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| | OLD American Century / White Rose Society message boards > Operation Bagration, June of 1944 |
 | | Below him, the Third Belorussian Front under General Ivan Chernyakhovsky, with 579,300 men, would capture heavily defended Vitebsk and the area north of Orsha, then push southwest toward Minsk, the Belorussian capital, and Vilnius, the Lithuanian capital, crushing or encircling Busch’s Third Panzer Army at Vitebsk and his Fourth Army, centered around Orsha. |
 | | But before long, General Chernyakhovsky managed to move his tanks north of Orsha, and promptly fed a mixed task force through the woods to exploit the gap. |
 | | The next morning, Chernyakhovsky’s tanks entered Minsk, closing off another large eastern pocket and trapping some 15,000 isolated German soldiers lurching west in division- and brigade-size groups. |
| www.oldamericancentury.org /bb/lofiversion/index.php/t11510.html (3849 words) |
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