39th Guards Rifle Division - Defense of The Red October Steel Works

Defense of The Red October Steel Works

From September 30, 1942 the division, which could muster only roughly half its original strength, was assigned to defend the Red October steel works. From that date until February 2, 1943, the division was involved in almost constant combat with numerically superior German forces. On October 14, 1942 the 39th repulsed a major German counterattack involving three Infantry divisions, two Panzer divisions, and 3,000 combat sorties by the Luftwaffe. For five months the 39th Guards maintained their tenuous hold on the Red October factory, holding an area only 3000 yards wide and 1000 yards in depth. Along with similar pockets at the Dzerzhinsky tractor factory and the Barrikady gun factory, Red October represented one of the last viable defensive positions on the west bank of the Volga River. Soviet troops fought major battles from building to building and room to room, with success often measured in mere yards. As the Germans desperately tried to eliminate these pockets they poured more and more troops into the city, weakening their flanks and wasting men and materiel in what was becoming a meat-grinder for the Wehrmacht. These factors contributed directly the successes of the Soviet counter-offensives of November and December (see Operation Uranus and Operation Saturn), and the subsequent encirclement and eventual surrender of Gen. Friedrich Paulus's 6th Army.