The 50th Army (Russian: 50-я армия) was a Soviet field army during World War II. It was formed in mid-August, 1941 and deployed on the southwest approaches to Moscow. Partly encircled and destroyed by German Second Panzer Army in the opening stages of Operation Typhoon, enough of the army escaped that it could be reinforced to successfully defend the city of Tula in November. It was at this time that the 50th came under the command of Lt. Gen. Ivan Boldin, who continued in command until February, 1945. During most of its career the army was relatively small and accordingly served in secondary roles. It finished the war in East Prussia, under the command of Lt. Gen. Fyodor Ozerov, as part of 3rd Belorussian Front.
Formation The Army became active on August 16, 1941, along the Desna River as part of the newly-forming Bryansk Front. The Army's first commander, Major General Mikhail Petrov, issued his Combat Order No. 1 on that date. In it, he recorded the composition of the 50th Army as follows: 217th Rifle Division 258th Rifle Division 260th Rifle Division 269th Rifle Division 279th Rifle Division 280th Rifle Division 55th Cavalry Division Artillery regiments of 2nd and 20th Rifle Corps 753rd and 761st Antitank Regiments 86th Separate Antiaircraft Battalion 10th Separate Armored Car Battalion 5th Separate Sapper BattalionDavid M. Glantz, Barbarossa Derailed, Vol. 2, Helion & Co., Ltd., Solihull, UK, 2012, p 71 Except for the 217th which formed in March, all of these rifle divisions had formed in July, as few as four weeks earlier.Walter S. Dunn, Jr., Stalin's Keys to Victory, Stackpole Books, Mechanicsburg, PA, 2007, pp 71, 75–6
Bryansk Front was under the command of Gen. Andrey Yeryomenko. During the balance of August and most of September he ordered his forces, including the relatively fresh 50th Army, into repeated clashes with the German XLVII Motorized Corps over its possession of a bridgehead over the Desna anchored on the towns of Pochep and Pogar. This was also an attempt to disrupt 2nd Panzer Army as it prepared to strike southwards towards Kiev.Glantz, Barbarossa Derailed, Vol. 2, ch. 3 and 4 These operations had little effect on the German forces and also severely weakened the Front just as it was to face its greatest test. As of September 30, strength returns for 50th Army showed 61,503 personnel, 780 guns and mortars (of which 149 were antitank guns), but only 7 tanks.Glantz, Barbarossa Derailed, Vol. 2, p 573 It was still one of the stronger armies before Moscow, but not so strong as it had been when formed.Glantz & Jonathan House, When Titans Clashed, University Press of Kansas, Lawrence, KS, 1995, p 89
Operation Typhoon On September 30, 1941, the 2nd Panzer Army launched Operation Typhoon in the 50th Army's sector. On the third day it had penetrated the weak 13th Army and a day later reached Oryol. The 50th Army was bypassed, as was Yeryomenko's headquarters.Glantz & House, p 80 On October 2, Major I. Shabalin, the head of the army's political section, wrote: On October 7, Major General Petrov was given temporary command of Bryansk Front after Yeryomenko was wounded.Michael Jones, The Retreat, John Murray (Publishers), London, 2009, pp 38, 46 Major General Arkady Yermakov, who had been leading an operational group within the Front, took up command of 50th Army until late November.Glantz & House, p 337n16
The pocketed forces were split in two when 17th Panzer Division and 167th Infantry Division linked up on October 10, with 50th Army in the northern pocket, but the eastern perimeter was only very lightly held so the army was never completely cut off from the main front. On that date, General Weichs, commander of German 2nd Army, reported that "a strong part of the Red Fiftieth Army... could not be prevented from escaping." General Guderian of the 2nd Panzer Army further reported that his forces were committed to containing breakouts from the southern pocket and had nothing available to help with the northern one. The 50th was able to fall back beyond Bryansk without catastrophic losses.David Stahel, Operation Typhoon, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 2013, pp 118–19, 158–59
Defense of Tula By late October 50th Army had fallen back towards the city of Tula and partly repaired its strength. Three extremely depleted divisions, the 293rd, 413th and 239th Rifle Division, arrived from the front, each with between 500 and 1,000 men, who were exhausted and with little equipment. Within two months these divisions had been refitted and reinforced to authorized strength.Dunn, Jr., Stalin's Keys to Victory, p 90
With the disruption of Bryansk Front, 50th Army was reassigned to Western Front. Army Group Center's supplies had been barely adequate for the encirclement phases of Typhoon, and as the autumn rains turned the roads to mud, Guderian was forced to postpone his drive on Tula until October 23. The town of Chern fell on the 25th, leaving another 95 km to Tula. A battlegroup, forcing its way up the one available highway, got within 5 km of the city on October 29 and tried to take it off the march, but the defenders were prepared and drove the panzers off with strong antitank and antiaircraft fire. 50th Army was in a much better position for supplies, with munitions coming directly from Tula's factories.Stahel, pp 257–58
In mid-November General Yermakov came under investigation by the Special Department of the NKVD led by Viktor Abakumov, and was accused of dereliction of duty during the Bryansk encirclement. He was tried in secret and executed.Glantz, Colossus Reborn, University Press of Kansas, Lawrence, KS, 2005, pp 681-82n82
In late November Lieutenant General Ivan Boldin was summoned to Moscow and offered command of the army to direct the continued defense of this crucial city. Boldin was a popular hero for having led a group of 1,650 men back from the frontier to Soviet lines near Smolensk during July and early August. He had been acting as deputy commander of Western Front until being wounded in another breakout in October. Boldin later admitted that defending the city against Guderian was a challenging task to undertake. But although Tula was deeply outflanked by the beginning of December, it never fell. In conjunction with 10th Army, the 50th Army went on the offensive and drove Guderian's forces back from the southern approaches to Moscow.Glantz, "Ivan Vasilievich Boldin", in Stalin's Generals, ed. Harold Shukman, Orion Books, Ltd., London, 1993, pp 49–50 In the initial phase, elements of the 50th overran one battalion of the elite Grossdeutschland Regiment.Glantz & House, p 89
Winter Offensive and 1942 In December, more divisions were added to the army: four rifle divisions, three cavalry divisions, a depleted tank division, and independent tank regiments. The rapid reconstruction of this army was probably typical of many others in this period.
