In the meantime, on January 14 the Leningrad Front’s armies, under General Govorov, attacked the left wing of the German 18th Army, commanded by Colonel-General von Lindemann. According to German authorities, Govorov commanded a force of 42 infantry divisions and nine tank corps, though these figures cannot be checked since Soviet historians such as Telpukhovsky give no information on the strength of the Red Army forces on this occasion. Simultaneously, General
Meretskov’s Volkhov Front forces, with 18 infantry and 15 tank divisions, attacked the right wing of the 18th Army in the Novgorod sector.
Thus this offensive planned by Stavka took the form of a pincer movement, with Govorov and Meretskov trying to meet at Luga, so catching Lindemann’s 18 divisions in the trap.
On the Leningrad Front, the Soviet aim was to reduce the Peterhof salient, and to this end. General Fedyuninsky’s 2nd Shock Army, from the Oranienbaum bridgehead, and General Maslennikov’s 42nd Army were to aim for the common objective of Gatchina. The Germans, behind well-established defensive positions, put up a very stubborn resistance, and held out for nearly a week. But once the 126th, 170th, and 215th Divisions collapsed, a large gap was opened up in the German positions. On January 26, Govorov reached Pushkin, formerly Tsars-koye-Selo, and extended his offensive right up to the Mga region, a victory which enabled the Russians to capture large quantities of arms, in particular 85 guns of greater than 10-inch calibre.
Railway communication between Moscow and Leningrad to be re-established; whilst north of Lake Ilmen, his left flank, comprising the 59th Army, commanded by General Korovnikov, punched a gaping hole in the German defences, recaptured Novgorod, and speeded up its advance towards the west. On January 21 the plan prepared by Marshal Zhukov entered the phase of exploitation.
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