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From Manstein’s breakthrough through Perekop positions to the failure of the first assault on Sevastopol, from the Kerch-Feodosia landing operation and the unsuccessful offensive of the Crimean Front to the Kerch disaster and the fall of the Main Base of the Black Sea Fleet, from the long German occupation of the peninsula to the rapid (in just a month) liberation of Crimea in the victorious spring of 1944 years, when our advancing troops lost four times less than the defending enemy - this book analyzes in detail all the operations of the Wehrmacht and the Red Army in the struggle for Crimea.

Separately, the actions of our ground forces - tank crews, infantry, artillery - and the combat work of the Soviet Air Force and the Black Sea Fleet are considered.

Sections of this page:

The general counteroffensive of the Red Army, which began in November near Tikhvin and Rostov and continued near Moscow in December 1941, could not leave the Crimean peninsula aside. The interception of the strategic initiative by Soviet troops in the winter of 1941/42 followed a single pattern: a strike on the extended flank of the enemy strike group. Accordingly, in Crimea, a blow was struck on the coastal flank of the 11th Army. The coast of the peninsula was a fairly long area that needed to be defended, even in sparse formations. The concentration of the main efforts of German troops in the Crimea against Sevastopol made the defense of the entire coast almost formal. She concentrated on several areas.

The plan for landing sea and airborne assault forces on the Kerch Peninsula appeared at the command of the Transcaucasian Front at the end of November 1941, shortly after the abandonment of Crimea by Soviet troops. The first report outlining the main ideas of the operation was sent to the Supreme High Command Headquarters on November 26, 1941. The proposal was received with interest, and on November 30, a detailed report was sent to the Supreme High Command Headquarters by the Front's Military Council detailing the plan and calculating the number of troops to be allocated. Initially, it was planned to capture the landing force only in the eastern part of the Kerch Peninsula and move further to Feodosia. In this document, for the first time, two armies appear, which subsequently carried out the landing - the 51st A and the 44th A. The first was supposed to involve three infantry divisions and one brigade, the second - three infantry divisions with reinforcement units. Accordingly, the first aimed at capturing Kerch, and the second - further south, at the Chongelek Tatar region. Also in the plan dated November 30, for the first time, a landing in the area of ​​​​Opuk (by the forces of one civil service unit) appears. At the same time, the front command planned an airborne assault in the area of ​​the Salyn and Bagerovo stations with the aim of capturing the Turkish Wall and preventing the approach of enemy reserves. In the first days of December, there were already relatively detailed studies with the outfit of forces and specific landing sites. Planning for the 51st Army was led by General P.I. Batov, later replaced by V.N. Lvov. Already in the plan dated December 2, 1941, Tarkhan, Khroni and Mama Russkaya appear as landing sites on the northern coast of the Kerch Peninsula.

Landing on the cruiser "Red Caucasus". On December 28, 1941, the cruiser had to land infantrymen at night, moored to the Feodosia pier.

Landing on board the "small hunter". Kerch-Feodosia operation, December 1941

At the beginning of December, the front command issued preliminary orders, in particular regarding artillery. The landing was supposed to be supported by artillery from the triangle of Akhileon, Kosa Chushka, Batteryka. It was also envisaged that artillery and mortars would be landed in the first echelon of troops, without means of propulsion, relying on manual rolling. At the same time, orders were given to prepare rifle units for landing and conduct exercises involving boarding and disembarking from ships and vessels.

Transports from the Temryuk pier went to sea at 14.00-17.00 on December 25, from the Kuchugury pier - at 19.00, from the Taman and Komsomolskaya piers - at 2.00-3.00 on December 26, 1941. Already during the landing period, Lieutenant General V.N. Lvov changed his decision, reducing the Ak-Monai detachment to 500 people, and ordered it to be landed not at Ak-Monai, but in the Kazantip Bay. Due to this detachment, the landing at Cape Khroni was intensified. However, late in the day the weather worsened, seriously hampering the landing. As the commander of the AzVF S.G. later recalled. Gorshkov: “Due to the large difference in speed and different seaworthiness, the marching order of different types of ships and vessels was disrupted, many of them fell behind and were forced to travel alone. Seiners, canoes and boats towed by landing ships were overwhelmed by water, and sometimes torn off and carried out to sea.” Due to the storm, headwind and rolling waves, the landing forces were late in approaching the landing sites from two to six hours and landed already in daylight.

The 1st detachment, delayed by a storm, did not reach the Kazantip Bay and the landing force was landed somewhat to the west of the 2nd detachment. As a result, instead of an ambitious landing at Ak-Monai, it was landed in the high area. 43, 1 (3 km west of Novy Svet) incomplete battalion of the 83rd infantry brigade under the command of Lieutenant Kapran (193 people), which took up defense 2 km from the coast.

The 2nd detachment approached the shore in the area west of Cape Zyuk at 7.00 on December 26. A 47-mm cannon, suppressed by the Don gunboat, opened fire from the shore. The seiners could not get close to the shore because of their draft; the boats were thrown ashore and broken. As indicated in the naval report, the landing soldiers went ashore in chest-deep icy water. It was not possible to unload artillery and tanks. Towards the middle of the day the situation worsened due to the appearance of enemy aircraft. The self-propelled scow "Phanagoria" was sunk, taking with it about 100 people. Already in the dark, the Khoper barge was placed closer to the shore, a gangplank was made and three tanks and artillery were unloaded onto it. According to the order for the defense of the coast of the 46th Infantry Division, the entire section from Cape Zyuk to Chelochin was entrusted to... the connection's communications battalion. Accordingly, resistance to the landing on the shore was less than in other areas where infantry units were defending (see below).

A collision occurred at the landing site of the 2nd Detachment, showing how important it is to use specially trained units for landing operations. When about 1000 people had already landed, the commander of the 224th Infantry Division, Colonel A.P. Degtyarev demanded to carry out... a return landing. He motivated this by the impossibility of completing the task with the forces landed in a day (according to the plan, 2,900 people were supposed to land). They did not begin to replant. As a result, in the region of high 43, 1, 878 people, 3 tanks, 2 37 mm guns (anti-aircraft), 9 120 mm mortars, 2 76 mm guns were landed west of Cape Zyuk. According to the operational report of the 51st Army, a rifle company of the 185th rifle regiment, a battalion of the 143rd rifle regiment and 200 marines landed.

To fend off the landing at Cape Zyuk, the German command had to advance the 1st and 3rd battalions of the 97th Regiment of the 46th Infantry Division, located in the depths and on the coast of the Kazantip Bay. Their first task is to form a barrier at the dominant heights west of Lake Chokrak. The estimate of the number of those who landed in the report on the actions of the 97th brigade, I must say, was quite accurate - 1000 people.

At Tarkhan, the 3rd detachment, under fire from the shore and air strikes, landed only about a platoon, according to the army report. The Voroshilov dredger of the 3rd detachment, which was delayed in landing, came under air attack and was sunk, killing 450 people. 200 people were rescued by the Uragan ship, the Dofinovka tugboat and CL No. 4 and Dniester. The boat minesweeper, crowded with people picked up from the Voroshilov, returned to Temryuk due to the obvious disruption of the landing.

The most successful operation on the first day of the landing was the 4th detachment at Cape Khroni, which landed with the help of the Taganrog barge (bolinder), which was later used as a pier. “At Cape Chroni” here means that it was actually landed at the heights. 71, 3 west of Cape Khroni with a battalion from the 143rd rifle regiment, the 160th rifle regiment and the 83rd infantry brigade (1556 people) and three tanks. The landing was led by the commander of the 83rd infantry brigade, Colonel I.P. Leontyev, who immediately launched an offensive in the direction of Adzhimushkai. The landing force manages to reach Bulganak, where it enters into battle with soldiers of the German rear units.

As indicated in the report on the actions of the 72nd brigade, already at 3.30 a strong noise of battle was heard in the area of ​​the neighboring 42nd brigade (where the KVMB landing force landed). Soon the division command reports that “the Russians landed at Kamysh-Burun.” To carry out a counterattack, the 1st battalion of the regiment is withdrawn from positions in the Kerch region, but the counterattack does not begin immediately, but only closer to 15.00. The action report notes that the attack, supported by artillery, is “not in the direction of the bridgehead, but in the direction of height 164.5 into the deep flank of the enemy.” The army report on the results of the operation indicates that units of the 143rd rifle regiment “began to flee, throwing away their weapons and surrendering.” However, the disorderly retreat was stopped, and the detachment fortified itself on the northern slopes of the heights for the night. 154, 4. According to German data, the counterattack really does not achieve a decisive result. According to the report of the 72nd PP, “The left wing was stopped by large forces of the enemy, who entrenched themselves in well-equipped old field fortifications and are offering fierce resistance.” Also, the German strike group is fired from the flank from the sea (the gunboats remaining off the coast). The capture of any significant number of prisoners on December 26 does not appear in German data; probably, the army report was somewhat ahead of the events.

The 5th detachment did not land at all. Due to strong resistance in the Yenikale area, it was redirected to Cape Khroni, but ultimately stood at Cape Akhileon. According to the naval report, the minesweepers of the detachment lost the canoes and boats in tow, and the storm also disrupted the movement of the seiners. The detachment commander turned back to search for boats and seiners, and as a result, the detachment’s landing on December 26 did not take place.

As a result, on the first day of the operation, about 2,500 people were landed on a wide front, with very rough observance of the landing areas; some of the ships returned to Temryuk with the landing force. Essentially, this can be called, if not a failure, then a great failure of the landing force landed by the Azov military flotilla.

On the same day, December 26, the Kerch naval base began landing in the Kamysh-Burun area. According to the KVMB plan, it was planned to land at the points of Stary Karantin, Kamysh-Burun, Eltigen, the Nizhne-Burunsky lighthouse and the Initiative commune. Kamysh-Burun was chosen as the direction of the main attack. The first drop at each landing point, consisting of 325 soldiers, was supposed to be made from 2 torpedo boats and 4 seiners. In total, 1,300 soldiers and commanders landed in the first rush. The 302nd Infantry Division, allocated by the army for the landing, had no combat experience, but still managed to receive minimal landing training. Since December 15, its soldiers have conducted 10 exercises on boarding and disembarking from seiners and a minesweeper.

Just as in the case of the AzVF, the KVMB ships allocated for the landing were divided into detachments, there were three of them. The landing began at 16.00 on December 25th. As noted in the naval report: “Despite a pre-developed plan, the landing was slow and unorganized.” At the appointed time, only the 1st detachment completed the landing of the troops (by 1.00 a.m. on December 26). This was due to the fact that the seiners approached the piers from the roadstead at their own discretion, outside the plan, as well as the delay of some parts of the landing force. In total, 1154 people were accepted by the 1st detachment, 744 people by the 2nd detachment and 3327 people by the 3rd detachment.

The disorganization of the landing was aggravated by stormy weather; as a result, only the 1st detachment reached the landing site in a timely manner. Accordingly, the 2nd detachment was late with its departure by an hour, and the 3rd detachment - by 2 hours. The situation was aggravated by the need for detachments to follow through the ravine between Tuzlinskaya Spit and Tuzla Cape, which was difficult in terms of navigation due to the shallow depths and narrowness of the fairway. However, following a different route between Pavlovsky Cape and Tuzla Spit was excluded due to the danger of enemy shelling. The passage at night in stormy conditions, with the fencing of dangerous areas torn down by the storm, led to the grounding of some of the ships. Transports, barges, and “bolinders” were refloated before 11.00 and followed to the shore already in the light of day.

As a result, by 5.00 on December 26, almost according to schedule, only the 1st detachment consisting of 20 seiners and 8 torpedo boats reached Eltigen, Kamysh-Burun and Stary Karantin. According to German data, the landing begins around 4.45 am Berlin time. The report on the actions of the 42nd Regiment reports a report from the 1st Battalion at 4.45: “Several large and small ships are trying to land on the Rybatsky Peninsula near Kamysh-Burun. At the same time, the boats are trying to enter the bay near the shipyards.” At 4.50 a message follows from the III Battalion: “The enemy, numbering 70 people, has landed in the southern part of Eltigen.” At that time, the 42nd Regiment of the 46th Infantry consisted of 1,461 soldiers and officers and defended a 27 km long coastline. The 1st and 3rd battalions of the regiment were the main opponent of the landing by the KVMB forces, the 2nd battalion was located in Kerch and the surrounding area.