On January 8, 1942 50th Army launched the second phase of the Moscow counteroffensive with a surprise attack on German positions southeast of Tula. On the 18th, Boldin introduced an army mobile group to the battle, which tore through the sagging German defenses and liberated the city of Kaluga. Boldin received much credit for this, which he shared with other commanders and the 1st Guards Cavalry Corps which led the group. Following this, the 50th pressed westward as part of the Rzhev-Vyasma Offensive, making repeated and increasingly futile efforts to cut the Smolensk – Moscow highway and encircle Army Group Center. On April 14 the Army attacked to try to join up with the encircled Group Belov, and at one point only 2 km remained between the two forces, but the next day German counterattacks forced it to fall back.Svetlana Gerasimova, The Rzhev Slaughterhouse, ed. & trans. S. Britton, Helion & Co., Ltd., Solihull, UK, 2013, pp. 47-48 As the Army weakened through attrition and the German forces regained their balance, Boldin showed his frustration in numerous after-action reports. On April 22 he reported angrily to his superiors that he was being slowed down by lack of ammunition, due to poor road conditions for wheeled transport: "As an extreme measure, in some units the troops are carrying supplies by hand." He was also driven to distraction by the total lack of air support. In these conditions the offensive ground to a halt.Glantz, in Stalin's Generals, pp 50–51
During the balance of 1942 and into early 1943 the 50th, reduced to just four rifle divisions and a few supporting units, manned the defenses southwest of Moscow. It played a very limited role in the Third Rzhev–Sychevka Offensive Operation, liberating a small sector at the base of the Rzhev Salient as the Germans withdrew. Attacking on the left wing of the Front's shock force, it pivoted towards Miliatino and confronted the German 4th Army's XII Corps, which held strong defenses north of Spas-Demensk: In reality, directives from STAVKA on March 18 ordered Western Front to make a concerted effort to smash the new German line, in spite of its obvious strength. The effort failed at the cost of heavy Soviet casualties.Glantz, After Stalingrad, p 333
Operation Kutuzov On July 1, 1943, the 50th Army was still in Western Front, at the northern base of the Oryol Salient. Its order of battle was as follows.
In 38th Rifle Corps: 17th Rifle Division 326th Rifle Division 413th Rifle Division Independent divisions: 49th Rifle Division 64th Rifle Division 212th Rifle Division 324th Rifle Division Other units: 196th Tank Brigade 1536th Heavy SU Regiment 21st and 43rd Armored Train Battalions 447th, 523rd, 1091st Cannon Regiments 600th Antitank Regiment 541st, 542nd Mortar Regiments 54th Guards Mortar Regiment 1275th, 1482nd, 1483rd Antiaircraft Regiments 307th, 309th Separate Sapper Battalionshttp://www.cgsc.edu/CARL/nafziger/943RGCC.PDF , pp 29–30 Following the Soviet victory at the Battle of Kursk, STAVKA began developing its first summer offensive, beginning with Operation Kutuzov against the vulnerable salient centered at Oryol. 50th Army was given a supporting role, both due to its relatively small size and STAVKA's limited faith in Boldin's military capabilities. In this operation the army formed a right flank guard for 11th Guards Army as it attacked to cut off the salient. German 9th Army escaped encirclement, but Boldin's army managed a 50 km advance before the advance stalled.Glantz, in Stalin's Generals, p 51
Following this, the army was reassigned back to Bryansk Front. Renewing the offensive, Boldin's forces made two secret re-groupings before striking the weak left flank of the German position south of Kirov on September 8, unhinging their line and forcing them to abandon Bryansk on the 17th. In Soviet accounts it is Gen. M.M. Popov, the Front commander, who gets most of the credit for this success. By September 27, 50th Army had seized a bridgehead across the Sozh River, and it was on this date that Popov met at the Kremlin with Stalin, Deputy Chief of the General Staff A.I. Antonov, and Gen. K.K. Rokossovsky, commander of Belorussian Front (later renamed 1st Belorussian Front). As a result of this meeting 50th Army was handed over to the latter Front in the first week of October.Dr. Boris Sokolov, Marshal K.K. Rokossovsky, Helion & Co., Ltd., Solihull, UK, 2015, p 273
In keeping with its secondary role, during the balance of October and November, during the Gomel-Rechitsa Offensive Operation, the army was twice ordered to make diversionary attacks. Rokossovsky wrote in his memoirs: