many in Africa. On November 5, 1942 the German, General Rommel, had been defeated at El Alamein in Egypt, and on the 8th the Allies had landed in Morocco and Algeria, which threatened the Axis on a new front. These two events coincided with General Zhukov's plan to unleash a reserve force. Secretly being built up was a force of a million men, 14,000 heavy guns, 1,000 tanks, and 1,350 aircraft. Inferior allied divisions guarded the flanks of the German force. These forces were weaker, and they did not have anti-tank defenses or armored units. The Russians planned to exploit this weakness in an offensive known as Operation Uranus. The Soviets did an excellent job of concealing their plans, and the Axis forces were caught totally off guard. Only Romanian units suspected anything, but the German command ignored them. On November 19,1942 a massive Russian attack surprised and overran the Romanian Third Army which exposed the left flank of the German Sixth Army. A day later another attack destroyed a mixed force composed of Germans and Romanians, that protected the right flank of the German Sixth Army. Four days later Russian assault groups joined up, and now General Paulus and his army, the same one that had taken Paris in 1940, was cut off from supply lines. The Russians had surrounded 330,000 German troops in only a few days. The German Army High Command begged Hitler to allow Paulus to retreat while he still could. The Luftwaffe Chief, Herman Goering, claimed that he could fly in 500 tons of supplies a day to the surrounded Sixth Army-which would be enough to keep it going. Hitler agreed to this and on November 22, 1942 he ordered Paulus to fortify his position and wait for reinforcements to arrive. General Manstein arrived with reinforcements and told Paulus to join up with him. Paulus refused because he did not have a direct order from Hitler to do so. Manstein's force was driven off and now Paulus and his army were alo...