The most effective was the landing at Kamysh-Burun, where the first attack secured a foothold on the Kamysh-Burun spit and the pier of the ship repair plant. The landing was supported by artillery, the Germans especially note this: “During the entire time, the entire coast is under fire from the enemy’s heavy and heaviest guns from the opposite bank.”

The fate of other units is much more dramatic. Due to strong opposition in Old Karantina, only 55 soldiers were able to land, led by the commander of the landing point, Quartermaster Technician 1st Rank Grigoriev. The rest of the landing party went to Kamysh-Burun. This is confirmed by the report on the actions of the 42nd brigade, which says about the landing in the 1st battalion zone: “Most of the enemy boats were forced to turn back under concentrated fire.” Regarding those who landed, the German report provides testimony from prisoners, according to which “the boat approached the shore several hundred meters, and the soldiers were forced to wade through shallow water.”

Grigoriev’s group was quickly defeated, which is confirmed by both the naval report and the report on the actions of the 42nd paragraph. The latter states: “Units of the 3rd company destroy the enemy who landed on its site and capture an officer and 30 soldiers. One commissar was shot.” According to Soviet data, the detachment split into two groups and tried to break through to Kamysh-Burun, a group of fighters led by Grigoriev was surrounded and died, the second group led by senior political instructor Grabarev found a boat and retreated to their ships. The 19 people who landed in Eltigen, led by the commander of the landing point, Major Lopata, fought surrounded by battle. The report on the actions of the 42nd brigade about the resistance of this small group says: “In the zone of the 3rd battalion, the enemy manages to gain a foothold in the southern houses of Eltigen. Fierce street battles are unfolding. The last stubborn resistance was broken closer to noon, 2 commissars were shot.” The scrupulous notes on the commissars are most likely associated with the implementation of the notorious order on the commissars.

The cruiser "Red Caucasus" at sea. The cruiser was a completed ship, laid down before the First World War under the name “Admiral Lazarev”. The cruiser's main caliber consisted of four 180-mm cannons in single-gun turrets.

The next wave of landings approaches the shore already in daylight and is expected to be met with a barrage of fire. Some of the seiners turn back to Taman under fire. The second detachment of 12 seiners arrives at 7.00. Moreover, the newly arrived German anti-tank guns opened fire; even a slight delay worsened the situation. The main part of the landing party lands on the Kamysh-Burun Spit and the pier of the ship repair plant, where the first attack took hold. Here, at Kamysh-Burun, the landing achieved partial success, encircling and defeating the 2nd and 12th companies of the 42nd infantry regiment, which were making their way to their own, abandoning transport. Another partial success was the landing south of Eltigen (it was not possible to land in Eltigen itself). As indicated in the report of the 42nd brigade, “the enemy manages to capture an iron plant not occupied by our troops, located west of the Kamysh-Burun - Eltigen road.” Here, by all indications, there was a lapse in the organization of coastal defense by the Germans.

The 3rd detachment, consisting of 9 seiners, 3 tugs, a “bolinder” and 2 barges, arrived only at 13.00. According to German data, this happened a little earlier, around noon. The main forces of the 823rd Guards Regiment of the 302nd Guards Division on the “bolinder” (refloated, which it ran into in the dark) reached Kamysh-Burun Bay. Here he becomes a victim of artillery fire and air strikes, killing up to 300 people and almost all the material. As stated in the report of the 42nd PP: “One large tug takes a hit and lists. About 200 Russians jump overboard and swim or wade to the Fisherman's Peninsula." The sinking of the "bolinder" by an air strike is confirmed by the report of the 42nd brigade. According to the army report, part of the landing force actually reached the shore by swimming: “the personnel rushed into the sea, to the shore.” As the commander of the 51st A, V.N., later testified. Lvov during negotiations with front headquarters, most of those who escaped from the “bolinder” did not have weapons. It was apparently thrown into the sea as it made it difficult to swim to the shore. The barge with the main forces of the 825th Guards Regiment (up to 1000 landing troops) caught fire and was returned back to Taman.

As a result, as stated in the naval report, on December 26, the KVMB landed about 2,200 people. Of these, 1,500 people are in Kamysh-Burun, 120 on the Kamysh-Burun Spit, 500 people south of Eltigen (in the area of ​​the Initiative Commune) and 55 in Old Karantina. Small detachments were almost immediately destroyed. As it is plainly written in the army report: “The main forces of the 302nd Guards Division did not land.” Simultaneously with the landings by the AzVF and KVMB forces, on December 26, an attempt was made to land Detachment “B” at Mount Opuk. However, already at sea the ships were scattered in the darkness by the wind. Arriving at the scene on the gunboat “Red Adzharistan”, the detachment commander, Rear Admiral N.O. Abramov did not find the remaining ships and decided to return to Anapa, gather the detachment together and land on December 27. Essentially, the landing was disrupted. Summing up the events of December 26, we have to admit that the successes of the first day of landing were extremely limited.

On the second day of the operation, the Soviet troops failed to turn the situation in their favor. On December 27, the landing was practically not carried out due to a strong storm (7–8 points). The German command, in turn, tried to throw troops into the sea with counterattacks. The gathering of forces of the 97th brigade for a counterattack on the units landed at Cape Zyuk (more precisely, height 43, 1) was completed only on the morning of December 27; as a result, the counterattack on the bridgehead took place only at 13.00. The landing party responded with a counterattack with tanks, but all three vehicles were hit by the Germans. Also, this detachment was isolated from other landing groups by mining the isthmus near Cape Zyuk (which was a consequence of a mistake with the landing site).

Despite the lack of reinforcements, Colonel Leontyev’s detachment tried on the morning of December 27 from the high area. 154, 4 resume the attack on Adzhimushkai. According to German data (report of the 72nd PP), he manages to achieve initial success with competent actions: “Shortly before dawn, the enemy passes between the positions of the 2nd and 3rd companies and, with the forces of about two companies, attacks the anti-aircraft gun positions on the northern outskirts of Adzhim-Ushkai.” . However, this attack was eventually repulsed by the Germans. At the same time, Leontyev’s attack forces the Germans to postpone their own counterattack on the bridgehead; it begins after 9.00 am. According to the report of the 72nd brigade, the Germans deployed two battalions against this bridgehead (which coincides with the Soviet assessment). The detachment turns out to be quite a “tough nut to crack”; the report on the actions of the 72nd brigade notes “stubborn resistance from a well-entrenched enemy and artillery fire from ships.” Later, when summing up the results in the report of the 72nd brigade, it was noted: “The frequent fire of enemy naval artillery created great difficulties for our troops.” Enemy pressure and the threat of encirclement force the detachment to retreat to the sea to a height. 106, 6. Detachment Art. Lieutenant Kapran is attacked, but holds his position, suffering minor losses.

Destroyer "Nezamozhnik". The ship was one of the “novik” destroyers inherited from the tsarist fleet.

The Germans' attempt to drop the KVMB landing force into the sea was also unsuccessful. The counterattack on the detachment in the Eltigen area (Comune Initiative) fails. The report of the 42nd brigade states: “On terrain completely devoid of shelter, in conditions where the enemy has dug in for more than a kilometer, it is possible to advance only slightly. The enemy is supported from the other side of the strait and from ships by guns of heavy and extremely heavy caliber.” In general, an unstable balance remains in the bridgeheads.

At the same time, due to the pause that has arisen, German defense in the Kerch region is being strengthened. South of Kerch, 88-mm and 20-mm anti-aircraft guns are placed on Cape Ak-Burn, which can flank both the approaches to Kerch and Kamysh-Burun. The 2nd Battalion of the 97th Regiment of the 46th Infantry, removed from Feodosia, arrives in Kerch.

Disembarkation resumes on December 28. In the area of ​​Khroni Cape, the landing is carried out early in the morning by the forces of the 3rd detachment; it is possible to land about 400 people (according to the army report, 300 people of the 143rd joint venture). The report of the 72nd brigade confirms the fact of the landing, despite the shelling: “The Russians are landing up to the battalion and are trying to advance in a southern direction.”

In general, the pause that occurred on December 27 had a negative impact on the position of the detachments on the northern coast of the Kerch Peninsula. They did not receive additional forces, and the enemy received time to assemble strike forces and provide them with artillery support. Attack of two battalions of the 97th infantry regiment on the hill. 43, 1st detachment begins on the morning of December 28, and by noon the landing force is pushed into a narrow space near a steep bank. Here the paratroopers take their last stand. The report of the 97th PP stated: “Here he defends himself especially stubbornly in crevices and between cliffs. Sometimes enemy soldiers stand in the water, they have to be killed one by one, since for the most part they do not surrender." Soon the main landing forces are defeated. The Germans claimed 468 prisoners (including one officer), 300 killed and wounded Soviet soldiers. Their trophies were unloaded guns, including two 37-mm anti-aircraft guns and 5 tractors. The remnants of the detachment held several resistance nests on the shore, in which, according to the prisoners interrogated by the Germans, there were about 200 more people. This is quite consistent with the size of the detachment of 878 men mentioned in the naval report. It should be said that the army report says nothing about the fate of this detachment that resisted to the end.

On December 28, Leontyev’s detachment was knocked out of its position, suffered heavy losses, and began to retreat to Cape Tarkhan. As a result of the counter-offensive, the Germans manage to take the landing site. The report of the 72nd PP states: “The remnants of the enemy are still holding out on the very shore and in the quarries just east of Hill 115.5.” Detachment Art. Lieutenant Kapran was cut off from the sea and surrounded, although his destruction did not take place.

Events developed somewhat less dramatically south of Kerch. On December 28, the KVMB at 4.00–5.00 landed 678 people of the 827th Guards Regiment in Kamysh-Burun. The landing at night is confirmed by the enemy. However, attempts to develop an offensive from the bridgehead held at Kamysh-Burun to the west and connect with the landing force at Eltigen were unsuccessful. At the same time, the Germans' attempts to liquidate the bridgeheads ended in nothing. The factory in the Kamysh-Burun area changes hands. Only in the area north of Eltigen do they manage to somewhat limit the size of the Soviet bridgehead; in the report of the 42nd Infantry Division this is described as follows: “The offensive is developing well, the enemy is thrown back to a small coastal strip and is forced to huddle in a narrow space.”

Detachment “B” of the 44th Army (2393 people) was redirected here, to Kamysh-Burun, on three gunboats, originally built as landing craft, and another “bolinder”. However, this landing was not particularly successful. The gunboats ran aground 50–150 m from the shore, and the landing force had to be transported by boats. "Bolinder" is out of order.

As a result, by the morning of December 29, the landing force of the 51st Army found itself in a difficult, close to catastrophic, situation. In the ZhBD of the 11th Army, the assessment of the situation near Kerch was quite unambiguous: “The army command believes that as of December 28, the situation on the Kerch Peninsula is under control, the destruction of enemy units still on the peninsula will take place on December 29.” Considering the difficult situation of the landing forces, this statement does not look like empty boasting. In the report on the actions of the 42nd brigade, the situation on the morning of December 29 is assessed as stable: “In the first half of the day on December 29, both enemy bridgeheads were reliably blocked, after receiving reinforcements, counterattacks were launched, and the first successes were noted.” During negotiations with A.M. Vasilevsky, held on the night of December 28-29, D.T. Kozlov admitted: “The situation at the end of the day today on the front of the 51st Army was not in our favor.” At this moment, the situation changed sharply in favor of the Soviet troops - a landing took place in Feodosia, deep in the rear of German troops on the Kerch Peninsula.

Another Black Sea “novice” is the destroyer “Shaumyan”.

