EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
On December 13, 1943, the Gorodok offensive operation began. Its goal was to defeat the enemy’s Gorodok grouping, which included 9 infantry and air field forces, 1 tank division and up to 8 special and security battalions of the 3rd Tank Army, as well as eliminate the threat of encirclement of the 4th Shock Army, which had wedged itself into the German defenses west of Gorodok.
The operation was carried out by troops of the right wing of the 1st Baltic Front (Army General Ivan Bagramyan). The main blow was delivered by the 11th Guards (Lieutenant General Kuzma Galitsky) and 4th Shock (Lieutenant General Vasily Shvetsov) armies.
On December 14, the 1st Tank Corps and the 83rd Guards Rifle Division were brought into battle on the right flank of the 11th Guards Army. This brought success, the Soviet units managed to complete the breakthrough of the German defense, and on December 16, the 1st Tank Corps, which entered the breakthrough, reached the Bychikha station area and there linked up with the 5th Tank Corps advancing towards it. As a result, four German divisions operating in the town ledge were surrounded. To fight the encircled German group, the main forces of the 4th Shock Army were left, which repulsed an attempt to break out of the ring by two German divisions. The 11th Guards Army developed an offensive to the south.
The frontal offensive operation was accompanied by active combat operations by partisans. So, on December 13, on the Minsk-Slutsk highway near the village of Telyakovo, Uzdensky district, Minsk region, a battle took place between the partisan brigades of the 200th named after Rokossovsky, 300th named after Voroshilov and 27th named after Chapaev. A large convoy of Nazi troops was ambushed by partisans on the highway. During the battle, the people's avengers destroyed 52 enemy vehicles, 2 armored cars, killed and wounded over 200 Nazis, and captured rich trophies. A 14-year-old intelligence officer of the Rokossovsky brigade, Marat Kazei, killed a Nazi colonel and took his briefcase with valuable operational documents, which allowed the partisan command to thwart a number of enemy punitive expeditions. As a result of the Telyakovsky battle, enemy transportation along the Minsk-Slutsk highway was stopped for several days.
On December 14, the Novy Gorodok battle took place - the battle of the 425th partisan regiment to defeat the 1st battalion of the 278th Grenadier Regiment of the 95th Nazi Division in the village of Novy Gorodok, Bykhovsky district. The Nazi battalion (about 200 people with an armored vehicle, a mortar battery and an artillery gun) settled down in the village to rest. The partisans blocked all approaches to it and on the night of December 14 launched an offensive, destroyed the enemy headquarters, garages with cars, warehouses, and captured staff documents. At the same time, in order to divert the enemy’s attention, a platoon of partisans attacked the neighboring garrison in the village of Lubyanka. As a result of the battle, the entire enemy battalion in New Town was destroyed, the partisans captured its weapons, ammunition, all ammunition and food. 8 partisans were killed and wounded.
On December 19, during the Gorodok operation, troops of the 360th Infantry Division of the 4th Shock Army, the 159th Tank Brigade of the 1st Tank Corps of the 1st Baltic Front liberated the settlement. Ezerische.
By December 20, more than five hundred settlements in the region had been liberated, and on December 24, troops of the 11th Guards Army captured the city and the large railway station Gorodok, an important stronghold of the German defense in the Vitebsk direction, in a night assault.
By December 31, Soviet troops reached a pre-prepared German defensive line 20 km north of Vitebsk, but Soviet troops were no longer able to break through it. The front armies went on the defensive.
During the operation, the front troops advanced 60 km, broke through the German defenses, defeated 6 infantry and one tank divisions, eliminated the enemy's Gorodok ledge, captured Gorodok and cut the Polotsk-Vitebsk railway. Conditions were created for the encirclement of German troops in the Vitebsk area.
Thirty people were awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union. 12 Soviet units and formations of the Red Army were given the honorary names "Gorodok". An artillery salute was given in Moscow in honor of the liberation of Gorodok.