2nd battle of Kharkov

Second Battle of Kharkov
Part of the Eastern Front of World War II
Operations in eastern Ukraine from 12 May to 15 June 1942
Date 12 May 1942 – 28 May 1942 (16 days) Location Izium/Barvenkovo area, Kharkov Oblast, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union Result Axis victory
Belligerents
Germany Romania  Hungary Italy  Croatia Slovakia	Soviet Union
Commanders and leaders
Fedor von Bock	Semyon Timoshenko
Strength
350,000 men 447 tanks 40 assault guns 27 tank destroyers 591 aircraft	12 May: 765,300 men 1,176 tanks 300 self-propelled guns 1,154 guns and howitzers 1,700 mortars 926 aircraft
Casualties and losses
~20,000–30,000 men 108 tanks destroyed 49 aircraft destroyed 12 airmen killed 98 airmen missing	277,190 men 170,958 killed, missing or captured 106,232 wounded 1,250 tanks destroyed 1,648–2,086 guns and howitzers lost 3,278 mortars lost 542 aircraft destroyed 57,000 horses

277,190 men

The Second Battle of Kharkov or Operation Fredericus was an Axis counter-offensive in the region around Kharkov (now Kharkiv) against the Red Army Izium bridgehead offensive conducted 12–28 May 1942, on the Eastern Front during World War II. Its objective was to eliminate the Izium bridgehead over Seversky Donets or the "Barvenkovo bulge" (Russian: Барвенковский выступ) which was one of the Soviet offensive's staging areas. After a winter counter-offensive that drove German troops away from Moscow but depleted the Red Army's reserves, the Kharkov offensive was a new Soviet attempt to expand upon their strategic initiative, although it failed to secure a significant element of surprise.

On 12 May 1942, Soviet forces under the command of Marshal Semyon Timoshenko launched an offensive against the German 6th Army from a salient established during the winter counter-offensive. After initial promising signs, the offensive was stopped by German counterattacks and airstrikes. Critical Soviet errors by several staff officers and by Joseph Stalin, who failed to accurately estimate the 6th Army's potential and overestimated their own newly raised forces, facilitated a German pincer attack on 17 May which cut off three Soviet field armies from the rest of the front by 22 May. Hemmed into a narrow area, the 250,000-strong Soviet force inside the pocket was exterminated from all sides by German armored, artillery and machine gun firepower as well as 7,700 tonnes of air-dropped bombs. After six days of encirclement, organized Soviet resistance came to an end as the Soviet formations were either killed or taken prisoner.

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