While fighting was going on on the Kerch Peninsula with landing forces pressed to the sea, at 13.00 on December 28 in Novorossiysk the first landing force began landing on the cruisers "Red Caucasus" and "Red Crimea", the destroyers "Zheleznyakov", "Shaumyan", "Nezamozhnik" and transport "Kuban". At 17.00, 300 fighters of the assault groups and a hydrographic party were received on 12 patrol boats. As part of the first landing, 5419 soldiers and commanders, 15 guns and 6 mortars, 100 tons of ammunition and 56 tons of food were loaded. As stated in the report of the Black Sea Fleet headquarters: “Despite the fact that the ships were placed in the Novorossiysk port according to a pre-approved disposition, well known to the leading command staff of the Red Army units, the loading and landing of troops was not organized enough.” The units arrived late and the names of the ships were confused. Some ships were loaded with more troops than planned.

Despite the removal of the 79th Brigade from the troops planned for the landing, the front command tried to select the most well-prepared units for the first strike. As expressed by D.T. Kozlov in negotiations with A.M. Vasilevsky on the night of December 28-29, 1941: “The first echelon is one regiment of the 9th State Duma, a personnel regiment trained for amphibious assaults, a battalion of marines and one regiment of the 157th division, staffed by Kuban soldiers.” In general, the formations of the 44th Army were well equipped by the standards of December 1941 (see Table 1).

In advance, on the evening of December 26, in Novorossiysk, loading of materiel and horses began on the transports of the 1st detachment (“Zyryanin”, “Jean Zhores”, “Shakhtar”, “Tashkent”, “Azov” and “Kr. Profintern”). Two more transports, “Serov” and “Nogin”, were busy with transportation to Sevastopol and began loading on the morning of December 28 and the evening of December 27, respectively. The loading of troops of the 44th Army onto transports began at 17.30 and ended at 23.00 on December 28. The 1st transport detachment was loaded with the 236th Infantry Division, and the 2nd Detachment with the 63rd State Guards Division (minus one regiment). As a result, the 1st transport detachment received 11,270 people, 572 horses, 26 45-mm guns, 18 76-mm guns, 7 122-mm howitzers, 199 vehicles (mostly lorry-and-a-half), 18 tractors, 20 light tanks, ammunition, food fodder and other property. At 3.00 on December 28, loading of materiel and horses began in Tuapse, and then the embarkation of personnel of the 63rd State Duma on the transports of the 2nd detachment (“Kalinin”, “Dimitrov”, “Kursk”, “Fabricius” and “Krasnogvardeets”). The detachment's transports carried 6,365 people, 906 horses, 31 76-mm guns, 27 122-mm howitzers, 92 vehicles, 14 tanks, ammunition, food fodder and other property. Thus, by the evening of December 28, the Soviet command had assembled sufficiently large infantry and artillery forces capable of radically changing the situation in Crimea.

Scheme from the report of the commander of the 46th engineer battalion. It is clearly visible that at night the battalion was two steps from the harbor.

It would be expected that the non-simultaneous landing of troops in Crimea would have a negative impact on the conditions of the landing in Feodosia. However, the situation was very ambiguous. On the one hand, the landing in the Kerch region weakened the German defense in the Feodosia region due to the withdrawal of reserves. According to the defense plan of the 46th Infantry Division, the II Battalion of the 97th Infantry Division formed the Feodosia coastal defense sector from Koktebel to Dalniye Kamyshi (including populated areas). With the beginning of the landing of the 51st Army, he was removed from Feodosia and hastily set off for the eastern tip of the Kerch Peninsula. The German defense of Feodosia is deprived of units that had the opportunity to explore the city and its surroundings. On the other hand, in the last days of December, the regrouping of the 11th Army was in full swing with the common goal of countering the landings, both those that had already landed and those yet to be planned. To strengthen the defense of the Kerch Peninsula, the command of the 11th Army advanced the 46th engineer battalion (a separate motorized unit) under the command of Captain Streit, which had previously been involved in the assault on Sevastopol. He was then, even before the landings, called “the last reserve of the 11th Army.”

Moreover, it should be emphasized that Streit’s battalion was not intended to organize the defense of Feodosia. As indicated in the report on the actions of the 46th Sat, the final point of the route was Ak-Monai: “Here the battalion was supposed to take over coastal defense and, together with 6 companies of various construction battalions, which were planned to be subordinated to it, build a position at the narrowest point of the peninsula Kerch from Ak-Monai in a southern direction." That is, the task of the 46th SB was to re-equip the Soviet Ak-Monai positions in the event of a radical change in the situation on the Kerch Peninsula. On the afternoon of December 28, while in Novorossiysk the landing of Soviet troops on ships and vessels took place with varying degrees of organization, the 46th Rifle Brigade was on the march from Karasubazar to Ak-Monai. The battalion reaches the Feodosia area in the afternoon.

A night march to a designated area in an unfamiliar area on bad roads was considered impractical, and the 46th Sat made a stop. As stated in the report on the actions, “the battalion, with the permission of the commander of the sapper units of the corps, settled down for the night in Feodosia in order to resume the movement to Ak-Monai the next morning at dawn.” That is, by and large, the battalion ends up in Feodosia by accident. Later it was joined by two companies of the road construction battalion. The city commandant's office indicates the location to sappers and builders.

A very significant issue for assessing subsequent events is the action plan of the German units in Feodosia. In his report on what was happening, the commander of the 46th Sat, Captain Streit, wrote the following on this issue: “... there was no information about the alarm plan, there were no instructions regarding the actions of the battalion in the event of an enemy landing or other attack. As it turned out later, there was an alarm and defense action plan for the units located in Feodosia; in addition, a few days earlier, everyone should have been put on high alert. In this situation, the fact that the relevant orders were not brought to the attention of the units arriving in Feodosia had a negative impact.”

Here Streit most likely has in mind the plans of the 46th Infantry Division and its bringing into combat readiness at the “Christmas Man” signal (see above). This allows us to conclude that, firstly, the command of the 11th Army did not undertake a targeted radical reinforcement of troops in Feodosia after the landings in the Kerch region, and secondly, that local commanders showed a general careless attitude towards the organization of defense. Orders and defense plans were not communicated to units transiting through Feodosia. The situation was aggravated by the fact that German sappers arrived at dusk in an unfamiliar city. At the same time, despite the blatant facts of negligence in the organization of defense, the very fact of the presence in the Feodosia region of the 46th Rifle Brigade, which had extensive combat experience, worsened the conditions for the landing of the planned Soviet assault. Also in Feodosia there was a heavy weapons company of the 186th infantry regiment of the 73rd infantry division, a division from the 77th artillery regiment and the 54th artillery regiment, and the 902nd assault boat team (100 people), one anti-tank company, one coastal battery. Another factor influencing the situation in the Feodosia region was the presence in the city of a senior commander in the person of Colonel Boehringer, chief of the sapper units of the 11th Army. He could subjugate any units in the city.

At 3 a.m. on December 29, a detachment of warships approached Feodosia. At night, orientation for entering the port was provided by the lights of the Shch-201 and M-51 submarines, which were advanced to the port in advance; this was typical for navigation support for Soviet landing forces. Under the cover of naval artillery fire, specially designated boats burst into Feodosia harbor and landed a group of reconnaissance officers on the protective pier, who captured a lighthouse and two anti-tank guns. Not only was the harbor not mined, but the boom gates were open on the night of the landing. In total, 266 people from the assault force were landed in the harbor by boats.

Following the boats, destroyers broke into the harbor: according to the report of the Black Sea Fleet headquarters, the first to enter the port was the EM “Shaumyan” at 4.40, followed by the EM “Nezamozhnik” at 4.56 and the EM “Zheleznyakov” at 5.00. The first landed 330, the second - 289 and the third - 287 people. The destroyers completed the landing by 5.35–5.51 (“Shaumyan” and “Nezamozhnik”), the last was “Zheleznyakov” by 7.00.

For the reasons described above, the beginning of the landing of Soviet troops becomes a very unpleasant surprise for the German sapper units located in the city. On the one hand, all units of the 46th Rifle Brigade were located approximately in the center of the city, partly near the harbor (according to the map attached to the report, south of the harbor). On the other hand, they were completely unfamiliar with the area and did not have a clear plan of action. At the first, most important moment of the landing, they only took up the defense of their location. There was no contact with construction companies in the southern part of the city.

With an experienced ear, sappers define “the firing of a large number of Russian automatic weapons,” i.e., a landing by large forces. In the documents of the 11th Army (appendices to the ZhBD) there is evidence that Boehringer contacted army headquarters. It sounds like this: “At 7.00 a call from Colonel Boehringer from Feodosia. He established contact with the field commandant (Lieutenant Colonel von Kohler). Fierce fighting in the harbor of Feodosia." The response to Boehringer's report was an order to "defend every block."

However, the head of the engineering service of Manstein’s army did not carry out this order. On the contrary, he makes a radical decision to withdraw sappers from Feodosia (which threatened to become a mousetrap) and gives the order to withdraw the 46th brigade to the fork in the Kerch-Simferopol road (on the outskirts of Feodosia). The order is immediately transmitted to the companies, in addition, an order is given to immediately withdraw transport from the city. By that time, some of the vehicles located in the immediate vicinity of the harbor were lost. The purpose of such a maneuver was, as the commander of the 46th Rifle Brigade later wrote, “to deprive the enemy of the opportunity to advance both to Simferopol and Kerch.” How justified was the failure to comply with the order? Moreover, artillery battalions of the 46th Infantry Division remained in the city.

Actually, it was the German artillery divisions located in Feodosia that provided the first resistance to the landing. At 5.08, the cruiser "Red Caucasus" was hit in the area of ​​the first pipe, which caused a fire. At 5.21 a German shell hit the cruiser's turret, pierced the armor and started a fire. On the cruisers and destroyers there were killed and wounded from fire from the shore. Boehringer himself reported all this to the headquarters of the 11th Army by telephone: “Fierce fighting in the harbor of Feodosia. German artillery takes an active part in them. One enemy ship is on fire."

However, the pace of the landing left much to be desired. At 5.02 the cruiser "Red Caucasus" approached the wide pier from the outside and began to moor. At the same time, part of the landing force began landing by longboats. The cruiser's mooring took place in extremely difficult conditions due to strong squeezing winds. To moor the cruiser, the tugboat “Kabardinets” was included in the detachment, which promptly arrived at the landing site from Anapa. However, seeing the intense shelling of the ships, the captain of the tug became afraid and returned to Anapa (was put on trial).

"Red Caucasus" managed to unmoor and set the gangplank only at 7.15. Due to the cluttered pier No. 3, only soldiers and commanders landed; unloading artillery and vehicles turned out to be impossible. Under these conditions, several companies with combat experience could significantly change the situation in the harbor. Instead, Boehringer leaves the city and takes them with him. The height of cynicism in this regard appears to be Boehringer’s report already from Karasubazar (on the road to Simferopol) at about 15.00: “The coastal artillery fired until the last shell, then the artillerymen picked up carbines.” The question of why Boehringer’s subordinates did not stand shoulder to shoulder with the artillerymen remained unanswered.

The reaction of the command of the 11th Army to the landing in Feodosia was quite quick. Already between 6.30 and 8.00, orders were given to send the Romanian 4th mountain brigade and 3rd infantry brigade (Cornet regiment) and the 240th anti-tank division to Feodosia. That is, either closely spaced or motorized units were advanced first. Aviation was ordered to operate only in Feodosia. At 8.00 a meeting was held with the participation of Manstein. The head of the operations department, T. Busse, receives the task of finding out what forces, primarily artillery, can be released for Feodosia on the west coast and in the XXX AK zone. Artillery is requested, including from near Kherson (210 mm howitzers). At 9.30, Manstein made a decision to immediately withdraw one regiment of the 170th Infantry Division from the front and send it to Alushta at night, as well as prepare the withdrawal of another regiment from the front.

