The 23rd Army was a
Field Army
A field army (also known as numbered army or simply army) is a military formation in many armed forces, composed of two or more corps. It may be subordinate to an army group. Air army, Air armies are the equivalent formations in air forces, and ...
of the
Soviet Union
The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...
's
Red Army.
Formed in May 1941 in
Karelia, it fought in the
Continuation War against
Finland
Finland, officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It borders Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bothnia to the west and the Gulf of Finland to the south, ...
in the
Karelian Isthmus and defended the northwestern approaches to
Leningrad
Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...
during
World War II
World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
. After Finland withdrew from World War II in September 1944, the Army remained on the Finnish border and continued to garrison the
Karelian Isthmus after the war until it was disbanded in 1948.
World War II
The Army was formed in May 1941 in the
Leningrad Military District for the defence of the southernmost part of the Soviet Union's
border
Borders are generally defined as geography, geographical boundaries, imposed either by features such as oceans and terrain, or by polity, political entities such as governments, sovereign states, federated states, and other administrative divisio ...
with Finland, north and northeast of
Vyborg. The
7th Army was located on its right flank.
The Army initially included the
19th and
50th Rifle Corps, the
10th Mechanized Corps (which included the 21st Tank Division, the
24th Tank Division and the 198th Mechanised Division), the
27th Vyborg Fortified Region, the
28th Keksgolm Fortified Region, plus artillery and other units.
On 24 June, the Army was included in the
Northern Front. At the beginning of 10 July the Mechanised Corps was removed from the Army. From 31 July to the end of August in facing the Finnish offensive, it was unable to stop the Finns
reconquering the Karelian Isthmus and thus the Army fell back to the old border line and occupied positions in the 22nd
Karelian Fortified Region. During the campaign, the army (more specifically the
43rd Rifle Division) was decisively defeated at the
Battle of Porlampi.
Due to a reorganization, the army was transferred to the Leningrad Front on 24 August. The 23rd Army had
suffered enormous losses in battles against Finns in July to August 1941. When the Finnish Army halted the offensive on the command of Field Marshal Mannerheim on 1 September, the army consisted of only 80,000–90,000 men and had lost huge amounts of heavy weapons and material to the Finns. If Finland had not halted its attack and continued moving towards Leningrad, the 23rd Army probably would have had to withdraw to the city of Leningrad.
From 1942 to June 1944 the Army defended North Western approaches to Leningrad. In June 1944, the Army, including the
97th,
98th and
115th Rifle Corps, and the
17th Izyaslavsky Fortified Region and other units, participated in the
Vyborg offensive operation (10 June – 15 July 1944). In this operation, the 23rd Army followed the breakthrough of the
21st Army in this operation, cleared the southern bank of the Vuoksi river and crossed the river in the
Battle of Vuosalmi. After the termination of combat with Finland the Army formations were brought out to the state border against Finland, where they were located to the end of the war.
On 1 May 1945, operating under the
Leningrad Front, the Army consisted of the
97th Rifle Corps (
177th,
178th,
224th Rifle Divisions), the 9th, 16th, 17th
Fortified Regions, the 47th Guards Gun Artillery Brigade, the 8th Guards and 21st Gun Artillery Regiments, the 94th Anti-Tank Artillery Regiment, the 174th Mortar Regiment, the 24th Guards Rocket Artillery Regiment, the 1469th Anti-Aircraft Artillery Regiment, the 71st, 168th, 177th, and 618th Separate Anti-Aircraft Artillery Battalions, the 14th Separate Armored Train Battalion, the 172nd Separate Engineer Battalion, and the 67th Separate Minesweeper Engineer Battalion.
Postwar
On 9 July 1945, the Leningrad Front became the Leningrad Military District. In the postwar period, the Army initially included the
14th and
30th Guards Rifle Corps. The latter had relocated to
Vyborg on 10 June after it was transferred from the
10th Guards Army, and it included the
45th,
63rd, and
64th Guards Rifle Divisions. In August, the 14th Guards Rifle Corps was transferred to the
Kharkov Military District. By 1 October, along with the 30th Guards Rifle Corps, the army included the 9th, 16th, 17th, and 22nd Fortified Regions. The fortified regions had become the 1st and 22nd Machine Gun Artillery Brigades by 1 August 1946. In April 1948, the Army's headquarters was disbanded, and its units became directly subordinate to the district headquarters.
Commanding officers
The following officers commanded the 23rd Army:
* Lieutenant-General
Pyotr Pshennikov (25 May – 6 August 1941)
* Lieutenant-General
M.N. Gerasimov (6 August – 8 September 1941)
* Major-General
A. I. Cherepanov (9 September 1941 – 3 July 1944; promoted Lieutenant General in September 1943)
* Lieutenant-General
Vasily Shvetsov (3 July 1944 – April 1948)
Notes
References
*
*
*Lenskii, Ground forces of RKKA in the pre-war years: a reference (Сухопутные силы РККА в предвоенные годы. Справочник.) – St Petersburg, B & K, 2000
External links
*http://samsv.narod.ru/Arm/a23/arm.html
{{Armies of the Soviet Army
023
Military units and formations established in 1941
Military units and formations disestablished in 1957
Continuation War