Time for another anniversary!

Today June 22nd is the anniversary of Operation Bagration (1944), also known as Destruction of Army Group Centre!

Thank you to the Western Allies for setting up that magnificent diversion 16 days ago

Ø From June through August 1944, the Allies landed 1 million men on the Normandy coast of France and 86,000 men and 6 divisions on France's southern coast and advanced to capture Paris. The advance cost the Wehrmacht 530,000 men.

Ø From June through August 1944, 8 Red Army fronts with 52 armies, 5.5 million men, and about 300 divisions defeated and destroyed 3 German army groups totaling about 1.5 million men and over 100 divisions, inflicting over 800,000 casualties on the Germans, and reached East Prussia, the Vistula River south of Warsaw, Hungary, and Bulgaria.

in Glantz, "The Soviet-German War 1941-1945: Myths and Realities"

 

Kind of makes Normandy look like a small raid by comparison doesn't it? I wonder what was going through Hitler's mind after the June through August 1944 period, it was a really bad time for the Germans!

 

Far to long has this great operation been over shadowed by Stalingrad. And yet this was a greater Victory for the Soviet army.

 

Well, I suppose that mention could also be made that small affair that was Operation Barbarossa 3 years before

 

I was slightly annoyed at the fact that on 22 June the news stations were raving over the Hungarian revolt in 1956 but no one cared to mention Barbarossa. I was surprised that even the BBC didn't mention it.

 

Oooooh, the media!