Hausner Gábor szerk.: A Hadtörténeti Múzeum Értesítője = Acta Musei Militaris in Hungaria. 6. (Budapest, 2003)

ÉRTEKEZÉSEK, TANULMÁNYOK - BABUCS ZOLTÁN: A m. kir. 2. honvéd tábori póthadosztály a magyarországi harcokban (1944. VIII. 26-1945. I. 12.)

THE ROYAL HUNGARIAN 2

Nn SUPPLEMENTARY FIELD DIVISION IN THE HUNGARIAN THEATRE OF OPERATIONS, 26 AUGUST 1944-12 JANUARY 1945 There are hardly any archival sources or specialised literature available on the establishment and active service of the Royal Hungarian supplementary field units in World War II. In the course of his research, the author attempted to use all the sources that could be found. He surveyed the personal material of the officers, the recommendations for decorations from 1944-1945 and the memoirs in the Military History Archives' Collection of Essays. Moreover, he contacted several officers that saw service in the 2nd Supplementary Field Division between August 1944 and April 1945. Their diaries, biographic recollections and letters also proved to be useful. The author tries to outline the active service of the division with the help of these source materials. When the Soviet troops reached the Carpathians, the Hungarian supreme command was forced to mobilise its reserve divisions. On 17 August 1944, the Supplementary Army Headquarters were instituted to organise the supplementary units into divisions. In the majority of the cases, the supplementary units were set up of senior soldiers from the reserve and the secondary reserve, equipped with outdated infantry weapons and ammunitions. The following supplementary divisions belonged under the command of the supplementary army: the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 7th, 8th and 9th Supplementary Field Divisions, the 1st and 2nd Supplementär}

7 Brigades, the 'Budapest' Force of Arms Regiment, the Supplementary Battalion of the River Forces, and regiment level supplementär}' border rifle and tank units. Except for the I Budapest Corps, supplementary field divisions were organised from the corps reserves, which received the same but Arabic numbers as the corps. A supplementary field division generally comprised 3 infantry regiments that were small in number, 1 horse-artillery battalion and possibly some improvised subunits. They were mobilised on 24 August 1944. The supplementary units trooped out to the theatre of operations in the last days of August 1944, and were subordinated to the Royal Hungarian 2nd Army that was fighting in Transylvania and to the Royal Hungarian 3rd Army that was advancing in the southeast of the Great Plains. The 2nd Supplementary Field Division was commanded by Staff Colonel Imre Czlenner when marching out and from the second half of September 1944 by Staff Colonel Dénes Dobák. The following units belonged to the 2nd Supplementary Field Division: the 3rd Supplementary Field Infantry Regiment (Székesfehérvár), the 16th Supplementary Field Infantry Regiment (Győr), the 22nd Supplementary Field Infantry Regiment (Komárom), the 2nd Supplementary Field Artillery Battalion (Székesfehérvár, Győr, Komárom) and the 2nd Signal Battalion. .Amid the outstandingly severe rearguard fighting, the remains of several units were merged in the division, the casualties and war losses of which were increasing continuously. From the beginning of September 1944, the division took part in the fighting near Gyergyószentmiklós, in the Csíki Basin, in the Görgényi Alps, and then, having been forced westwards gradually, on their way to Szászrégen and Szatmárnémeti they fought near Nyíregyháza, in the course of the tank battle of Debrecen. From November 1944, they held their positions at Báj and Tokaj, along the Tisza, and later were forced back under Kassa, after having surrendered Szerencs. Their last deployment took place between Makranc and Mecenzéf, in the valley of the stream Bódva, as the last of the supplementary field divisions. Then, marching through Moravia, the battle-weary division was concentrated in Grafenwöhr, Germany after 20 January 1945, where they surrendered to the American army on 23-24 April 1945.