On the morning of December 29, when the battle had been raging in Feodosia for several hours, attempts by units of the 46th Infantry Division to drop landing troops into the sea were still ongoing in the eastern part of the Kerch Peninsula. A surprise for the Germans was the attempt of Kapran’s detachment to break through to the sea. This forced the 97th Regiment to go on the defensive. Thus, the attempt to eliminate 200 brave souls holed up in the coastal rocks was stopped. Leontiev’s detachment, according to the Soviet version of events, tried to advance, but later “the detachment fought surrounded by battle.” According to the German version of events, the detachment was defeated. The report of the 72nd PP states: “At 9.15, List’s group and the 2nd battalion jointly destroy the last enemy forces (300 prisoners). The enemy’s landing site has been completely cleared, the enemy in the regiment’s sector has been eliminated.” The Soviet detachment at Kamysh-Burun itself tried to advance; there were battles with varying success on the territory of the factory. The Germans considered the attack on the bridgehead at the Commune Initiative to be very effective; the report of the 42nd brigade states: “The offensive is developing well, the Russians are suffering heavy losses. They amount to at least 100 killed and 200 wounded, 60 people were taken prisoner.” At the same time, it is not stated that the bridgehead has been eliminated.

However, the psychological effect achieved by the very fact of the landing in Feodosia exceeded even the wildest expectations. Boehringer's disregard for a direct and unambiguous order paled in comparison to the actions of the XXXXII AK headquarters. If the mood at the headquarters of the 11th Army was far from panicky, on the ground things came to direct arbitrariness. Closer to noon on December 29, Manstein gives the order to the command of XXXXII AK: “The 46th Infantry Division must destroy the landing enemy. Concentrate the main forces on the northern shore. I forbid leaving. The army takes over the holding of the isthmus near Feodosia. The orders given there to the Romanian CBD and MP remain in force.” The order is transmitted at 11.09 on December 29. However, already at 10.00 on December 29, the commander of the XXXXII Corps, Count Sponeck, ordered the 46th Infantry Division to leave the Kerch Peninsula. This infuriated Manstein and Sponeck was suspended and subsequently arrested and imprisoned in a fortress. Later, in his memoirs, E. von Manstein wrote: “The case of Count Sponeck shows how tragic the conflict between the obligation to carry out an order and his own opinion about operational necessity can be for a military leader.”

Aerial photograph of Feodosia Bay.

What infuriated Manstein most was that Sponeck gave the order to withdraw and turned off the radio, that is, he acted in such a way as not to hear a response ban. Such “tricks” were periodically performed by various German commanders, but in this case for Sponeck it had the most far-reaching consequences.

The losses of the 46th Infantry Division in the rapid retreat across the snow-covered Kerch Peninsula amounted to 9 heavy field howitzers, 12 light field howitzers, 4 heavy and 8 light infantry guns, 14 heavy and 73 light machine guns, 12 heavy and 25 light mortars, 3 heavy and 34 light VET. Casualties from December 25 to January 3 were moderate, with 152 killed, 429 wounded, and 449 missing.

While the scandal with the withdrawal of the 46th Infantry Division from Kerch was unfolding, sappers withdrawn from Feodosia tried to hold the crossroads north of the city. However, they were soon outflanked and knocked down from their original position. Command of the defense in the Feodosia region is taken by Lieutenant Colonel von Alphen (commander of the 617th Engineer Regiment). The artillerymen are leaving the city, abandoning their equipment. Meanwhile, Soviet units are moving forward, covering the positions of the 46th Sat.

The idea of ​​defending the crossroads was finally buried with the landing of a small detachment (a reinforced company) in Sarygol, on the road from Feodosia to the east. According to the report of the Black Sea Fleet headquarters, he was landed at about 23.00 from BTShch-26. The detachment fires at the positions of the 46th Brigade with mortars. At night, Lieutenant Colonel von Alphen orders a perimeter defense around the village of Nizhnyaya Baybuga. This is quite consistent with Soviet data, which speaks of the advance of the landing force to the town of Lysaya to the north-west of Feodosia and nearby heights with the right flank 5–6 km and the left flank 3–5 km from the city. In Feodosia itself at that moment, small scattered groups of Germans were destroyed. By the morning of December 30, Feodosia was completely liberated from the enemy. 2,000 Red Army soldiers were released from captivity. Judging by the report of the Oberquartermaster of the 11th Army on losses dated December 31, 1941, during the previous ten days 7 leFH18, 3 sFH18, 1 10-cm K18 and 2 sFH M/37(t) were lost. In all likelihood, most of the losses relate specifically to Feodosia (the losses of the 46th Infantry Division were higher and were dealt with later). During the night, units of the Romanian mountain brigade approached the Near Baybuga area.

The counterattack planned for the morning, the striking force of which was to be the Romanian units, ended in complete failure. As the commander of the 46th Sat later reported: “It was impossible to induce the Romanians to take even one step forward. The Romanian officers were not with their units, but in a house located in the rear.” The artillery was lost, so not a single shot was fired as artillery preparation.

Meanwhile, the units that landed in Feodosia went on the offensive. The decisive advantage was gained through the use of tanks. As stated in the ZhBD of the 11th Army: “The Russian tanks that broke through caused the same panic among the Romanians as in September during the breakthrough north of Melitopol. The panicked retreat of the Romanians, unfortunately, carried away the German soldiers with it.” As the commander of the 46th Brigade later wrote, two anti-tank guns he had jammed due to frost, and the Romanians did not use their anti-tank guns. An attack by Soviet tanks pushes back the Romanians and the 46th Rifle Brigade 1.5 km west of the village of Dalnie Baybugi. There are Romanian units here, reinforced by German artillery.

In the period from December 29 to 31, 23 thousand people, 1,550 horses, 34 tanks, 109 guns, 24 mortars, 334 cars and tractors, 734 tons of ammunition and 250 tons of other cargo were transported and landed in the Feodosia area. By the end of December 31, the troops of the 44th Army that had landed in Feodosia managed to advance 10–15 km from the city and capture Vladislavovka. The Romanian units that pulled up to Feodosia, although they were not able to drop troops into the sea, were still able to hold back their advance until the German divisions arrived. On the morning of December 31, the chief of staff of the 11th Army, in a conversation with the chief of staff of the GA “South,” uttered a phrase that largely determined the further development of events: “The situation near Feodosia may pose a danger to the Crimea and the 11th Army.” Accordingly, it was proposed to stop the attack on Sevastopol and strengthen XXXXII AK at the expense of forces withdrawn from LIV AK. As a result, Hansen receives an order to stop attacks on Sevastopol.

During January 1, 1942, the troops of the 44th Army were unable to advance northward. By the end of January 2, Soviet troops reached the Kiet-Nov line. Pokrovka, Izyumovka, Koktebel, where they met organized enemy resistance. The losses of the landed 63rd Guards Division, 236th and 157th Divisions, 251st Guards Regiment and the naval detachment of the 44th Army during this period can be assessed as moderate. From December 30, 1941 to January 2, 1942, they suffered 431 killed, 161 missing, and 705 wounded.

The landing of the 51st Army continued, and the landings began pursuit. Commander of the Caucasian Front D.T. On January 1, 1942, Kozlov reported to the Supreme High Command Headquarters a plan for the liberation of Crimea with a strike on Perekop, which was approved the next day.

During negotiations with the Chief of Staff of the 44th Army on Christmas Day, January 2, D.T. Kozlov said directly: “The question is this: who will concentrate the troops faster and more, I want General Pervushin, you and all your workers to understand this.” However, the conditions of the troop concentration race were extremely difficult. During negotiations with A.M. Vasilevsky on the evening of the same day, the front commander admitted: “The ice situation on the Kerch p/o [probably still the “strait.” – Note auto.] does not make it possible to transport anything.”

In the vicinity of Kerch, the 51st Army took rich trophies, but some of the weapons and equipment were domestic models captured from the enemy. So, as of January 10, 1942, ABTU 51st A reported the capture of 232 domestic and 77 German trucks, 44 domestic and 41 German passenger cars, 35 tractors and 12 Soviet-made tanks. All this equipment was faulty.

The trophy of exceptional value was 4 OV brand locomotives and 80 wagons and platforms. They were repaired and brought into a condition suitable for movement. The seizure of 10,000 tons of coal in Kerch was a serious help. This made it possible to organize the railway. transportation in the interests of front-line troops, albeit on a limited scale. This was another omission on the part of the command of the XXXXII AK and the 46th Infantry - Railway. the transport was not taken away or destroyed.

Transports lost in Feodosia. In the foreground is “Zyryanin”, behind it is “Tashkent”.

However, in addition to the obvious advantages, the idea of ​​landing in Feodosia also had obvious disadvantages. The large distance from the front's aviation bases did not allow for reliable air cover. As a result, the transports in the port were hit by German bombers. The first to die was the Tashkent (5552 GRT), which managed to unload. The next one, on January 4, was “Zyryanin” (3592 brt), transporting liquid fuel and shells, hit by bombs while pumping fuel. On the same day, the Nogin (2150 GRT) was attacked and sunk. On January 9, the Spartakovets and Chatyr-Dag were sunk. On January 16, he was blown up by a mine “Jean Zhores” (3972 brt). Cargo was also slowly removed from the piers of Feodosia, and therefore a lot of ammunition was destroyed during the bombing of the port by enemy aircraft.

All this led to a decrease in the rate of accumulation of troops on the bridgehead near Feodosia and a shortage of the most necessary supplies. On the contrary, the Germans hastily concentrated the troops withdrawn from the group aimed at Sevastopol. This allowed them to achieve a quantitative and qualitative advantage and launch a counteroffensive. E. von Manstein writes: “It was to be waged by three and a half German divisions and one Romanian mountain brigade against the enemy, whose forces had now increased to eight divisions and two brigades. While the enemy had tanks, albeit in limited numbers, we had none.” Here Manstein is being somewhat disingenuous, since the strike force assembled near Feodosia included assault guns. In reality 1941–1942 they were an extremely problematic example of German armored vehicles for Soviet anti-tank defense and light tanks. Already as of January 8, XXXXII AK had two platoons of assault guns under its command: 4 self-propelled guns from the 197th battalion and 2 self-propelled guns from the 190th battalion. The main forces of these two assault gun battalions remained under the command of LIV AK near Sevastopol.

The German offensive began on January 15, and by January 18 the attackers had completely occupied Feodosia, encircling part of the forces of the 44th Army. It was announced that 10 thousand prisoners, 177 guns and 85 tanks had been captured. The remnants of the 44th Army retreated to the Parpach Isthmus. The army commander, General A.N., was seriously wounded. Pervushin, member of the Military Council A.G. died. Komissarov, the chief of staff, Colonel S.E., was shell-shocked. Christmas. General I.F. took command of the army. Dashichev. The main consequence of the German counterattack was the loss of Feodosia as a supply port for Soviet troops in Crimea.

The condition of the troops of the 44th Army after Feodosia can be assessed as depressing (see Table 2).

Entrusted to the ill-fated D.T. Kozlov’s troops tried to recapture the peninsula during a difficult period for the Red Army in peculiar natural conditions. The landing in Feodosia on December 29, 1941 was a “knight’s move” that dramatically changed the operational situation in Crimea, but this success was not consolidated. The accumulation of troops, ammunition, and fuel in Feodosia proceeded slowly. The advance of the 51st Army along the muddy roads of the Kerch Peninsula due to the thaw was also late. All this allowed the German 11th Army to counterattack on January 15, 1942 and soon reoccupy Feodosia.

Already on the evening of January 17, order No. 0183/OP of the front headquarters follows: “The Caucasian Front, on the morning of January 17, goes on the defensive on the line of the Ak-Monai positions.” Accordingly, Tulumchak, Korpech, Koi-Asan and Daln were designated as cover positions. The reeds, and the Ak-Monai positions became the main line of defense.

In the middle of the day on January 17, a conversation took place between D.T. Kozlova with A.M. Vasilevsky, at which the front commander firmly and consistently defended the expediency of the measures taken. Kozlov motivated his orders as follows: “I did not decide to risk the final loss of the divisions and proposed to retreat to the Ak-Monai positions in order to tighten up and wear down the enemy.” Moreover, he bluntly stated: “The situation that has developed today does not necessitate a revision of the decision made.” In a conversation with Moscow, the front commander also assessed the enemy’s intentions as the most decisive: “Throw our units into the sea with a strike from the right and left.” Ultimately, Vasilevsky, who began the conversation with Kozlov with a rather shady assessment of the enemy near Feodosia, by the end of two hours of rather intense negotiations agreed with the arguments of the front. As a result, the troops retreated to the Ak-Monai positions.

