23rd Army (Soviet Union)

The 23rd Army was a field army of the Soviet Union's Red Army. It was formed in May 1941 in the Leningrad Military District for the defence of the USSR's border with Finland on the Karelian Isthmus.

The Army initially included the 19th and 50th Rifle Corps, the 10th Mechanised Corps (which included the 21st Tank Division, the 24th Tank Division and the 198th Mechanised Division), the 27th Vyborg Fortified Region, the 28th Keksgolm Fortified Region, plus artillery and other units.

At the beginning of July the 10th Mechanised Corps was removed from the Army. On June 24 the Army was included in the Northern Front and to the end of July defended the state border of the USSR north and northeast of Vyborg. From 31 July to the end of August it repulsed attacks of the Finnish troops on Leningrad from the north and under the pressure of superior enemy forces, it was unable to stop the Finns reconquering the Karelian Isthmus, and thus the Army fell back to the old border line and occupied positions in the now-completed 22nd Karelian Fortified Region. Being located since August 24 in the Leningrad Front sector, the 23rd Army continued to conduct defensive actions and at the beginning of September stopped a new enemy offensive.

From 1942 the 23rd Army troops, in interaction with the Red Banner Baltic Fleet and the Ladoga Military Flotilla repulsed the attempts of the Finnish Army to break through the defence of the Soviet troops. Then, until June 1944 the Army defended North Western approaches to Leningrad.

During June 1944 the Army, including the 97th, 98th and 115th Rifle Corps, and the 17th Izyaslavsky Fortified Region and other units, participated in the Vyborg offensive operation (10 June 1944 - 20 June 1944). Following this operation, the Army participated in the breakthrough of the defensive enemy line on its left flank, while in the centre and on the right flank it conducted successful combat actions to eliminate the enemy bridgehead of on the Vuoksi River, and gained command of the southern bank of the Vuoksi lakes. After the termination of combat with Finland the Army formations were brought out to the state border on the Karelian isthmus, where they were located to the end of the war.

23rd Army was disbanded in the period of reductions (in the late 1950s?) although its 30th Guards Rifle Corps [See also http://www.spbumag.nw.ru/2004/01/17.shtml (Ru)] and all its divisions were preserved. [V.I. Feskov et al, The Soviet Army in the period of the Cold War, Tomsk, 2004]

Commanding officers

* Lieutenant General Pshennikov P.S. (May - August 1941);
* Lieutenant General Gerasimov M.N. (August - September 1941);
* Major General A.I. Cherepanov (September 1941 - July 1944; promoted Lieutenant General in September 1943);
* Lieutenant General V.I. Shvetsov (July 1944. - to the end of the war).

ource

*Keith E. Bonn (ed.), Slaughterhouse: The Handbook of the Eastern Front, Aberjona Press, Bedford, PA, 2005
*http://samsv.narod.ru/Arm/a23/arm.html
*Lenskii, Ground forces of RKKA in the pre-war years: a reference (Сухопутные силы РККА в предвоенные годы. Справочник.) — St Petersburg, B & K, 2000