Battle of Târgul Frumos

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Contents 1 Prelude 2 The battle 3 Historiography 4 Aftermath 5 Formations involved 5.1 Soviet 5.2 German 5.3 Romanian 6 Notes 7 References 7.1 Secondary Print 7.2 Primary Print 7.3 Online

Battle of Târgul Frumos
Part of Soviet-German War, World War II
Advance of the Red Army 1943 - 1944
Date 2-7 May 1944 Location Eastern Romania Result Axis victory
Belligerents
Germany, Romania	Soviet Union
Commanders
Ferdinand Schoerner	Ivan Konev

v • d • e Eastern Front Barbarossa – Baltic Sea – Black Sea – Finland – Leningrad and Baltics – Crimea and Caucasus – Moscow – 1st Rzhev-Vyazma – 2nd Kharkov – Blue – Stalingrad – Velikiye Luki – 2nd Rzhev-Sychevka – Kursk – 2nd Smolensk – Dnieper – 2nd Kiev – Battle of Narva – Korsun – Hube's Pocket – Baltic – Bagration – Lvov-Sandomierz – Lublin-Brest – Balkans (Iassy-Kishinev) – Budapest – Vistula-Oder – East Prussia – East Pomerania – Silesia – Vienna – Berlin – Prague

v • d • e Soviet Operations in the Balkans 1944 Târgul Frumos – Iassy-Kishinev Operation (1944) – Yugoslavia

The Battle of Târgul Frumos (2-May 7, 1944) was fought near Yassy, Romania primarily between the Wehrmacht and Red Army forces. The battle resulted from a Stavka requirement of conduct limited objective attacks as part of the deception planning for the Operation Bagration. It was directed towards Yassy with a secondary objective of establishing bridgeheads across the Prut river.^[1]

According to accounts by Hasso von Manteuffel, one of the two German division commanders, and Frido von Senger und Etterlin the German forces defeated a minor Soviet offensive by the 2nd Ukrainian Front that was expected to be a precursor of a much larger offensive in the Northern Ukraine.^[2] The battle of Târgul Frumos has been used as a case study in officer tactical education in the United States Army and other armies, teaching how a mobile defense can defeat an armoured spearhead. There are however questions about the accounts by the two German officers, relating to the failure to include Romanian forces into their account, and about the real combat strength correlation between attacking and defending forces.

[edit] Prelude

During April 1944 a series of offensives by the Red Army, including in the Yassy sector, was intended to deceive OKH as to the real time and place of the major offensive planned in Belorussia. The German-Romanian forces successfully defended against the local limited objective attacks throughout the month of April. The attack aiming at Târgul Frumos was the initial attempt by the Red Army to achieve its goal of deceiving the OKH, and testing the Axis defenses in Romania while preventing movement of reserves to the Belorussian sector of the Eastern Front.^[3]

"It had been thought that May Day, the traditional workers' day of celebration, would see the opening of a new assault by the Soviet forces. But the offensive re-opened on 2 May heralding three shattering and unceasing days and nights of combat. Behind a sixty-minute drum fire at dawn, two Soviet armies moved into an attack."^[4]

[edit] The battle

The battle of Târgul Frumos was a series of engagements and smaller combats over several days during which armoured forces of the Wehrmacht LVIIth Panzer Corps, in particular of the Grossdeutschland Division and 24th Panzer Division, engaged the Red Army’s 16th Tank Corps of the 2nd Tank Army, which was also attacking from the north.

One unit's experience in the opening hours of the battle was described as such:

(1st Battalion), P(an)z(er)Gr(enadier) R(e)g(imen)t G(ross)D(eutschland) and its Romanian allies occupied a well wired-in and T-Mine-strewn line running to the right of 3. SS-Pz.Div. "Totenkopf's" positions. The Soviets advanced in great waves, their tanks and infantry mixed together. Moving much faster than the Germans had anticipated, they overwhelmed...(the 1st Company), wiping it out to the last man. While (the) temporary battalion commander...attempted to halt and repulse the Soviets with what was left of his battalion, the Romanians to the left of (the 2nd Company) cowered in their trenches like "herrings", as (the) company commander...later recounted. Indeed, the Romanians seemed to have reached an unofficial cease fire with the enemy. That night the Luftwaffe succeeded in mounting an air strike in the enemy rear area, to no avail. The next morning the Soviets resumed their attack, preceding it with a bombardment of phosphorous shells. Over 100 enemy tanks and assault guns advanced against (the 3rd Platoon). With his Romanian artillery remaining inactive, (the 3rd Platoon of the 2nd Company) could count only on the support of three...(assault guns) and the four 15cm Nebelwerfer multiple rocket launchers of (the 10th Company, Panzer Artillery Regiment Grossdeutschland). (The 2nd Company) was soon back to the Nebelwerfer's position where it formed a 'hedgehog' defense...and a handful of...men then managed to gain the temporary safety of the railway embankment in their rear. His battalion scattered, (the 1st Battalion commander) sent (the 2nd Company commander) with four SPW's to cover the wide open left flank, completely vulnerable when the Romanians abandoned their positions. Although the enemy had not made any deep penetrations, the tension of the past two days had exhausted the Panzergrenadiers. "Suddenly...four T-34s were in among the SPWs when, as if by magic, tanks and assault guns of the SS-Division "Totenkopf" appeared. Before a single T-34 could train its gun, all had received direct hits." Immediately thereafter Oberst Hans-Ulrich Rudel's Ju87 Stukas led off a counter thrust by "Totenkopf's" Panzerregiment, accompanied by...four SPWs. The Panzergrenadiers took a measure of revenge for what they had endured over the past 48 hours...before being pulled out of the line to regroup and refit.^[5]