Faced with a serious crisis in Crimea, the Supreme Command Headquarters sent its representatives to Crimea - Army Commissar 1st Rank L.Z. Mekhlis and Deputy Chief of the Operations Directorate of the General Staff, Major General P.P. Eternal. Mehlis arrived at the front on January 20, 1942. A new stage of the struggle for Crimea began.

Conclusions. The Kerch-Feodosia operation and the subsequent struggle for Feodosia gives rise to polar assessments, both positive and negative, in domestic historiography. An important issue is the viability of the bridgeheads formed as a result of the landing of troops of the 51st Army by the forces of the AzVF and the KVMB. A study of the documents of the parties leads to the disappointing conclusion that by the morning of December 29, 1941, most of the landed troops were either defeated or were on the verge of defeat. On the other hand, it cannot be said that all bridgeheads were close to collapse. The most stable position was for the units of the 302nd Guards Division at Kamysh-Burun. The liquidation of this detachment on December 29 (as indicated in the ZhBD of the 11th Army) seems unlikely. Unlike other bridgeheads, it was also supported by the artillery of the 51st Army. At the same time, the liquidation of other bridgeheads made it possible to free up at least two or three infantry battalions for an attack on the bridgehead. This would be a serious test for him, if not a disaster.

The tragic fate of a significant part of the landed troops makes us think about the viability of the plan for the landing operation on the Kerch Peninsula as a whole. Here, the study of German documents leads to the conclusion that the positions of the 46th Infantry Division near Kerch were not at all an impregnable fortress. The area of ​​Cape Zyuk, defended by signalmen, could become a gap in the defense of the 46th Infantry Division and the XXXXII Corps as a whole. However, this required a massing of landing craft to land and supply large forces. For example, the involvement of gunboats (formerly “epildifors”) from the Black Sea Fleet for landing in the Sea of ​​Azov.

At the same time, failures in the Kerch region simultaneously became a magnet drawing together German reserves. In particular, the battalion of the 97th PP, placed on defense in the Feodosia area. This created the basis for the success of the landing in Feodosia, which made it possible to seize the initiative from the enemy for a long time.

However, as practice has shown, it was not enough to land troops; they still had to be fully supplied. In this regard, the assessment made hot on the heels of the events in 1943 in the “Collection on the Study of War Experience” is indicative. An unsightly picture was given of the release of weakened formations onto the peninsula: “Some division, weakened in artillery and without convoys, was loaded and transported, and its “rear” (as it was customary to call the remnants of the division, although these rear included 7/8 artillery regiment) with several thousand horses and a hundred (sometimes more) vehicles remained on the Caucasian coast." As a result, the transported units could not “really fight or live” for a long time. The 44th Army, in the face of the concentration of large enemy forces, needed to really fight.

The Kerch-Feodosia landing operation became one of the largest offensives of the Red Army at the initial stage of the Great Patriotic War. It took place in the most difficult conditions.

As a result of the failure of the operation, the problems of the Soviet army and navy were exposed, which made it possible to avoid future mistakes. Until the Allied landing in Normandy, the Kerch-Feodosia landing operation was considered one of the largest.

Background

The occupation of Crimea began in 1941. By the beginning of autumn, the Wehrmacht captured almost the entire territory of the Ukrainian SSR. After the fall of Kyiv, hope for a counteroffensive was lost. Because most of the combat-ready armies of the entire front found themselves in the “cauldron”. The retreat to the East began. In September, the Germans were already on the outskirts of Crimea. The importance of the peninsula was well understood by both sides. Firstly, it ensured control over most of the Black Sea. Especially because of the hesitant Turkey. Which, although it supported the Third Reich, did not enter the war.

The peninsula was also a good air base. It was from here that Soviet bombers took off and carried out strategic air strikes on Romanian oil wells. Therefore, on September 26, the Wehrmacht went on the offensive on the isthmus. Less than a month later, the peninsula was almost completely captured. Soviet units retreated to Taman. Only Sevastopol remained, whose heroic defense was still ongoing. At this time, the Kerch-Feodosia landing operation was born at the Supreme Command Headquarters.

Preparation

As a result of the withdrawal from Crimea, the only place of resistance became Sevastopol. The city held a heroic defense, despite a complete blockade from land and only partial supplies by sea. The Germans launched several assaults, but all of them were unsuccessful. Therefore, the commander of Army Group Manstein decided to begin a siege. Almost all the armies were needed to surround the huge agglomeration. At the same time, the Kerch crossing was defended by only one Wehrmacht division.

The Kerch-Feodosia landing operation was developed by General Kozlov. To implement it, two armies were brought in. For two weeks, under the leadership of General Kozlov, possible landing routes were developed. Due to a lack of reserves, an entire army was withdrawn from the border with Iran. As a result, the Kerch-Feodosia landing operation was scheduled for the twenty-sixth of December. The plan involved a simultaneous attack on Feodosia and the strait. Soviet troops were supposed to drive the Germans out of the city, and then surround the entire enemy group. The command was counting on a quick victory, since the main German forces were concentrated near Sevastopol. At the same time, Kerch was covered only by a small German garrison and several Romanian armies. Already at that time, the Headquarters knew that the Romanian formations were extremely unstable to massive attacks and could not conduct a long-term defense.

If successful, the Red Army would be able to destroy the enemy group in the peninsula area. This would make it possible to freely transport new units to the coast from Taman. After this, Soviet troops could quickly advance west and hit the rear of the German troops besieging Sevastopol. According to Kozlov’s plan, after the city was released, a large-scale offensive could be launched in Crimea.

First hit

The Kerch-Feodosia landing operation of 1941-1942 began on December twenty-sixth. The "auxiliary" blow was struck first. He not only fettered the enemy’s forces, but distracted his attention from the main goal - Feodosia. With the support of the Black Sea Fleet, Soviet troops secretly approached the shore. After the artillery barrage, the landing began.

The landing took place in extremely difficult conditions. The shore was unsuitable for mooring ships and barges. The Germans also managed to start shelling the attackers. Therefore, the soldiers had to jump into the water as soon as the depth was sufficient to walk. That is, on a cold December day, the Red Army soldiers walked up to their necks in icy water. As a result, there were large sanitary losses due to hypothermia. But a few days later the temperature dropped even more, and the strait froze. Therefore, the remainder of the 51st Army advanced across the ice.

The Kerch-Feodosia landing operation of 1941-1942 on the main direction began on the twenty-ninth. Unlike the landing in Kerch, the landing in Feodosia took place directly at the port. The soldiers landed on the shore and immediately rushed into battle. In total, on the first day, about 40 thousand people were landed in both directions. The German garrison of the city numbered three thousand people. Their resistance was crushed by the end of the day. After landing in Feodosia, the threat of complete encirclement loomed over the Nazis. In Kerch, the line was held by only one German division and Romanian mountain riflemen.

Retreat

Headquarters almost immediately learned about the results that the Kerch-Feodosia landing operation brought. The forces of the parties in the Kerch region were unequal. Soviet troops outnumbered German ones several times. Therefore, General von Sponeck decided to begin a retreat to the west. The order began to be executed instantly. The Nazis retreated to avoid the connection of two landing armies. However, at the front, Manstein categorically prohibited any retreat. He feared that if the Soviet troops retreated, they would be able to catch up with the German and Romanian armies and destroy them.

This was the plan of the Soviet leadership. The defeat of the Kerch garrison would lead to a shortage of German forces.

The road to Sevastopol would have been open to the Red Army. However, the landing force did not begin to advance rapidly. Instead of a quick push west, the Forty-Fourth Army moved towards Kerch to meet the Fifty-First Army. This delay allowed the Germans to gain a foothold on the new line of defense near Sivash. Reserves and heavy weapons were brought there. In Berlin they immediately began to take retaliatory measures as soon as they learned that the Kerch-Feodosia landing operation had begun. The 1st stage allowed Soviet troops to gain a foothold on the coast. However, the hardest part was yet to come.

Difficult position

After the defeat of the Germans in Feodosia and Kerch, the Red Army units were extremely exhausted. This is primarily due to the extreme landing conditions. Ice water, low air temperature, etc. had a bad effect on the well-being of the soldiers. There was not a single hospital on the captured bridgeheads. Therefore, wounded soldiers could only rely on first aid. After that, they were delivered to Kerch and from there, across the sea, to the mainland. The seriously wounded could not always travel such a long distance.

It was also not possible to establish a crossing due to constant attacks by German aircraft. Air defense equipment was not delivered on time. Therefore, in fact, the planes did not encounter any resistance. As a result, many warships were seriously damaged.

Kerch-Feodosia landing operation: 2nd stage

In less than a week, the Red Army soldiers recaptured the entire coast. Fascist resistance was suppressed quite quickly. Due to uncertainty in the Romanian units, the Wehrmacht introduced regular German officers into their ranks. The defense along Sivash was strengthened by a reserve infantry regiment.

The main direction of attack for the Soviet troops was the railway, which supplied the 11th Army of the Wehrmacht. Taking into account the weakness of the Nazi troops, the Commander-in-Chief's Headquarters ordered an immediate attack to the west. According to the plan, Kozlov was supposed to go to the rear of the Germans besieging Sevastopol and defeat them. After this, it was planned to launch another large-scale offensive and liberate all of Crimea. However, the general hesitated too long. He believed that there were still not enough resources for the throw. It would seem that the successful Kerch-Feodosia landing operation of the Soviet troops brought severe disappointment. The Nazis counterattacked.

The following month, forty-two, a new large-scale offensive was being prepared. To support it, an additional corps was landed in Sudak. Ammunition and reinforcements arrived by sea and ice. However, one of the best generals of the Third Reich was ahead of Kozlov. In mid-January, the Nazis unexpectedly began their offensive. The main blow fell on the poorly fortified front line at the junction of the two armies. Three days later the Germans reached their original positions. By the end of January 18, Feodosia had fallen. The troops recently landed in Sudak put up desperate resistance. For almost two weeks, the Red Army soldiers fought heroically and almost completely gave up their lives in battle. Cargo ships carrying supplies were destroyed. After the loss of the only port, Soviet troops could only be transported to Kerch by ice.

Preparing for a new attack

After this, the command created a separate front in Crimea.

It included armies already operating on the peninsula and new formations. Soldiers of the 47th Army were removed from the Iranian border. The command transported a significant amount of equipment. A special commissioner was sent from Headquarters. Preparations for the offensive began. It was scheduled for the end of February. The goal was the enemy grouping near Sevastopol; in fact, the Kerch-Feodosia landing operation was developed to destroy it. The Crimean front was reinforced with artillery regiments and heavy tanks throughout the month.

On the twenty-seventh of February the offensive began. It was planned to concentrate the main attack in Kerch. However, weather conditions interfered with the plans. It began to thaw and it rained heavily. Mud and mud prevented the advance of heavy equipment. Tanks, especially heavy ones, could not keep up with the infantry. As a result, the Germans were able to withstand the attack of the Red Army. Only on one sector of the front was it possible to break through the defense line. The Romanian army could not withstand the onslaught. But nevertheless, the Soviet troops were unable to build on their initial success. Manstein understood that a breakthrough threatened the Red Army soldiers entering the flank of his armies. Therefore, I sent the last reserves to hold the line, and this gave results. Stubborn fighting continued until the third of March. But it was not possible to make serious progress.

The Kerch-Feodosia landing operation of the Crimean Front troops continued in mid-March. Eight rifle divisions, supported by two tank brigades, launched an offensive. At the same time, the Primorsky Army struck from besieged Sevastopol. But they failed to break through to their own people. The Germans repelled ten attacks per day. But the Nazi defenses were never broken through. Some units achieved some success, but were unable to maintain their positions. After this, the front stabilized and the intensity of hostilities decreased.

German advance

By the end of March, Soviet troops had lost one hundred and ten thousand people since the Kerch-Feodosia landing operation began. The 3rd stage began with the German offensive.

It was planned carefully and for a long time. As a result of the unsuccessful attack of the Red Army, a frontal ledge (the so-called arc) was formed in the place where the Romanian division was defeated. The main forces of the Soviet army were concentrated here. While in the south, only three divisions occupied the defense.

