THE 70TH ANNIVERSARY OF OPERATION BAGRATION (22 JUNE 1944 TO 19 AUGUST 1944)

            70 years ago on this date, 22 June 1944, the Opening day of the Soviet Union's Operation Bagration against the Army Group Centre was launched. I will post information about it from Wikipedia.

STALIN'S REVENGE: Operation Bagration and the Annihilation of Army Group Centre (Hardcover) [PHOTO SOURCE: http://www.tower.com/stalins-revenge-operation-bagration-annihilation-army-group-centre-anthony-tucker-jones-hardcover/wapi/112640847]

Operation Bagration -- June 22 - August 19, 1944

Source: US ARMY

Original Uploaded by GeneralPatton

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/ww2/easterneurope8.html

License: US Government document. Printed by the Government printing office. Assumed public domain.

Date 22 June – 19 August 1944 Location Soviet Union (present day Belarus, Baltic states), Ukraine, and eastern Poland Result Decisive Soviet victory, near-total destruction of Army Group Centre Territorial changes Soviets liberate all of Byelorussian SSR and gains foothold in eastern Poland, placing themselves within striking distance of Berlin.
Belligerents
Germany	Soviet Union Poland
Commanders and leaders
Ernst Busch (to 28 June) Walter Model (Army Group Centre) Hans Jordan (Ninth Army) Georg-Hans Reinhardt (Third Panzer Army) Kurt von Tippelskirch (Fourth Army) Walter Weiss (Second Army)	Georgy Zhukov Aleksandr Vasilevsky Ivan Bagramyan (1st Baltic Front) Ivan Chernyakhovsky (3rd Belorussian Front) Konstantin Rokossovsky (1st Belorussian Front) Georgiy Zakharov (2nd Belorussian Front)
Strength
Initial: 486,493 "frontline strength"[1] 400,000 support and non-combat personnel[2] 118 tanks[3] 377 assault guns[3] 2,589 guns[3] 602 aircraft[3] In total:[4] 1,036,760 personnel 800 tanks, 530 assault guns 10,090 guns 1,000 - 1,300 aircraft	In total: Glantz and House:[5] 1,670,300 personnel 5,818 tanks 32,968 guns and mortars 7,790 aircraft Frieser: 2,331,700 Soviets (excluding reinforcements) 79,900 Poles 2,715 tanks[3] 1,355 assault guns[3] 24,363 guns[3] 5,327 aircraft[6]
Casualties and losses
c. 300,000-600,000 Soviet sources:[7] 381,000 killed 158,480 captured Isayev:[8] 500,000 casualties Zaloga: 300,000-350,000 killed or missing (including 150,000 captured)[9] Frieser: 26,397 killed 109,776 wounded 262,929 missing and captured 399,102 overall[details][10]	180,040 killed and missing 590,848 wounded and sick 770,888 overall[11][12] 2,957 tanks and assault guns[13] 2,447 guns[14] 822 aircraft[14]

Operation Bagration (/bʌɡrʌtiˈɒn/; Russian: Oперация Багратион, Operatsiya Bagration) was the codename for the Soviet 1944 Belorussian Strategic Offensive Operation during World War II, which cleared German forces from the Belorussian SSR and eastern Poland between 22 June and 19 August 1944. The operation was named after 18th–19th century Georgian Prince Pyotr Bagration, general of the Imperial Russian Army who was mortally wounded at the Battle of Borodino.

The operation resulted in the almost complete destruction of an entire German army group, with the loss of Army Group Centre's Fourth Army, Third Panzer Army and Ninth Army. It is considered the most calamitous defeat experienced by the German armed forces during the Second World War. By the end of the operation most of the western Soviet Union had been liberated and the Red Army had achieved footholds in Romania and Poland. German losses eventually numbered well over half a million men killed or wounded, even higher than the toll at Verdun in 1916.

The Soviet armies directly involved in Operation Bagration were the 1st Baltic Front under Army General Ivan Bagramyan, the 1st Belorussian Front commanded by Army General Konstantin Rokossovsky, the 2nd Belorussian Front commanded by Colonel-General G. F. Zakharov, and the 3rd Belorussian Front commanded by Colonel-General Ivan Chernyakhovsky.

The objectives of the operation were complicated. The Red Army practiced the concept of Soviet deep battle and maskirovka. One American author suggests that these Soviet innovations were enabled, in part, by the provision of over 220,000 trucks by the United States to motorize the Soviet infantry. It has been suggested the primary target of the Soviet offensive was the bridgehead on the Vistula river in central Poland, and that Operation Bagration was to create a crisis in Belorussia to divert German mobile reserves to the central sectors as a part of maskirovka, removing them from the Lublin-Brest, Lvov–Sandomierz area where the Soviets intended to undertake the Lvov–Sandomierz Offensive and Lublin–Brest Offensive. This allowed the Red Army to reach the Vistula river and Warsaw, which in turn put Soviet forces within striking distance of Berlin, conforming to the concept of Soviet deep operations — striking deep into the enemy's strategic depths.

Joseph Stalin (left) & Adolf Hitler (right) [PHOTO SOURCE: http://www.agoravox.tv/IMG/jpg/tumblr_m9npybzZyk1qirhm0o1_500.jpg]