Despite initial successes of the Soviet attack, a series of counter-attacks managed to halt the Soviet offensive.^[6] The battle reduced Soviet tank strength to a point where a continued attack into Romania was not possible. In the three days of fighting, the Wehrmacht LVIIth Panzer Corps (mainly Grossdeutschland and 24th Panzer Division) and L Army Corps defeated the Soviet force and claimed the destruction of over 350 Soviet tanks, ca. 100 of these claimed by 24th Panzer Division.^{[citation needed]} During the battle, Hasso von Manteuffel, commander of the Grossdeutschland division, first encountered the new Soviet Stalin tank, "It was at Târgul Frumos that I first met the Stalin tanks. It was a shock to find that, although my Tigers began to hit them at a range of 3,000 metres, our shells bounced off, and did not penetrate them until we had closed to half that distance. But I was able to counter the Russians' superiority by manoeuvre and mobility, in making the best use of ground cover."  Manteuffel also noted that the Stalin tanks had several "disadvantages: slow, not manoeuvrable enough; as well, in my opinion their crews were not sufficiently familiar with the tank."^[7]

[edit] Historiography

Soviet sources make few references to the battle. Historian David Glantz has found some mention of operations in Romania in April and May 1944 in divisional histories. The main source for him is the Soviet 2d Tank Army’s history, where a direct reference to the battle is found. It states that in late March 1944, the tank army was shifted into the sector of 27th Army with the mission of

“attacking in the direction of Fokuri and Podul-Iloaei. Subsequently, the army was to strike a blow toward the city of Yassy and secure it.”  

In the narrative on follow-on operations by the Tank Army it is stated that it attacked together with 27th Army’s 35th Rifle Corps. It also claims that the 3rd Tank Corps reached Târgul Frumos, but was repulsed by the German counterattacks. The 16th Tank Corps identified by the German officers appears not to be mentioned in the account.^[8]

Despite German claims that the Soviet attack was a full-fledged offensive, it appears now that the battle of Târgul Frumos was a relatively small-scale operation in the context of 1944's fighting on the Eastern Front, even though a Soviet success would have put the Red Army into a much stronger position for its eventual attack into Romania.^[9]

[edit] Aftermath

At the end of the Battle of Târgul Frumos the frontline stabilised, however it was from these positions that the Soviets launched the Yassy-Kishinev strategic offensive operation in late August 1944.

On a political level, the battle accelerated the activities of anti-German forces in Romania, leading to negotiations between the traditional political parties and the Romanian Communist Party, represented by Lucreţiu Pătrăşcanu.^[10]

[edit] Formations involved

[edit] Soviet

• 2nd Ukrainian Front
  • 27th Army
    • 35th Rifle Corps
    • 89th Guards Rifle Division
    • 180th Rifle Division
  • 2nd Tank Army
    • 3rd Tank Corps
    • 16th Tank Corps (unconfirmed)

[edit] German

• Army Group South Ukraine
  • 8th Army
    • 24th Panzer Division (Army Reserve)
    • LVII Panzerkorps
      • Panzergrenadierdivision “Grossdeutschland”
      • 46th Infantry Division
      • Battle group of 3rd SS-Division Totenkopf
    • L Armeekorps

[edit] Romanian

• 1st Armoured Division (Commander Radu Korne)
• 18th Mountain Division
• 1st Guards Division
• 1st Air Corps
  • 5th Bomber Group
  • 8th Assault Group (flying German Hs 129 ground attack planes)
  • 9th Fighter Group

[edit] Notes

[edit] References

[edit] Secondary Print

• Axworthy, Mark review of "Red Storm Over the Balkans: The Failed Soviet Invasion of Romania, Spring 1944", by David M. Glantz, Journal of Military History, October 2007, vol. 71 I(4), 1282-1283.
• Glantz, David M.,Soviet Military Deception in the Second World War, Frank Cass, London, (1989) ISBN 0-7146-3347-X
• Glantz, David M., House, Jonathan When Titans Clashed (1995)
• David M. Glantz. Red Storm over the Balkans: The Failed Soviet Invasion of Romania, Spring 1944 (Modern War Studies). Lawrence: University Press of Kansas. ISBN 0-7006-1465-6. 
• Lucas, James Germany's Elite Panzer Force: Grossdeutschland (MacDonald And Jane's Publishers, Ltd., London, 1978 ISBN 0-354-04465-0)
• Spaeter, Helmuth History of the Panzerkorps Grossdeutschland Volume 2 (J.J. Fedorowicz Publishing, Winnipeg, MB, 1995 ISBN 0-92991-50-9) English translation by David Johnston.
• Ziemke, E.F. ‘Stalingrad to Berlin'

[edit] Primary Print

• Truppendienst Taschenbuch Band 16, Published by Arbeitsgemeinschaft Truppendienst Vienna 1971
• From the Dnepr to the Vistula: Soviet Offensive Operations - November 1943 - August 1944. 1985 Art of War symposium, , A transcript of Proceedings, COL. D.M Glantz ed., Center for Land Warfare, US Army War College, 29-3 May 1985

[edit] Online

• Axis History Forum Let's Build Targul Frumos Discussion
• Aberjona Press Excerpt from Slaughterhouse covering Târgul Frumos
• Narod.ru articles on history of Red Army 89th Guards Rifle and 180th Rifle Divisions
• worldwar2.ro article on Romanian 8th Assault Group