mga and the Kirov railway. But the Germans now stood on a prepared line from Gorodok No. 1 and No. 2 through Settlement No. 6 and Sinyavino to the western Kruglaya grove, reinforced by the 21st, 11th, 28th Jäger and 212th Divisions. The Soviets took Settlement No. 6 but nothing more. By about 22 January the front had set hard, and the operation officially ended on 30 January.

Aftermath

Krivosheev puts Soviet losses for 12–30 January at 115,082, of whom 33,940 were killed, missing or captured: about one man in nine of the force was lost for good. German figures are far less certain; the whole 18th Army reported 22,619 casualties in January.

The prize was a corridor 8–11 km wide along the lake shore. Work on a 33 km railway from Polyany to Shlisselburg, with a 1,300-metre temporary bridge over the Neva, began on 20 January and was finished by 6 February, seventeen days later; the first train from the mainland ran on the night of 7 February. The line passed 3–5 km from German guns, so trains ran only at night and railwaymen called it the "Corridor of Death". From late May it carried up to 32 trains a night, and in 1943 it delivered 4.4 million tonnes, two and a half times as much as the Ladoga route. City rations rose.

Iskra ended any real chance of storming Leningrad or of the Germans and Finns joining hands, though Stalingrad overshadowed it within days. It was also incomplete: the corridor stayed under artillery fire and Sinyavino stayed German. Zhukov, made Marshal on 18 January, planned Operation Polar Star, which failed. The siege was lifted only in January 1944. The two captured Tigers went to Kubinka for study. The breakthrough is remembered by a diorama museum on the Neva bank (1983), a memorial T-34 near Mar'ino and an obelisk at the meeting place (1973).

Wargaming it

Iskra is a siege-breaking battle in a narrow box: two attackers converging on a 12–16 km salient against a corps that can only be reinforced from the south. At operational scale (regiment or division counters, half-day or daily turns) it runs about 19 turns; the first week, to the link-up, makes a tighter game.

The key terrain is all man-made or frozen. The Neva crossing is the opening puzzle: until a heavy-tank crossing is built, only light tanks and armoured cars can cross, so the 67th Army fights its first two days with infantry and guns alone. Behind the river, the numbered workers' settlements, Gorodok No. 1 and No. 2, Lipka and the Kruglaya grove are strongpoints in bog where movement off the few roads should be slow and costly. The Ladoga ice is an open flank that only ski troops use.

The German player's game is timing: when to release the Mga reserves and the handful of Tigers, which sectors can be stripped for battle groups, and when to let the Shlisselburg and Lipka garrisons break out rather than lose them. Weather that grounds Soviet aircraft for a day (13 January) is worth a random event.

What ifs: the attack goes in on 1 January on poor ice; the 86th Division crosses at Shlisselburg on the first day; Group Hühner holds a day longer; or the Soviets go for the Sinyavino heights first instead of the shore.

Maps and pictures