Tatskinskaya Raid
The Tatsinskaya Raid, also known as “Red Christmas” or the “Christmas Raid” because it took place on Christmas Eve, December 24th, 1942, was a Soviet armored raid deep into the German rear to destroy the Tatsinskaya airfield, from which Luftwaffe transport planes were frantically airlifting supplies to the besieged German 6th Army in Stalingrad. Planes flying out of that airfield were the surrounded Germans’ only lifeline, so its destruction, and the irreplaceable Ju 52 transport planes therein, would seal the besieged 6th Army’s doom.
The raid, conducted by the 24th Tank Corps, struck the airfield from three sides and caught the Germans by surprise. T-34 tanks rolled down the tarmac, machine-gunning and shelling facilities and installations, as well as the precious planes – some still in crates on railway cars that had recently brought them to Tatsinskaya.
When the T-34s ran low on ammunition, they simply rammed the airplanes, smashing through their aluminum frames and crushing them and their engines beneath tens of tons of armor. German pilots and crews, desperately racing to their airplanes in an attempt to get them airborne and away to safety, were ruthlessly cut down or ran down and ground into pulp beneath tank treads.
The attackers were cutoff, however, and found themselves encircled and unable to break out back to Soviet lines. They suffered heavily, as the 24th Tank Corps lost most of its tanks, was nearly destroyed and had to be reconstituted. The task, however, had been accomplished, and the result was a Soviet strategic victory: the attackers claimed 300 aircraft destroyed, while the Germans admitted to the loss of 72 irreplaceable Ju 52 transport planes.
Whatever the figure, the destruction of the airfield and the loss of transport planes and their trained pilots, crews, and maintenance personnel was severe enough to seal the fate of the Germans surrounded in Stalingrad. The supply situation of the besieged 6th Army, already dire before the raid, when the Luftwaffe transport arm had been operating at full capacity, now became impossible after the destruction of so many transports and their base of operations.
With aerial resupply virtually cutoff, German resistance inside Stalingrad began to crumble, and the last survivors were forced to capitulate a month later in the greatest German defeat of the war until then. That outcome in turn altered the balance of the conflict, placing the Germans in the strategic offensive, and the Soviets in the strategic offensive that culminated two years later with the Red Banner raised over the German Reichstag in Berlin.