the action on 20 July. The following day StG 2 lost another of its irreplaceable Knight's Cross winners. William Hörner, commanding 9./StG 2. The cost of the Kursk operations for StG 2 was 30 Ju 87s from 5 to 31 July 1943. Five of the Geschwader's Knight's Cross recipients were killed. Retreat and disbandment The Soviet summer offensives drove the Wehrmacht and its allies back into Central Ukraine, from August through to October 1943. I./StG 2 retreated to Karachev by 19 July. From 14 August it operated at Poltava, and then along the Mius front, in the vicinity of Stalino and over Dmitriyevka, 84 km east of Dnepropetrovsk by 29 August. The group ended operations at Pervomaisk on 18 October 1943. Of the losses recorded, there were seven Ju 87s destroyed and two damaged from 20 August to 18 October 1943. Among the victims was commanding officer, Alwin Börst, wounded in action on 27 September 1943. II./StG 2 remained active over Donets, Nikopol, Zaporozhye and the Kherson bridgehead. From August to October 1943 it recorded eight losses and one damaged. 5./StG commanding officer, Peter Keller was killed on 28 October. The group was uniquely exempted for redesignation in October 1943 and continued to exist as an independent group attached first to Luftflotte 6, then luftflotte 4. In January 1944, 4 and 6./StG 2 departed the front for Neisse in Upper Silesia where they were renamed 10.(PzSG 3 and 10.(Pz)/SG 7 on 7 March 1944. They were re-equipped with the Ju 87G. Nothing is known of the units' activities in November and December 1944. III./StG 2 remained in action supporting the 1st Panzer Army in the Kremenchug and Kirovograd sector in September, and were engaged in bridge attacks in the same regions as II./StG 2. It attacked Soviet bridgeheads along the Dnieper from Stalino to Melitopol. The group was renamed at Kostromka on 18 October 1943. Commanding officers Geschwaderkommodore Oberstleutnant Oskar Dinort, 15 October 1939 – 15 October 1941 Oberstleutnant Paul-Werner Hozzel, 16 October 1941 – 1 March 1943 Oberst Dr. Ernst Kupfer, 1 March 1943 – 20 September 1943 Oberstleutnant Hans-Karl Stepp, 1 October 1943 – 18 October [and with SG 2 thereafter] Gruppenkommandeure I./StG 2 Major Oskar Dinort, 1 May 1939 – 1 October 1939 Hauptmann Hubertus Hitschhold, 1 October 1939 – 15 October 1941 Major Bruno Dilley, 15 October 1941 – 15 October 1943 Major Dieter Pekrun, October