BattleTurning point
The first large encirclement of the enemy
Demyansk
- enemy soldiers were encircled
- ≈ 100,000
- enemy soldiers were encircled
In February 1942, near Demyansk, the Red Army for the first time encircled a large enemy force of about 100,000 soldiers. It could not destroy it then, but it was clear the army had learned not only to defend, but to attack.
The enemy supplied the encircled troops by air: every day hundreds of transport planes landed at airfields inside the pocket. The force held out until spring, and in April the enemy broke a corridor through to it.
The Red Army paid dearly for these battles, but the experience was not wasted: it proved useful at Stalingrad. And Demyansk misled the enemy: it came to believe that even a whole army could be supplied by air.
See it on the map