Manstein decided to make a maneuver, striking precisely to the south. For this purpose, significant reinforcements were sent to Crimea. consisting of one hundred and eighty vehicles, arrived on the outskirts of Sevastopol. The Germans conducted a thorough reconnaissance and identified the weaknesses of the Soviet defense. The Nazis intended to use air power to support the planned offensive. To do this, on Hitler’s personal order, an air corps was sent to the peninsula. Planes also arrived from Romania. However, the pilots of all the aircraft were exclusively Germans.

Soviet troops were located too close to the front. Many eyewitnesses of those events recall this. According to historians, it was the inept command of Kozlov and Mehlis that led to the subsequent tragedy. Instead of leaving the divisions in the rear, where they would be out of the range of artillery fire, they were constantly driven forward.

Fatal defeat

The offensive began on May 7th. The ground attack was preceded by air preparation. The Luftwaffe attacked previously identified targets. As a result, Soviet troops suffered losses in many directions. The headquarters of one of the armies was destroyed. As a result of this, command passed to Colonel Kotov.

The next day the infantry offensive began. With the support of heavy tanks, the Germans broke through the front seven kilometers deep. The sudden attack in this area could not be repelled. Troops also landed behind the Red Army lines. Its numbers were small, but the sudden attack from the sea caused panic among the Soviet soldiers. By May 9, Manstein brought another of his divisions into battle. The Germans managed to finally break through the front and defeat almost the entire southern group. Immediately after this, the Wehrmacht began to turn north, threatening to attack the remaining forces of the Crimean Front on the flank.

Taking into account the catastrophic situation, on the night of May tenth there is a personal conversation between Stalin and Kozlov. It was decided to retreat to a new line of defense. But the army left without a commander after the German air raid could no longer advance. A new blow was delivered in the direction of the Cimmerian Wall, which was assigned the role of a new line of defense. The Kerch-Feodosia landing operation of the Soviet troops failed. A German landing force from the air helped to finally break through the defenses. On May 14, the evacuation of Red Army soldiers from Crimea began. A day later, the Germans began their assault on Kerch. The city's garrison fought until it was left without ammunition, after which the city's defenders retreated to the quarries.

Kerch-Feodosia landing operation: results

The landing in Kerch initially brought success. A new front was formed, and the opportunity arose for one of the first large-scale offensives. However, inept command of the troops led to tragic consequences. Over several months of heavy fighting, the Germans managed not only to hold their positions, but also to go on the offensive. As a result, the Wehrmacht delivered a strategically thought-out blow, which led to defeat, which ended the Kerch-Feodosia landing operation. The battles are briefly described in the diaries of Kozlov and Manstein.

Despite the failure of the operation, it became a harbinger of the already victorious offensive on the peninsula in 1944.

Second attack

Two years after the tragic defeat, a new landing force landed in the Kerch port. 1944 was the year of the liberation of Crimea. When planning the offensive on the peninsula, the command considered all the details of the first operation. The Azov Fleet was used to deliver troops. The landing party was supposed to seize a bridgehead for a further large-scale offensive.

At this time, a large-scale offensive operation was being prepared. Therefore, attacks were launched from two directions. On January 22, about one and a half thousand Red Army soldiers boarded ships and set off for Kerch. To cover the upcoming operation, Soviet artillery began a massive shelling of the coast. In this case, the greatest fire was applied not at the landing site in order to disorient the enemy. Several boats also simulated a landing.

Closer to the night of January twenty-second, troops landed in the Kerch port. 1944 was not nearly as cold as 42, so the Marines did not suffer significant losses from hypothermia. Immediately after landing, the paratroopers rushed into battle and achieved significant success. A significant part of the city was captured. However, the army advancing from the other side was unable to break through the German defenses. Therefore, the paratroopers had to break through to their own forces on their own. During the battles, one of the battalions managed to capture 170 German soldiers. A few days later, having suffered significant losses, the Marines broke through the encirclement and linked up with the advancing units. In essence, the Kerch-Feodosia landing operation of 1941-1942 was repeated, only much more successful.

Tragedy of the Crimean Front

Possession of the Crimean peninsula was of strategic importance. Hitler called it a Soviet unsinkable aircraft carrier threatening Romanian oil.

October 18, 1941The 11th Wehrmacht Army under the command of Infantry General Erich von Manstein began an operation to seize Crimea. After ten days of stubborn fighting, the Germans reached operational space. TO November 16, 1941 all of Crimea, except Sevastopol, was occupied.

December 26, 1941started Kerch-Feodosia landing operation. The troops of the Soviet 51st and 44th armies of the Transcaucasian Front recaptured the Kerch Peninsula, advancing to 100-110 km behind 8 days.

Soviet troops stopped January 2, 1942 at the line Kiet - Novaya Pokrovka - Koktebel. The Soviet 8 rifle divisions, 2 rifle brigades and 2 tank battalions were opposed there by one German infantry division, a reinforced infantry regiment and Romanian mountain and cavalry brigades.

Mansteinwrote in his memoirs:

“If the enemy took advantage of the created situation and began to quickly pursue the 46th Infantry Division, and also decisively hit the Romanians retreating from Feodosia, then a hopeless situation would have been created not only for this new section of the 11th Army’s front. The fate of the entire 11th Army would have been decided 1st Army. A more decisive enemy could have paralyzed all the supplies of the army recalled from Sevastopol with a rapid breakthrough.– 170th and 132nd PD– could arrive in the area west or north-west of Feodosia no earlier than 14 days later."

The command of the Transcaucasian Front nevertheless planned to carry out operations to liberate Crimea. The operation plan was reported to the People's Commissar of Defense January 1, 1942. The attack of the motorized mechanized group (2 tank brigades and a cavalry division) and the 51st Army (4 rifle divisions and 2 brigades) was planned to reach Perekop, where it was planned to drop an airborne assault force in advance. 44th Army (3 rifle divisions) - reach Simferopol. Two mountain rifle divisions were to strike along the Black Sea coast. The Primorsky Army was supposed to pin down the enemy near Sevastopol and land troops in Yevpatoria, followed by a direction to Simferopol. General task–destruction of all enemy forces in Crimea. The operation began on January 8-12, 1942.

However, the operation was not started on time, and January 15, 1942 The Germans and Romanians launched a counterattack, recapturing Feodosia on January 18. Soviet troops were pushed back 10-20 km, to the Karpacz Isthmus.

February 27, 1942The Soviet offensive began both from Sevastopol and from the Karpacz Isthmus. There, Soviet 7 rifle divisions and 2 brigades, and several tank battalions acted against 3 German and 1 Romanian infantry divisions. The second echelon of Soviet troops included 6 rifle divisions, one cavalry division and two tank brigades. The Romanian division on the northern flank retreated again to Kiet, 10 km. March 3, 1942 the front stabilized - now it arched to the west.

On March 13, 1942, Soviet troops (8 rifle divisions and 2 tank brigades) again went on the offensive. The Germans held out, and on March 20, 1942 they tried to launch a counterattack with the forces of the 22nd Panzer Division (which had just been reorganized from an infantry division) and two infantry divisions. The Germans were repulsed.

On March 26, 1942, four Soviet divisions attempted to advance, but were in turn repulsed.

The last Soviet offensive attempt in Crimea was April 9-11, 1942.

“There will be no increase in the forces of the Crimean Front at the present time. Therefore, the troops of the Crimean Front will firmly gain a foothold on the occupied lines, improving their defensive structures in engineering terms and improving the tactical position of the troops in individual sectors, in particular by capturing the Koi-Asan node.”

By this time, the Crimean Front included 16 rifle divisions and 3 brigades, a cavalry division, 4 tank brigades, and 9 reinforcement artillery regiments. The front had 225 bombers and 176 fighters (serviceable). The enemy had 5 German infantry and 1 tank divisions, 2 Romanian infantry divisions and a cavalry brigade, as well as the Groddeck motorized brigade, which consisted mainly of Romanian units under the command of the German headquarters.

With such a balance of forces (Manstein assessed Soviet superiority in forces as double) the Germans and Romanians crossed May 8, 1942 on the offensive.

Mansteindecided to reverse the factor of the numerical superiority of Soviet troops in St. oh good. The front line consisted of two sections. The southern section from Koi-Asan to the Black Sea coast (8 km) consisted of well-equipped (since January 1942) Soviet defensive positions, occupied by the 44th Army. The northern section from Koi-Asan to Kiet (16 km) curved to the west. The Soviet command should have expected that the Germans would strike in the Koi-Asan area in order to cut off the northern group (47th and 51st armies).

Indeed, given the small number of his forces, Manstein could only count on environment as many Soviet forces as possible in as small a territory as possible and then destroying them with aviation and artillery. His forces were sufficient for operations on a narrow section of the front, but further east the Kerch Peninsula expands, and there the numerical superiority of Soviet forces could cost the Germans dearly.

The idea of ​​the German operation "Hunting for Bustards" was based on delivering the main attack not in the Koi-Asan area, but at the southern end of the front line, where it was least expected. Moreover, three German infantry and tank divisions, as well as the Groddeck brigade, were supposed to attack here, that is, at least half all German-Romanian forces. In the northern and central sectors of the front, the Germans and Romanians were supposed to conduct a demonstration of the offensive, truly moving into it only after the breakthrough of the southern group. In addition, in the first hours of the operation, massive air strikes were carried out on the headquarters of units of the 47th and 51st armies.

The German ploy worked - Soviet reserves remained in the north after the start of the offensive. On May 8, the Germans broke through the Soviet defenses in a 5 km section, to a depth of 8 km. On May 9, heavy rain began to fall, which prevented the Germans from bringing a tank division into battle, but before the downpour, the Groddeck motorized brigade managed to advance, cutting off the 44th Army from its rear positions.In addition, a German boat landing force landed in the rear of the 44th Army. This was only one battalion, but it assisted the German offensive.

May 11, 1942The German 22nd Panzer Division reached the northern coast of the Kerch Peninsula. It was followed by the German 170th Infantry Division and the Romanian 8th Cavalry Brigade. 8 Soviet divisions found themselves in the resulting cauldron, and on that day the commander of the 51st Army, Lieutenant General V.N. Lvov, died. On the same day, Stalin and Vasilevsky sent an angry directive to the commander-in-chief of the troops of the North Caucasus direction, which began with the words

“The Military Council of the Crimean Front, including Kozlov, Mekhlis, have lost their heads, and to this day cannot contact the armies...”

And ending by order:

"don't let the enemy pass".

However, the Germans and Romanians advanced rapidly. On the evening of May 14, the Germans were already on the outskirts of Kerch. On May 15, 1942, the Supreme Command Headquarters ordered:

“Don’t surrender Kerch, organize defense like Sevastopol.”

However, already May 16, 1942 The German 170th Infantry Division took Kerch. May 19, 1942 fighting on the Kerch Peninsula ceased, with the exception of the resistance of the remnants of Soviet troops in the Adzhimushkai quarries.

From 270 thousand fighters and commanders of the Crimean Front for 12 days battles were lost forever 162.282 person - 65% . German losses amounted to 7.5 thousand. As it is written in “History of the Great Patriotic War”:

“it was not possible to carry out the evacuation in an organized manner. The enemy captured almost all of our military equipment and heavy weapons and later used them in the fight against the defenders of Sevastopol”.

On June 4, 1942, the Supreme Command Headquarters declared the command of the Crimean Front to be responsible for the “unsuccessful outcome of the Kerch operation.”

Army Commissar 1st Rank Mehlis was removed from his posts as Deputy People's Commissar of Defense and Head of the Main Political Directorate of the Red Army and demoted to the rank of Corps Commissar.

Lieutenant General Kozlov was removed from his post as front commander and demoted to the rank of major general.

Divisional Commissar Shamanin was removed from his post as a member of the Front's Military Council and demoted to the rank of brigade commissar.

Major General Vechny was removed from the post of chief of staff of the front.

Lieutenant General Chernyak and Major General Kolganov were removed from their posts as army commanders and demoted to the rank of colonel.

Major General Nikolayenko was removed from his post as commander of the front air force and demoted to the rank of colonel.

