and the Sozh) between October 8 and 14. Soon after this 42nd Corps also entered the bridgehead, assigned to the first echelon on a 5-kilometre-wide sector between the village of Bushatin and the Dniepr. The Gomel-Rechitsa Offensive was launched from the Loev bridgehead early on November 10 on a front of . In three days of fighting the forces of 48th and 65th Armies managed to tear a gap wide and from deep in the German defenses, and were halfway to Rechitsa. Over the next four days, 42nd Corps drove XXXV Corps back into Rechitsa, and on November 20 the Germans evacuated the city, crossing to the east bank of the Dniepr under pressure from the rifle Corps and 1st Guards Tank Corps to the north. Army Group Center's southern defenses were in a state of crisis by this point, and Ninth Army had been forced out of Gomel. As the German retreat continued, 42nd Corps also crossed the Dniepr and linked up with the rest of 48th Army. In January, 1944 the commander of the renamed Belorussian Front, Army Gen. Konstantin Rokossovsky, planned another offensive to continue his drive towards Parichi and, in the best case, Bobruisk. Beginning on January 16, 29th and 42nd Corps, along with a corps of 65th Army and backed by two separate tank regiments and the SU-76s of 1897th SU Regiment, were to attack on a 15-kilometre-wide sector from Shatsilki on the Berezina River southwestward to Zherd Station on the Shatsilki – Kalinkovichi rail line. They faced the German 253rd Infantry Division and roughly half of the 36th Infantry Division. On the overall attack sector the Red Army had, with reserves, about a 3 to 1 advantage in infantry, but was weak in armor. The 399th was shifted southward across the Berezina River into its Corps' second echelon. From the outset, the two rifle corps struggled to penetrate the German forward defenses. On January 19 one regiment of the division, which was now in first echelon, was able to exploit the success of the neighboring 95th Rifle Corps and advance on the German strongpoint at Medved from the west. The next day the fresh 170th Rifle Division took up the battle for Medved, and under immense pressure the defenders had no choice but to abandon that village and the nearby position at Pechishche. Exploiting this success the 172nd Rifle Division of 95th Corps, with