The Butterfly and the FalconChapter 31
It took three weeks for the combined attacks of the Leningrad and Volkhov Fronts to relieve Peter the Great's city from 17 months of siege. The Russians stacked 12 Divisions of approximately 10,000 men each against 4 German, all seriously depleted. Nevertheless, given the unequal odds, it still took Sviridov's 67th Army and Fedyuninsky's 2nd Shock Army to close the gap of some 16 kilometres. On January the 17th 1943 Sviridov entered Petrokrepost' and opened the city to the outside...