July 1, 1942 (even before the capture of Sevastopol) Manstein received the title Field Marshal General.

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photo from the Internet, Kerch region. prisoners of war

I "d say it"s rather May 1942 (17-19), after Operation Trappenjagd.

Clarification

It is after the conquest of Sevastopol.

Image attached is from the book:

Bessarabien Ukraine-Krim. Der Siegeszug Deutscher und rumänischer Truppen

Besuche von Weltgeschicher Bedeutung (Visits of world historical importance), which describes an international delegation who came to see how the German-Romanian troops conquered Sevastopol.

Text translation:

It was after the conquest of Sevastopol.

Images taken from the book:

Bessarabien Ukraine-Crimea. Der Siegeszug Deutscher und rumänischer Truppen

Besuche von Weltgeschicher Bedeutung (Visits of World-Historical Significance), which describes the international delegations that came to see German-Romanian troops capture Sevastopol.

Presumably this is Marfovka.

Also Marfovka.

Soviet ammunition, the first two are high-explosive, the rest are fragmentation.

Kerch Peninsula, autumn 2010.

Kerch Peninsula, autumn 2010.

my excavations

Spent cartridges

Akmonai positions. Dota.

bullet marks

Personal weapon of a soldier 633 SP, 157 SD.

Fragment of a Mosin sniper rifle.

Kerch area, May 1942, in the photo Il-2.

May 1942, Kerch region.

All 5 photos from the Bundesarchiv, Germany

“Alarmists will be shot on the spot...”

FROM THE TRAGEDY of the Crimean Front during the reign of Khrushchev, one of the most confusing myths about the Great Patriotic War was created - the myth that the Supreme Commander-in-Chief specially sent his mediocre in military affairs, but “faithful dog” Mehlis to various fronts, and he kept the command in fear. As a result, in particular, the Crimean disaster of May 1942 occurred.

On the cover of the book by Doctor of Historical Sciences Yuri Rubtsov “Mekhlis. Shadow of the Leader" (M., 2007) the following summary about the hero of the work was made: "The mere mention of the name of Lev Mekhlis caused horror in many brave and honored generals. For many years this man was Stalin’s real shadow, his “second self” and in fact the master of the Red Army. He was so fanatically devoted to his leader and country that he stopped at nothing to complete his task. On the one hand, Mehlis is accused of having the blood of hundreds of innocent commanders on his hands, some of whom he personally shot. On the other hand, he was respected by ordinary soldiers, whom he always took care of. On the one hand, Mehlis was one of the main culprits for the defeat of the first months of the Great Patriotic War and the collapse of the Crimean Front in the spring of 1942. On the other hand, his inflexibility and firmness more than once saved troops in the most desperate situations. Was Mehlis the embodiment of evil? Or did he simply personify his controversial times?

The documents cited in the book by a respected colleague did not allow either the author or the readers to draw an unambiguous conclusion. Although, I note that our historiography is dominated by a persistent hostility towards the personality of this deputy people's commissar of defense and head of the Main Political Directorate of the Red Army. The majority of the creative intelligentsia evaluates this historical figure with a minus sign.

Our information. Lev Zakharovich Mehlis was born in 1889 in Odessa. He graduated from 6 classes of the Jewish commercial school. Since 1911 in the army, he served in the 2nd Grenadier Artillery Brigade. In 1918 he joined the Communist Party and was in political work in the Red Army. In 1921-1922 - in the People's Commissariat of the Workers' and Peasants' Inspectorate, which was headed by Stalin. In 1922-1926 - one of the personal secretaries of the General Secretary of the Central Committee Stalin, in 1926-1930 he studied at courses at the Communist Academy and the Institute of Red Professors. In 1930, he became the head of the press and publishing department of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and at the same time the editor-in-chief of the newspaper Pravda. In 1937-1940 - Head of the Political Directorate of the Red Army, Deputy People's Commissar of Defense of the USSR, in 1940-1941 - People's Commissar of State Control. According to the memoirs of Nikita Khrushchev, “he was truly an honest man, but in some ways crazy,” because he had a mania for seeing enemies and saboteurs everywhere. On the eve of the war, he was reappointed head of the Main Political Directorate, Deputy People's Commissar of Defense (while retaining the post of People's Commissar of State Control). In 1942 he was a representative of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief Headquarters on the Crimean Front. After the defeat of the Crimean Front troops in May 1942, he was removed from his posts, and in 1942-1946 he was a member of the military councils of a number of armies and fronts. In 1946-1950 - Minister of State Control of the USSR. Died February 13, 1953.

Konstantin Simonov is sometimes credited with the following statement about Mehlis: “I was on the Kerch Peninsula in 1942. The reason for the most shameful defeat is clear to me. Complete distrust of the army and front commanders, tyranny and wild arbitrariness of Mehlis, a man illiterate in military matters... He forbade digging trenches so as not to undermine the offensive spirit of the soldiers. Moved heavy artillery and army headquarters to the very front line. Three armies stood on a front of 16 kilometers, the division occupied 600-700 meters along the front, nowhere and never have I seen such a saturation of troops. And all this mixed into a bloody mess, was thrown into the sea, died only because a madman commanded the front ... "

BUT THIS, I note, is not Simonov’s personal assessment. Here is how it was. On the eve of the twentieth anniversary of the Victory, on April 28, 1965, the front-line writer decided to express some thoughts related to the history of the Great Patriotic War. There is such a fragment in the material. It is worth citing in full (I quote from: K. Simonov. “Through the eyes of a man of my generation. Reflections on I.V. Stalin.” M., APN, 1989).

“I would like to give an example of an operation in which the true interests of waging war and false, sloganeering ideas about how a war should be waged, based not only on military illiteracy, but also on the lack of faith in people generated in 1937, clearly collided. I'm talking about the sad memory of the Kerch events of the winter - spring of 1942.

Seven years ago, one of our front-line writers wrote to me the following: “I was on the Kerch Peninsula in 1942. The reason for the most shameful defeat is clear to me. Complete distrust of the commanders of the armies and the front, tyranny and wild arbitrariness of Mehlis, a man illiterate in military matters... He forbade digging trenches so as not to undermine the offensive spirit of the soldiers. Moved heavy artillery and army headquarters to the most advanced positions, etc. Three armies stood on a front of 16 kilometers, the division occupied 600-700 meters along the front, nowhere have I ever seen such a saturation of troops. And all this mixed into a bloody mess, was thrown into the sea, died only because the front was commanded not by a commander, but by a madman...” (I emphasize that these are not the words of Simonov, but of a writer he knew. - A.M.)

I did not talk about this in order to once again give an unkind word to Mehlis, who, by the way, was a man of impeccable personal courage and did not do everything he did with the intention of personally becoming famous. He was deeply convinced that he was acting correctly, and that is why, from a historical point of view, his actions on the Kerch Peninsula are fundamentally interesting. This was a man who, during that period of the war, regardless of any circumstances, considered anyone who preferred a convenient position a hundred meters from the enemy to an uncomfortable one fifty meters away, a coward. He considered everyone who wanted to simply protect the troops from possible failure to be an alarmist; He considered everyone who realistically assessed the enemy’s strength to be unsure of their own strength. Mehlis, for all his personal readiness to give his life for his Motherland, was a pronounced product of the atmosphere of 1937-1938.

And the front commander, to whom he came as a representative of Headquarters, an educated and experienced military man, in turn also turned out to be a product of the atmosphere of 1937-1938, only in a different sense - in the sense of fear of taking full responsibility, fear of contrasting a reasonable military decision with an illiterate one. the onslaught of “everything and everything - forward”, fear of transferring his dispute with Mehlis to Headquarters at the risk of himself.

The difficult events of Kerch from a historical point of view are interesting in that they seem to screw together both halves of the consequences of 1937-1938 - both the one that was presented by Mehlis and the one that was presented by the then commander of the Crimean Front Kozlov.”

I WILL NOT argue with the great writer. Everyone has their own view of the past. I will express my personal opinion about Mehlis, supported by familiarity with the documents of that time. Yes, indeed, Lev Zakharovich is a very difficult and controversial political figure. He was harsh, sometimes even very, often straightforward in his assessments and demands. To put it mildly, he did not like to be diplomatic. He was tough, even to the point of cruelty, and during the war he went beyond this line in a difficult front-line situation.

Several examples can be given in this regard. September 12, 1941. 34th Army of the North-Western Front. Deputy People's Commissar of Defense Mehlis personally draws up order No. 057 for front troops: “...For demonstrated cowardice and personal withdrawal from the battlefield to the rear, for violation of military discipline, expressed in direct failure to comply with the front order to come to the aid of units advancing from the west, for failure to take measures to save the material part of the artillery... Major General of Artillery Goncharov, on the basis of the order of the Supreme Command Headquarters No. 270, is to be publicly shot in front of the formation of the commanders of the headquarters of the 34th Army.” Moreover, the general had already been extrajudicially shot the day before on the basis of an oral order from Mehlis and Army General K.A. Meretskova.

Cruel? Yes, it's cruel. But this is war, and we were talking about the fate of the entire state... Moreover, in those tragic months, a very nervous situation reigned at the front in the conditions of retreat under the pressure of German troops.

In this regard, it should also be noted that Stalin did not condone this kind of reprisals. At the beginning of October, he harshly reprimanded commanders and commissars who practiced lynching and assault instead of educational work. Order of the People's Commissar of Defense No. 0391 of October 4, 1941, signed by Stalin and Chief of the General Staff B. Shaposhnikov, was called: “On the facts of the replacement of educational work with repression.” In it, Stalin demanded “in the most decisive manner, right up to bringing the perpetrators to trial in a military tribunal, to fight all phenomena of illegal repression, assault and lynching.”

I'LL ALLOW myself a little digression. Since the time of perestroika, historical literature and journalism have been dominated by the desire to evaluate the actions of statesmen and their motives from the standpoint of the realities of the present time - a time of peace and goodness. Then the situation was fundamentally different, and the life school of that generation was different. Many were tested in the fight against the special services of Imperial Russia and in the fratricidal Civil War. This embittered the future Soviet leaders; there were no sentimental people among them.

It is also impossible to understand the reasons for the extreme cruelty towards other military leaders in 1941 - the same command of the Western Front - without the context of the circumstances of the dramatic beginning of repelling the aggression of Nazi Germany. Unfortunately, despite the decisions made to declassify documents from the Great Patriotic War, we do not know everything about them.

A specific example: a telegram from the Chief of the General Staff, Army General G.K. Zhukov to the troops of the western military districts on June 18, 1941. This document is still inaccessible to researchers - even to employees of the Institute of General History of the Russian Academy of Sciences, involved in the preparation of a new multi-volume history of the Great Patriotic War.

And such a telegram existed. In 2008, the Kuchkovo Pole publishing house published a book by counterintelligence veteran Vladimir Yampolsky, “...Destroy Russia in the Spring of 1941,” which included materials on the case of the commander of the Western Front, Army General D.G. Pavlova. There is such an episode in the protocol of a closed court session of the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR on July 22, 1941. Member of the court A.M. Orlov reads out the testimony of the defendant - the former communications chief of the Western Front headquarters, Major General A.T. Grigoriev at the investigation: “...And after the telegram from the Chief of the General Staff of June 18, the district troops were not put on combat readiness.” Grigoriev confirms: “All this is true.”

There is every reason to assert that on June 18, 1941, Stalin allowed the troops of the first strategic echelon to be brought to full combat readiness, but the directive of the General Staff authorized by him turned out to be, for some reason, unfulfilled by the command of the western military districts, and primarily in the Western Special.

Another document has survived, indicating that on June 18, 1941, a telegram was sent from the Chief of the General Staff to the command of the western military districts. This research was carried out in the late 1940s - the first half of the 1950s by the military scientific department of the General Staff under the leadership of Colonel General A.P. Pokrovsky. Then, while Stalin was still alive, it was decided to generalize the experience of concentrating and deploying troops of the western military districts according to the plan for covering the state border on the eve of the Great Patriotic War. For this purpose, five questions were asked to the participants in those tragic events who held command positions in the troops of the western districts before the war (fragmentary answers to some questions were published in the Military Historical Journal in 1989).

