Retribution: The Soviet Reconquest of Central Ukraine, 1943

Description

Following on from On a Knife's Edge, which describes the encirclement of the German Sixth Army in Stalingrad and the offensives and counter-offensives that followed through the winter of 1942-43. This title will commence at the end of the Battle of Kursk and will continue to the expulsion of all Axis forces from the Ukraine. Whilst the Battle of Kursk has attracted great attention over the years, the fighting that followed has largely been described in more general terms, and here the encirclement of German troops in the Cherkassy Pocket and to a lesser extent in the Kamanets-Podolsk and Brody Pockets, will be covered in detail. During the battles that continued almost unchecked from July 1943 to late 1944, the Wehrmacht was driven back from the line of the Mius and Donets first back to the Dnepr and then across the Bug and Dniester. German forces that had been left in the Kuban Peninsula south of Rostov in the vain hope of being used in a future attempt to retake the Caucasus were forced back into the Crimea, where they were isolated and ultimately destroyed. The casualties suffered by the German forces were immense, forcing the diversion of an increasing proportion of the diminishing strength of the Wehrmacht to the region; this in turn left almost no reserves elsewhere and thus greatly facilitated the devastating blow that fell upon the German Army Group Centre in the summer of 1944.

Prit Buttar studied medicine at Oxford and London before joining the British Army as a doctor. After leaving the army, he worked as a GP, first near Bristol and then in Abingdon, Oxfordshire. He now lives in Kirkcudbright in Scotland. He is extensively involved in medical politics, both at local and national level, and served on the GPs' Committee of the British Medical Association. He appears from time to time on local and national TV and radio, speaking on a variety of medical issues. He contributes regularly to the medical press. An established expert on the Eastern Front in 20th century military history, his previous books include the critically acclaimed Battleground Prussia: The Assault on Germany's Eastern Front 1944-45 (Osprey 2010) and Between Giants: The Battle for the Baltics in World War II (Osprey 2013) and a definitive four-part series on the Eastern Front in World War I which concluded with The Splintered Empires:The Eastern Front 1917-21 (2017).

An excellent strategic and operational analysis of this mostly ignored campaign... * New York Journal of Books *