Kholm Pocket: Hold, Break Out, or Counterattack?
commands at Kholm (Cholm), a small town on the north-western front, a composite garrison of roughly 5,500 men: elements of his , infantrymen, policemen, sailors, and assorted personnel hastily thrown together. The 's winter counter-offensive, launched after the German failure before Moscow, has torn the front open and cut his troops off dozens of kilometres from friendly lines.
On this 28 January, the encirclement closes. Scherer has no landing strip inside the perimeter: no aircraft will be able to set down to evacuate his wounded or bring reinforcements. Resupply will have to come from the sky, by parachute drops and then by Go 242 and DFS 230 gliders that must crash-land in the streets under fire, at a heavy cost in aircraft and crews. With ammunition, food, and medicine all counted out, Soviet soldiers press the perimeter on every side.
Scherer must decide quickly: launch a break-out to the west to try to reach the German lines before the pocket is crushed; hold the position at all costs, staking everything on the improvised air bridge; or concentrate his meagre reserves for a local counterattack meant to loosen the noose.
Kholm, late January 1942, Theodor Scherer: how can an encircled garrison that only air can reach be saved?
Scherer chose to hold his ground and turned Kholm into a bristling strongpoint the could not reduce. With no airstrip, the garrison lived for some 105 days off the air bridge alone: parachute drops, then Go 242 and DFS 230 gliders set down in the streets under fire, at a very heavy cost in aircraft, crews, and the troops they carried. Subjected to repeated assaults and constant shelling, the pocket held out until it was relieved overland in early May 1942. Of the roughly 5,500 defenders, several thousand were killed or wounded. The feat was raised into a symbol of tenacity by propaganda: a special decoration, the Cholm Shield (Cholmschild), was instituted in July 1942 on Scherer's recommendation to honour the garrison's survivors.
Learn more about this event
Related polls
10
Demyansk: hold the pocket or break out?
Mannerheim at the Svir
Crimea, December 1941: Manstein's dilemma
Demyansk: Supply the Pocket From the Air?
Raate — Vinogradov on the frozen road
The Stukas Mauled Over England
Taranto: The Italian Fleet at Anchor Under the Aerial Threat
Hold the bastion or save the divisions?
U-202 — 14 hours under the hunt
Valkenburg — paras on a grass strip
Demyansk: hold the pocket or break out?
Mannerheim at the Svir
Crimea, December 1941: Manstein's dilemma
Demyansk: Supply the Pocket From the Air?
Raate — Vinogradov on the frozen road
The Stukas Mauled Over England
Taranto: The Italian Fleet at Anchor Under the Aerial Threat
Hold the bastion or save the divisions?
U-202 — 14 hours under the hunt
Valkenburg — paras on a grass strip
T10-083