Page 249 - The Chief Culprit

210 y e Chief Culprit

been issued false names, listed below. e false name is to be used in all correspondence,
including on envelopes of top secret documents. 14

Four armies and nine separate corps made up the Kiev special military district. In ad-
dition, in May 1941 began the intense transfer of troops to the Kiev district from the inner
regions of the country and from faraway eastern and southern borders. Bagramian described
May in the Kiev district: “On May 25, the command of the 31st Rifle Corps from the Far East
arrived in the district. . . . In the second half of May, we received a directive from the General
Staff that ordered [us] to receive the command of the 34th Rifle Corps from the North
Caucasus district, four 12,000-strong divisions and one mountain rifle division. . . . [At] the
end of May, train after train arrived in the district. e Operational Department turned into
a train dispatcher bureau and received all information about the incoming troops.” 15
Even before June 13, 1941, troops flowed from the central regions of the Soviet Union
to the five border military districts. Just three armies from among these troops required 939
railroad trains—the 22nd Army from the Ural military district, the 21st Army from the
16
Volga military district, and the 16th Army from the Trans-Baikal military district. e 57th
Tank Division of the 16th Army came from Mongolia. Preliminary relocation of the armies
began in May 1941; other troops were moving as well. e former deputy of the People’s
Commissar for State Control, I. V. Kovalev, wrote that “in May [and] early June, the trans-
portation system of the USSR had to complete [the] transportation of nearly 800,000 reserve
troops. . . . ese moves had to be conducted secretly.” 17
e 16th Army consisted of six divisions, among them three tank and one motorized.
It had a total of thirty regiments: eleven artillery, seven tank, five motor-rifle, six rifle, and
one motorcycle. e army was small in number of divisions and regiments; however it was
supreme in technology, especially tanks and artillery. e 5th Mechanized Corps of the 16th
Army counted 1,076 tanks. e 57th Separate Tank Division counted 375 tanks, and the
18
two rifle divisions had another thirty-two tanks. In total, the 16th Army had 1,483 tanks and
560 armored cars, among them 397 heavy armored vehicles armed with cannon. e 16th
Army was transferred across seven thousand kilometers. Lieutenant General M. F. Lukin
commanded the army. e chief of staff of the 16th Army was Colonel M. A. Shalin—the
future head of the GRU.
e relocation of the 16th Army from the region beyond Baikal to Ukraine began on
May 26, 1941, and was scheduled to end on July 10. Lieutenant General P. A. Kurochkin,
commander of the Trans-Baikal military district, personally supervised the dispatching of
trains. We can find many testimonials to this massive railroad operation, among them the
memoirs of Major General A. A. Lobachev, who at that time was a member of the military
council of the 16th Army: “ e chief of staff reported that an important cable came in from
Moscow, concerning the 16th Army. . . . e order from Moscow proposed to relocate the
16th Army to a new place. M. F. Lukin was to immediately appear before the General Staff to
receive directions, and Colonel M. A. Shalin and I were to organize the dispatch of trains.” 19
Only three people—the Commander of the Army General Lukin, Lobachev, and the
Chief of Staff of the 16th Army Colonel M. A. Shalin—knew that the 16th Army was being
transferred west, but they did not know precisely where. All the other generals of the 16th
Army were “secretly” informed that the army was headed for the Iranian border, and that the
junior commanders were to be told that the reason for the transfer was training exercises; the
wives of the command staff were to be told that the army was leaving for training camps.