Chapter 13 Breakthrough of the Tenth Army and the Siege of Radom

The operational objectives of the Fourteenth Army, in addition to destroying the enemy forces in western Grisia, were to pursue and capture the retreating enemy forces so that they could not establish a new line of defense in the area behind the Vistula River. .The other two armies attacking from Silesia aimed to force the enemy to accept a decisive battle in front of the Vistula.The main task of rushing all the way to the Vistula was carried out by the stronger Tenth Army, which also had stronger armor.The weaker Eighth Army was to cover the northern flank of the operation against enemy forces assumed to be in the Kariz, Lodz and Poznań provinces.

The Tenth Army attacked from Upper Silesia, and its left wing was near Kreuzburg. There were five armies in total, from right to left: (1) The Fifteenth Motorized Army, led by General Hoss (Gen‧ Hoth), under the jurisdiction of the 2nd and 3rd Light Division; (2) the Fourth Army, Commander Gen. V. Schwedler (Gen‧V‧Schwedler), under the jurisdiction of the 4th and 46th Infantry Division; (3) The Sixteenth Armored Army, commanded by General Hoepner (Gen‧Hoepner), has two armored divisions, the first and the fourth, and the fourteenth and thirty-first infantry divisions; (4) the eleventh Army, commander General Li Bu (Gen‧Leeb), under the jurisdiction of the 18th and 19th Infantry Divisions. (5) Followed by the 14th Motorized Army, the commander of the army, General Wietersheim (Gen‧V‧Wietersheim), under the jurisdiction of the 13th and 20th Motorized Divisions and the 1st Light Division.

Behind this army was the Seventh Army, which served as the general reserve of the army group.The commander of the army is General Schobert (Gen‧Schobert), and he has two infantry divisions, the 27th and 68th.Another sixty-second infantry division. The Eighth Army consisted of two armies: the Thirteenth Army, commanded by Gen. V. Weichs, under the jurisdiction of the Tenth and Seventeenth Infantry Divisions and motorized SS units.The Tenth Army, commanded by General Ulex (Gen‧Ulex), had the 24th and 32nd Infantry Divisions under its command.They are advancing in the direction of Ross in a deep echelon formation.Following the army group are the two divisions of the general reserve of the army group, the 213th and 221st divisions.

When the German army crossed the border at dawn on September 1, 1939, a fierce battle broke out immediately, and the enemy was gradually repelled.The great question facing us in the next few days is whether the enemy still wants to seek a decisive battle on the Vistula front?Or was it merely a matter of gaining time in the present battle to withdraw his forces to the rear of the river?At any rate, in the initial stages there were indications of a strong enemy concentration in the Lysa Gora hills near Kiers, in Radom, and in the area around Lodz. For the first time in this campaign, two factors were likely to determine the winner of the battle during these first few weeks.

One was the breakthrough of the tank units on the enemy's front, which penetrated deep into the enemy's rear, while our infantry divisions were forced to follow closely behind. Another factor is that the enemy's air force has been almost wiped out, and their communication and transportation network has also been cut off by our air force's effective attack.For these reasons the Poles never had any centralized control over operations. According to the enemy's situation, the Army Group Headquarters believed that it was necessary to give the Tenth Army two goals.The forces on the right, consisting of the Fifteenth Motorized Corps and the Fourth Corps, followed by the Seventh Corps (which was later reassigned to the Fourteenth Army), were responsible for defeating the enemy still massed near Radom. military.The other force on the left, consisting of the Sixteenth Panzer Corps, the Fourteenth Motorized Corps, and the Eleventh Army, should be responsible for cutting off the enemy from the Lodz area to Warsaw when the Eighth Army attacks from the west. retreat between.

While carrying out these orders, the Tenth Army was in the Lysagora Forest Mountains, smashing the enemy forces in the Radom area, and the Fifteenth Motorized Army rushed to Abato (Opatow) and Dumblin ( Dembin, occupied the crossing of the Vistula River, while the 14th Motorized Corps of the Left Army also cut off the enemy's retreat to Warsaw from the north.By September 9, the first pocket (Pocket) in this war had already been filled with an enemy group army.Because the enemy fought hard to break through, the fighting in the Kiers-Radom area did not stop until September 12th, but their fate had already been decided.At the end of the battle we had taken 60,000 prisoners and 130 artillery pieces, and the enemy had lost seven divisions.Even if they can retreat across the Vistula River, it will not help the overall situation, because on the day of the Battle of Radom, a mountain division of the Fourteenth Army had already reached the gate of Lviv, and the army's The left wing, which has also crossed the lower San River, can sweep all the defenses of the Vistula River.

At this time, the Sixteenth Panzer Corps of the left-wing group of the Tenth Army had rushed all the way to Gora Kalwaria (Gora Kalwaria) south of Warsaw, which was also a crossing of the Vistula River.One of the armored divisions has penetrated into the southwestern outskirts of Warsaw.These forces were too weak to capture a strong city like Warsaw, so the armored division was forced to withdraw again.But in any case, the west approach of the Polish capital has been blocked.