This last minute success by the Germans stabilised the situation again, and allowed them to get their troops out of the Dniepropetrovsk salient without much difficulty. They were thus all the more startled to hear, on November 3, the guns of VIII Artillery Corps telling Manstein that Vatutin was preparing to break out of the bridgehead he had won above Kiev. Once more the Russians had managed things well: 2,000 guns at over 500 per mile. Yet contemporary photos show that they were all strung out in a line without the least pretence of camouflage. Where was the Luftwaffe? Nothing more than a memory now.
Under the moral effect of the pulverising attack of 30 infantry divisions and 1,500 tanks, the 4th Panzerarmee shattered like glass and during the night of November 5-6, VII Corps hastily evacuated the Ukrainian capital. The sun had not yet risen on this historic day when Colonel-General Vatutin and his Council of War telegraphed Stavka: "Have the joy to inform you that the mission you entrusted to us to liberate our splendid city of Kiev, the capital of the Ukraine, has been carried out by the troops of the 1st Ukrainian Front. The city of Kiev has been completely cleared of its Fascist occupants. The troops of the 1st Ukrainian Front are actively pursuing the task you entrusted to them.” The 3rd Guards Tank Army (General Rybalko) dashed in at lightning speed to exploit the situation. By November 12 the bridgehead upriver from Kiev had widened to 143 miles and at its deepest beyond Zhitomir it was 75 miles beyond the Dniepr. The rapidity of this advance is perhaps less striking when it is realised that the 11 infantry divisions of the 4th Army were about one regiment strong and its 20th Panzer-grenadier Division was soon wiped out.
World History
