Eastern Front · Soviet Union vs Germany
Lvov-Sandomierz Offensive
13 July 1944 – 29 August 1944
Konev's 1st Ukrainian Front attacked Army Group North Ukraine as Bagration drew German reserves north. Lvov was liberated, XIII Corps was destroyed at Brody, and a bridgehead over the Vistula at Sandomierz was won and held against fierce counterattacks.
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Day by day
— Two axes
Bagration has pulled the panzer reserves north, and Konev's 1st Ukrainian Front attacks Army Group North Ukraine with 1.2 million men on two axes: Rava-Ruska in the north, Lvov in the south. The Lvov attack opens with an infantry probe rather than a bombardment, because the Germans had begun to thin their forward line.
— Brody
Two tank armies were pushed through a gap six kilometres wide near Koltov, in the rain and under fire the whole way, and closed behind XIII Corps at Brody on the 18th. The pocket is finished today: about 30,000 casualties and 17,000 prisoners, among them most of the 14th SS Division formed from Galician volunteers. Rava-Ruska and Vladimir-Volynsky fell on the 20th.
— Lvov
Lvov is clear this morning after four days of fighting in the streets, in which the Home Army's Operation Burza rose alongside the Red Army and was disarmed by it a fortnight later. Przemysl and Stanislav fall the same day. Army Group North Ukraine has been split in two and the two halves are falling back on the San and the Carpathians.
— The Vistula
The 13th Army reaches the Vistula at Baranow and starts across on rafts and improvised ferries tonight; the 3rd Guards Tank Army follows on the 31st. Sandomierz itself holds out for another fortnight. It is the last river of any size before the German border.
— Ogledow
The Germans throw four panzer divisions and the new Tiger II tanks of the 501st Heavy Battalion at the bridgehead. Three of them are knocked out at Ogledow this morning by T-34-85s of the 53rd Guards Tank Brigade firing from cover into their flanks, the first time the type is met in action. Sandomierz falls to the 5th Guards Army five days later.
— The bridgehead held
The counter-attacks are done and the front goes over to the defensive. The Sandomierz bridgehead is 75 kilometres wide and 50 deep, and it is where the offensive into Poland will start in January. The Hungarian First Army still holds the Carpathian passes in the south.
