Word: vitebsk
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...miles to the south guns boomed. Day & night, Red cannon shelled Vitebsk, 15 miles away, and its "escape railway" to the west. From the city and the railroad came the dull, angry answer of German salvos. Things were going badly for the Wehrmacht, but it fought on. Vitebsk was a dam; it had to be held. Its fall would imperil the strongholds of White Russia -Orsha, Mogilev, Zhlobin, Polotsk - perhaps lead to retreat beyond the prewar Polish border...
Tough Town. Small, sleepy Gorodok was one of the keys to Vitebsk. All through the summer the Germans fortified its approaches with steel, timber, concrete. They buried old tanks, to serve as pill boxes. They strung out miles of barbed wire, sowed the swamps with mines. They had hoped to stay in Gorodok a long, long time: the dugouts were large; the officers' quarters had hardwood floors...
Tough Job. If Bagramian takes Vitebsk, he will rank with other Red greats: Konstantin Rokossovsky, now inching toward Vitebsk from the under side; Nikolai Vatutin, fighting in the Kiev bulge, 350 miles to the south; Stalin's pal, Ivan Konev, long stalemated in the Dnieper bend...
...breakthrough to the Baltic Sea, thus cutting off the German troops in the north. Moscow confirmed these fears by designating the force as the First Baltic Army. But it seemed obvious that before striking west, this powerful army would have to crush the enemy's stronghold at Vitebsk...
Headed by a summer hero, General Ivan Bagramyan, the First Baltic Army seemed strong enough for the twin job. German reports put it at: 14 infantry, one artillery, two cavalry divisions, with two complete tank corps. Still larger forces were apparently massed south of Vitebsk, under Russia's famed General Konstantin Rokossovsky. Stalled for weeks by adverse weather and fierce German resistance, this Army was a tight spring that could uncoil at any moment...