Don Front

Formation

The front was created by order of the STAVKA of the Supreme High Command on Sept. 28, 1942 in order to form a more cohesive command structure to the much-reinforced Soviet forces fighting in and around Stalingrad. On that date the STAVKA ordered: 3. Appoint Lt. Gen. K. K. Rokossovsky as commander of the forces of the Don Front, freeing him from his duties as commander of the Bryansk Front. 4. Additionally, bring Corps Commissar A. S. Zheltov into the Don Front's Military Council ... 7. Appoint Mjr. Gen. K. A. Kovalenko as deputy commander of the Don Front ... 8. Appoint Mjr. Gen. M. S. Malinin as the chief of staff of the Don Front ... 9. Appoint Col. Boikov as the chief of the Operations Department of the Don Front ...}}

The initial composition of the Don Front was as follows:

• 1st Guards Army - Kirill Moskalenko,
• 21st Army - Nikolay Krylov,
• 24th Army - Dmitry Timofeyevich Kozlov,
• 63rd Army - Vasily Kuznetsov,
• 66th Army - Rodion Malinovsky,
• 4th Tank Army - Vasily Kryuchenkin,
• 16th Air Army - Sergei Rudenko.

The command cadre of the new front came almost entirely from Rokossovsky's Bryansk Front, leaders that he trusted and would follow him until he was ordered to take command of 2nd Belorussian Front in late 1944.

On the basis of the STAVKA directive of February 5, 1943, the Don Front was transformed into the Central Front on February 15, 1943.

References

References

1. David M. Glantz, ''Armageddon in Stalingrad'', University Press of Kansas, Lawrence, KS, 2009, pp 272-73
2. Dr. Boris Sokolov, ''Marshal K.K. Rokossovsky''. Helloin & Company, Ltd., Solihull, UK, 2015, pp 188-89