Nevsky Pyatachok () is the name of the Neva Bridgehead 50 km east south-east of

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 ...

and 15 km south of

Shlisselburg Shlisselburg (, ; ; ; ), formerly Oreshek (Орешек) (1323–1611) and Petrokrepost (Петрокрепость) (1944–1992), is a town in Kirovsky District, Leningrad Oblast, Russia, located at the head of the Neva River on Lake Ladoga, ...

. It was the site of one of the most critical and costly campaigns during the

Siege of Leningrad The siege of Leningrad was a Siege, military blockade undertaken by the Axis powers against the city of Leningrad (present-day Saint Petersburg) in the Soviet Union on the Eastern Front (World War II), Eastern Front of World War II from 1941 t ...

from September 1941 until May 1943 to reopen land communications with the city during the German siege. The Russian word ''pyatachok'' means a five-

kopeck The kopeck or kopek is or was a coin or a currency unit of a number of countries in Eastern Europe closely associated with the economy of Russia. It is usually the smallest denomination within a currency system; 100 kopeks are worth 1 ruble o ...

coin, or (by way of a metaphor) a very small area.

Campaign for the land communications

The area between Shlisselburg and the bend of the

Neva The Neva ( , ; , ) is a river in northwestern Russia flowing from Lake Ladoga through the western part of Leningrad Oblast (historical region of Ingria) to the Neva Bay of the Gulf of Finland. Despite its modest length of , it is the fourth- ...

to the south represented the land link between the Soviet-controlled territory and the city defence perimeter. The Red Army objective was to retain this narrow stretch of the shore and prevent German forces from completing the blockade, thus allowing transports to reach the population in besieged Leningrad with food, medication and other supplies. The area was first defended by the Red Army's Krasnogvardeisk Fortified Region, the 55th and the 48th Armies which included the 45th Guards, 115th, 86th, 168th, 10th Rifle Divisions, 1st NKVD Rifle Division and 4th Separate Naval Infantry Brigade. On 7 September 1941, the German 20th Motorised Division was able to force the elements of the 48th Army out of Shlisselburg, setting the stage for a more than two-year struggle by the Red Army to reopen land communications with Leningrad. Initially, the Germans secured the area. On 20 September 1941 a small group of Soviet soldiers under Captain Vasily Dubik managed to cross the river using fishing boats and homemade rafts and establish the bridgehead, but they failed to enlarge it. The Germans managed to eliminate the bridgehead by 29 April 1942 but it was re-established on 26 September 1942. In October 1942 the Soviet 67th Army began attempting to dislodge the German XXVIII Army Corps. Fighting was heavy. Eventually,

Leonid Govorov Leonid Aleksandrovich Govorov (; – 19 March 1955) was a Soviet Union, Soviet military commander. Trained as an artillery officer, he joined the Red Army in 1920. He graduated from several Soviet military academies, including the Military Aca ...

proposed two operations to the

Stavka The ''Stavka'' ( Russian and Ukrainian: Ставка, ) is a name of the high command of the armed forces used formerly in the Russian Empire and Soviet Union and currently in Ukraine. In Imperial Russia ''Stavka'' referred to the administrat ...

, called the Shlisselburg Operation and the Uritsk Operation, which became the basis of the planning for

Operation Iskra Operation Iskra (), a Soviet military operation in January 1943 during World War II, aimed to break the Wehrmacht's siege of Leningrad. Planning for the operation began shortly after the failure of the Sinyavino Offensive (1942), Sinyavino Offe ...

. The

2nd Shock Army The 2nd Shock Army (), sometimes translated to English as 2nd Assault Army, was a field army of the Soviet Union during the Second World War. This type of formation was created in accordance with prewar doctrine that called for Shock Armies to ''o ...

of the

Volkhov Front The Volkhov Front () was a major formation of the Red Army during the first period of the Second World War. It was formed as an expediency of an early attempt to halt the advance of the Wehrmacht Army Group North in its offensive thrust towards L ...

and the 67th Army of the

Leningrad Front The Leningrad Front () was formed during the 1941 German approach on Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg) by dividing the Northern Front into the Leningrad Front and Karelian Front on August 27, 1941. History The Leningrad Front was immediately ...

were to destroy the German troops in the Shlisselburg – Siniavino sector, thereby restoring land communications and raising the siege. They were supported in this by the

13th Air Army The 76th Air Army was a unit of the Soviet Air Forces from 1949 to 1980, and again from 1988 to 1998. As the 13th Air Army, it was originally formed on 25 November 1942 and based on air units of the Leningrad Front. 13th Air Army's initial compon ...

and some units of the Long Range Aviation.pp.128-129, Glantz Although the south-eastern perimeter of the siege was temporarily penetrated, Soviet forces only managed to open a 10–12 km wide corridor, meaning all traffic passed under the fire of German guns. German casualties for the duration of the struggle for the bridgehead, estimated to be 1 km by 1.5 km in area, were some 160,000 (combat and combat-related).p.149, Glantz These, and other operations conducted until 10 May 1943, resulted in Red Army casualties estimated at 260,000 in this sector of the front.

After World War II

After the war, a tradition began in which the children of Leningrad schools took summer trips to the area to search for the remains of the many who died there. Official burial ceremonies were then held commemorating the dead whose remains were recovered. The terrain still contains unidentifiable skeletal remains.

National memorial

Today, the battlefield of Nevsky Pyatachok is a well-known national and historic landmark in Russia. A memorial was built as part of the "

Green Belt of Glory The Green Belt of Glory is a war memorial surrounding Saint Petersburg, Russia, commemorating the Siege of Leningrad of the Second World War. The belt consists of multiple small memorials marking the historical front line. History The concept or ...

" commemorating the heroic resistance during the siege of Leningrad. The words on the memorial belong to

Robert Rozhdestvensky Robert Ivanovich Rozhdestvensky (; 20 June 1932 – 19 August 1994) was a Soviet-Russian poet and songwriter who broke with socialist realism in the 1950s–1960s during the Khrushchev Thaw and, along with such poets as Andrei Voznesensky, ...

and can be literally translated as: "You, Those who are alive, Should know That this land We didn't want to leave And never left. We were fighting to the bitter end By the dark

. We have perished For you to live."

References

Sources

* The siege of Leningrad. By Alan Wykes. Ballantines Illustrated History of WWII, 3rd edition, 1972. * Military-Topographic Directorate, maps No. 194, 196, Officer's Atlas. General Staff USSR. 1947. Атлас Офицера. Генеральный штаб вооруженных сил ССР. М., Военно-топографическоее управление,- 1947. Листы 194, 196 *

External links

Map of German advance
(bad link)
Map of the advance on Leningrad and relief; Blue are the German and allied Finnish troops. The Soviets are red.
(bad link) {{coord, 59, 50, 37, N, 30, 57, 12, E, region:RU_type:landmark, display=title Geography of Leningrad Oblast

Siege of Leningrad Conflicts in 1941

Tourist attractions in Leningrad Oblast Monuments and memorials in Russia Pyatachok Cultural heritage monuments of federal significance in Leningrad Oblast