Figure 1.--Here we see Red Army soldiers celebrating the liberation of the great ort of Odessa with a very happy little boy (April 10, 1944). The city fell with very little fighting after the Soviets penetrated the outer defenses. After the liberation of Odessa only a few small areas in the northwestern Ukraine remined in German hands.

Odessa was a large port city located in the southwestern Uranine at the time close to the Romanian border. Early in Barbarossa Odessa had held out long after the German forces had moved east into the Ukraine becoming a Hero City (July 1941). The success of Bereznegovato-Cnigiryev operation opened the way to Odessa which had so heroically resisted the Germans and Romanians at the onset of Brbarossa. Konev's drive into Romania was stopped at Iaşi in northeaster Rimania/Moldova. His left wing swung to the south down the Dniester to join with Malinovsky’s 3rd Ukranian Front and the drive on Odessa. The 3rd Ukrainian Front entered the Romanian-administered Transnistria. This was a strip of land east of the Dnister River whichhas been seized from the Soviets and administered by the Romanians. Vasili Chuikov of Stalingrad fame commanding the Eight Guards Army spearheaded the attack. The Karl-Adolf Hollidt's Sixth Army held the line for 3 days, but then was forced to withdraw. The Red Army advanced 25 miles towards Novyi Buh, encircling the battered German 6th Army. Hitler typically ordered them to stand and fight, but Holidt pulled back to the Bug River, hoping to build a stable defenive line (March 11). From this position Hollidt broke out from the Soviet encirclement. Malinovsky iladvisely split his forces at Mykolaiv (Nikolaev). Thus Hollidt suceeded in improvising a defensive line on the Bug (March 21). Despite the tactical success against conidrable Soviet forces, Hitler was dispeased that he has disobeyed the stand and fight order and removed him. The new commnder was Maximilian de Angelis. The problem of course was not Hollidt, but Hitler. The Soviets continued their drive and the Germans did not have the forces needed to hold at the Bug. The Soviets also breached the Prut (March 25). The German position was no longer tenable. They began to withdraw from the Bug (March 28). Even so the Germans had mot yet withdrawm from Odessa which was being cut off by the succesful Soviet operations to the north which had reached the Romnian frontier. The 3rd Ukranian Front under the command of General Rodion Yakovlevich Malinovsky forced a crossing of the Southern Bug and began the drive tward Nikolayev and Odessa (March 25). Red Navy submarines and torpedo boats of the Black Sea Fleet disrupted German naval evacuation efforts. The Eighth Guards Army and Forty-Sixty Army attacked through a raging blizzard (April 2). In only 4 days they drove the weak forces in their path across the Dniester (April 6). This meant that Odessa was surrounded. Soviet troops broke into the northern quarters of Odessa (April 9). Attacks thriyhj the night assisted by partisans liberated Odessa in the morning (April 10). The Germans left in Odessa capitulated. The Soviet forces not only entered Odessa but Romania itself. The Third Ukrainian Front liberated Tiraspol (April 12). They advanced to the Dnestr River and captured a bridgehead on its west bank south of Bendery (April 14). This would play an important role in the subsequent invasion of Romania.

Created: 7:38 PM 3/23/2016
Last updated: 7:38 PM 3/23/2016