Korsun Pocket
Korsun Pocket, also known as the Cherkassy Pocket, was the name of the large pocket of German troops between the towns of Korsun and Cherkassy on the lower Dnepr River in the Southern Ukraine, during World War II.
In January of 1944, the encroaching Soviet Red Army executed a pincer operation against a salient in the German lines near the town of Cherkassy. German troops, prevented from retreat by orders of Adolf Hitler, soon found themselves completely encircled, with their only source of supply being an airfield next to the town of Korsun. The Soviets thus succeeded in encircling 56,000 Germans, creating the largest pocket of German troops since the Battle of Stalingrad.
After the encirclement the Red Army persistently tightened their stranglehold against the German troops in the pocket, while at the same time, the Germans, led by Field Marshal von Manstein, mounted increasingly strong relief efforts against the outer Soviet perimeter. What ensued was one of the largest clashes of the Eastern Front as well as the last great German victory of the war.
