Axis forces in the sector, but would be committed once a breach in these defenses had been opened. The assault by 3rd Guards Army commenced during the morning of 16 December 1942. In order to accelerate the breaching of the Axis tactical defense by his rifle formations, Lelyushenko committed the other two tank corps available to him (17th and 25th Tank Corps) during the initial phase of the battle. The 24th Tank Corps was ordered to commence its operation at 1130 hours on 17 December. At this stage, the 17th and 25th Tank Corps had already reached the operational depth and were in the process of encircling Italian 8th Army and battling the forces of Army Detachment Hollidt. 25th Tank Corps later conducted a deep raid towards Morozovsk to the east of Tatsinskaya. The purpose of the two deep raids was to cut off the German formations conducting Operation Winter Storm, the relief attempt for the German 6th Army. The raid The raid was aimed at the German Luftwaffe's Tatsinskaya Airfield, from which a major part of the Stalingrad relief airlift was conducted. The airfield was located at the town of Tatsinskaya (population 5,000 at the time). On Christmas Eve, 24 December 1942, the Soviets captured the town and the airfield. The airfield may not have received a warning, since flight operations were still going on. An eyewitness account by a Soviet officer describes the scene: Our tank detachments unexpectedly broke into Tatsinski military airport. First to penetrate enemy's territory was captain Nechaev's battalion. A tough fight between tanks and enemy artillery began. Germans were shooting grenades at the Russian (sic - Soviet) tanks and managed to blow up several of them. However the Soviet tank crews broke the Nazi defense. After they destroyed patrol forces, Russian (sic) soldiers started shooting German pilots that rushed to their planes desperately hoping to save their lives. The airfield housed 170 operational transport aircraft, plus an unknown number of non-operational aircraft. The German defenses were quickly overrun, while about 100 (according to German estimates) transport planes managed to escape. German estimates were that 72 were destroyed, or almost 10% of the transport capacity of the Luftwaffe. Many of the planes were destroyed by Soviet tanks ramming the tail sections. A number of planes were destroyed while still on railway cars on which they had arrived. Shortly after the airfield was seized however, the