Battle of Lypovec

The Battle of Lypovec was an armed clash fought between the Slovak Rychlé brigade and troops of the Red Army on 22 July 1941 in the set of Operation Barbarossa. It was the first battle of Slovakia with the Red Army. The Soviet defense on the cross of the San River was the unit of the 10th Fortified area of 12th Army. The defense of Lypovets was led by 44th Siberian Division under the command of General Kechenko. This division consist of then two new regiments: The 305th and the 319th; it too participated in the battle two tired infantry regiments: the 25th and the 295th. His task was to lead the delays that fight in a given direction. The Rychlé brigády took Lypovets with less than 5,000 soldiers, 43 tanks and 123 artillery pieces, but the brigade commander, Colonel Rudolf Pilfousek, blame the 44th Red Army of taking additional measures. Due to the Slovak tanks refueling, the soldiers had to carry a disproportionately heavy fight and compensated the disaster with artillery, that decimate the soviets enough to let the slovak soldiers retreat.

The slovak Rychlé brigády lost 5 tanks: three LT vz. 35, one LT vz. 38 and one LT vz. 40. Plus one OA vz.30 armored car.

Aftermath
Slovaks had 261 human casualties: 75 killed, 167 wounded, 2 POWs and 17 MIA; While the soviets had 600 between killed and wounded. The Rychlé brigády has not the enough force to defeat a strongest enemy positioned in pre-prepared. The dislike of the slovak soldiers of fight the Soviet Union was too the first defeat of the soviets, and it was informed that this was absent in official reports. The automotive workshop staff had enough technical means to repair all of the battalion vehicles, but under the command of anti-fascist officers and of Czechoslovak orientation, they withdrawn all the vehicles and the whole battalion to Slovakia on the pretext that they can not be repaired under field conditions. The rest of the brigade was annexed to the German 295th Infanterie-Division. General Josef Turanec wrote in his diary: "The creature is essentially coward, once the russians start shooting, they run away, the officers are on the offensive, but on the first line retreat. In the same way, the germans themselves note that the slovak soldiers were too sensible to artillery fire and were running away".

Literature

 * MIČIANIK, P.: Slovenská armáda v ťažení proti Sovietskemu zväzu I. (1941–1944). V operácii Barbarossa. Banská Bystrica 2007.
 * MIČIANIK, Pavel. Úteky Slovákov zo sovietskeho zajatia I. [online]. Historia nostra, 13.5.2007. Dostupné online (sk)
 * MIČIANIK, Pavel. Slováci proti Molotovovej línii I. [online]. druhasvetova.sk, 1.12.2006. Dostupné online
 * Plukovník generálneho štábu Rudolf Pilfousek. 27.3.2007. Dostupné online
 * Slovenská armáda v boji o Lypovec