The questions were formulated as follows: 1. Was the plan for the defense of the state border communicated to the troops, as far as they were concerned; when and what was done by the command and headquarters to ensure the implementation of this plan? 2. From what time and on the basis of what order did the covering troops begin to enter the state border and how many of them were deployed before the start of hostilities? 3. When the order was received to put troops on alert in connection with the expected attack by Nazi Germany on the morning of June 22; what and when were the instructions given to carry out this order and what was done by the troops? 4. Why was most of the artillery located in training centers? 5. To what extent were the headquarters prepared for command and control of troops and to what extent did this affect the course of operations in the first days of the war?

The editors of the Military Historical Journal managed to publish answers to the first two questions, but when it was the turn to answer the third question: “When was the order received to put the troops on combat readiness?”, the editor-in-chief of the magazine, Major General V.I. Filatov received a command from above to stop further publication of responses from participants in the events of June 1941. But even from the first two answers it follows that the telegram (or directive) of the Chief of the General Staff existed...

NOW about the behavior of Mehlis himself at the front.

From the memoirs of Colonel General of the Engineering Troops Arkady Khrenov: “In one of the companies he was caught by the order to attack. Without hesitation, he became the head of the company and led it behind him. None of those around him were able to dissuade Mehlis from this step. It was very difficult to argue with Lev Zakharovich..."

From the memoirs of Major General David Ortenberg, who edited the newspaper of the 11th Army “Heroic March” during the war with Finland (1939-1940) and, together with Mehlis, was surrounded by one of our divisions: “Army Commissar 1 1st rank put the editorial staff on a truck - a former Leningrad taxi, and gave several soldiers for security: “Get through.” And they broke through the still fragile ice of the lake. And Mehlis himself, together with the division commander, led its exit from the encirclement... Seeing that ours could not knock down the Finnish barrier near the road, Mehlis placed the soldiers in a chain, got into the tank and, moving forward, opened fire from a cannon and machine gun. The soldiers followed. The enemy was knocked out of his position.”

The statement of Army General Alexander Gorbatov about Mehlis has also been preserved: “At every meeting with me until the liberation of Orel, Mehlis did not miss an opportunity to ask me any question that could lead to a dead end. I answered simply and probably not always the way he wanted. However, it was noticeable that, although with difficulty, he was changing his previous attitude towards me for the better. When we were already behind the Eagle, he suddenly said:

I have been looking closely at you for a long time and I must say that I like you as an army commander and as a communist. I followed your every step after you left Moscow and didn’t quite believe the good things I heard about you. Now I see that I was wrong.”

Mehlis, of course, did not have an academic military education and did not possess military leadership talents like the great Rokossovsky. By the way, he highly valued this commander and, shortly before the disaster of the Crimean Front, which became obvious to him in the spring of 1942, he asked Stalin to appoint Konstantin Konstantinovich as commander of the Crimean Front. Alas, due to a serious wound, Rokossovsky was still in the hospital (on March 8, 1942, the commander of the 16th Army of the Western Front, Rokossovsky, was wounded by a shell fragment and was treated until May 23. - Ed.).

At the same time, Mehlis knew what war was. After all, during the Civil War he was at the front, was a commissar of a brigade, then the 46th Infantry Division and the Right Bank Group of Forces in Ukraine, participated in battles against the gangs of Ataman Grigoriev and one of the most talented commanders of the White Army - General Ya.A. Slashchev, was wounded.

Since the Civil War, Mehlis had a habit of telling people directly about mistakes and miscalculations. Naturally, he made many enemies from this. Mehlis always spoke with pathos, but sincerely. Of course, he could not do without his characteristic manner of seeing everything either in white or in black. It should be noted that as People's Commissar (Minister) of State Control, he was forced to engage in what today would be called anti-corruption measures, and as a result of inspections, many Soviet officials had to change their warm offices to barracks in Kolyma. Even under Stalin, officials stole and ruled at the expense of the state. Is this not where the origins of hatred towards Stalin’s “chief controller” come from on the part of the descendants of the families of the Soviet nomenklatura, most of whom have adapted well to the new life?..

And then the Great Patriotic War began. Mehlis is back in the army. On January 20, 1942, he arrived at the Crimean Front (until January 28, 1942, the front was called the Caucasian Front) in the status of an authorized representative of the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command. On the eve of his arrival, the troops successfully carried out the Kerch-Feodosia landing operation (December 26 - February 2) and captured a vast bridgehead.

Commander of the Caucasian Front, Lieutenant General D.T. Kozlov received instructions from the Supreme Command Headquarters to speed up the concentration of troops on the bridgehead in every possible way. They decided to transfer additional forces there (47th Army) and, no later than January 12, launch a general offensive with the support of the Black Sea Fleet. The point was to reach Perekop as soon as possible and strike at the rear of the Sevastopol Wehrmacht group. By the summer of 1942, Crimea could actually become Soviet again.

Our information. As a result of the Kerch-Feodosia landing operation, by January 2, 1942, Soviet troops completely occupied the Kerch Peninsula. As the commander of the 11th Army, Erich von Manstein, admitted after the war, “in the first days of January 1942, for the troops that landed at Feodosia and approached from Kerch, the path to the vital artery of the 11th Army - the Dzhankoy - Simferopol railway - was actually open. The weak covering front (of the Sevastopol Wehrmacht group - Ed.), which we managed to create, could not withstand the onslaught of large forces. On January 4, it became known that the enemy already had 6 divisions in the Feodosia area.” The German general also believed that “if the enemy took advantage of the created situation and quickly began to pursue the 46th Infantry Division from Kerch, and also struck decisively after the Romanians retreating from Feodosia, then a situation would have been created that was hopeless not only for this newly emerged sector ... However, the front command postponed the offensive, citing insufficient forces and means.

The offensive of the Soviet troops nevertheless began, but it was not possible to break through the positions of the German divisions. This breakdown is usually described as saying that our command underestimated the strength and capabilities of the enemy. Historians try not to name the specific culprits for the failure of the offensive, which could have led to the liberation of all of Crimea, so as not to offend anyone.

It is kept silent that the offensive failed due to the lack of a well-thought-out plan, as well as clear logistical and combat support for the troops landing in Crimea. This was primarily manifested in the lack of transport ships for the transfer of manpower and artillery from the “mainland”. The situation with the provision of ammunition and fuel to the troops was also catastrophic. This is the testimony of Major General A.N. Pervushin, commander of the 44th Army participating in this operation (he was seriously wounded in January 1942 - Ed.).

Then weather conditions intervened - the ensuing thaw rendered field airfields completely unusable. The lack of normal communications and air defense systems also had an impact. They “forgot” to deliver anti-aircraft artillery to the port of Feodosia, and as a result, until January 4, 5 transports were killed from unpunished actions of German aviation, and the cruiser “Red Caucasus” was seriously damaged.

On January 18, the Germans, taking advantage of the passivity of the Soviet troops, recaptured Feodosia. Then General Kozlov decided to withdraw troops to the Ak-Monai positions - a defensive line approximately 80 kilometers from Kerch. It was in this situation that Mehlis arrived at the front.

Two days after his arrival, he sent Stalin a telegram with the following content: “We arrived in Kerch on January 20, 1942. We found the most unsightly picture of the organization of command and control... Komfront Kozlov does not know the position of the units at the front, their condition, as well as the enemy grouping. For any division there is no data on the number of people, the presence of artillery and mortars. Kozlov leaves the impression of a commander who is confused and unsure of his actions. None of the leading workers of the front have been in the troops since the occupation of the Kerch Peninsula...”

Our information. Kozlov Dmitry Timofeevich (1896–1967). In military service since 1915, he graduated from the school of warrant officers. Participant of the First World War. In the Red Army since 1918, he commanded a battalion and a regiment. After the Civil War he studied at the Frunze Military Academy. During the Soviet-Finnish War, he commanded the 1st Rifle Corps of the 8th Army. Since 1940 - Deputy Commander of the Odessa Military District, then - Head of the Main Directorate of Air Defense of the Red Army. Since 1941 - commander of the troops of the Transcaucasian Military District. After the disaster in Crimea, he was demoted to the rank of major general. In August 1942, he was appointed commander of the 24th Army of the Stalingrad Front, and from August 1943, deputy commander of the Trans-Baikal Front. Participated in battles against Japan.

Mehlis’s telegram is usually characterized as follows: two days were “enough” for the arrogant People’s Commissar of State Control to get an idea of ​​the state of affairs at the front. However, in essence Mehlis was right. The main provisions of his telegram corresponded, by the way, to the contents of the order of the front command itself No. 12 of January 23, 1942. The order was signed by Kozlov, a member of the Military Council of the front F.A. Shamanin and Mehlis.

To this we must add that the command of the Caucasian Front at that time was in Tbilisi. And from there he directed the fighting. From a thousand kilometers away.

Mehlis really quickly figured out what was going on. And he immediately raised before Headquarters the question of separating an independent Crimean Front from the Caucasus Front and transferring command and control of troops to the Kerch Peninsula. At the same time, he demanded replenishment of manpower (3 rifle divisions), and began to demand that the front-line command urgently restore order in artillery, air defense, and logistics support.

"1. The command of armies, divisions, regiments should take into account the experience of the battles of January 15-18, 1942, immediately restore order in the units... Have regimental artillery and anti-tank artillery (anti-tank - A.M.) in infantry battle formations...

2. Alarmists and deserters should be shot on the spot as traitors. Those caught intentionally wounding left-handed crossbowmen should be shot in front of the line.

3. Within three days, restore complete order in the rear..."

Mehlis especially carefully checked the condition of the air force and artillery of the front, on which the combat effectiveness of the entire group of our troops depended to a decisive extent. It turned out that due to poor logistics, 110 faulty aircraft accumulated on the Kerch Peninsula, so less than one sortie was carried out per day.

Mehlis, using his official status, obtained additional weapons from the Supreme Command Headquarters and the General Staff - the front received 450 light machine guns, 3 thousand PPSh, 50 mortars of 120 mm caliber and 50 mortars of 82 mm caliber, two divisions of M-8 rocket launchers. The issue of allocating an additional number of tanks to the front, including heavy KVs, anti-tank rifles and ammunition, was being resolved.

On January 24, a new commander of the front air force was appointed - Major General E.M. Nikolaenko. A little later, the new chief of the engineering troops arrived - Major General A.F. Khrenov. In anticipation of the planned offensive, Mehlis also ensured that a large number of political workers at various levels were sent to the front, including specialists in special propaganda against the Germans.

The 47th Army (commander - Major General K.S. Kalganov), transferred from northern Iran, crossed the ice of the Kerch Strait to the peninsula.

On February 15, Stalin received Mehlis. At the meeting, to the displeasure of the Supreme, he asked for additional time to prepare the front for the offensive. This relates to the question of whether Mehlis thoughtlessly carried out the orders of Headquarters. And Stalin agreed with him - apparently, Mehlis’s arguments worked.

On February 27, 1942, the planned offensive began. The Crimean Front had 12 rifle divisions, four tank brigades, and one cavalry division. But the command of the Crimean Front, instead of actively using tanks, including KV and T-34, to break through the German defense in the treeless terrain of the Kerch Peninsula, sent forward infantry, whose attacks the Germans repulsed with machine-gun fire.

For three days they drove the infantry into senseless attacks, killing thousands of people. 13 Soviet divisions advanced against three German and one Romanian. And the irretrievable losses are enormous (by April already 225 thousand people).

On March 9, Mehlis sent Stalin a proposal to immediately remove Kozlov and the staff of Major General F.I. Tolbukhin from his posts. Only the chief of staff of the front was replaced - with Major General P.P. Eternal. On March 29, Mehlis again insisted in writing to Stalin on the removal of Kozlov. The description given to the commander is unflattering: he is lazy, “a gluttonous gentleman of the peasants,” is not interested in operational issues, regards trips to the troops as “punishment,” in frontline troops, does not enjoy authority, does not like painstaking, everyday work.

Instead, Mehlis asked to appoint one of the following generals: N.K. Klykov, but he commanded the 2nd Shock Army breaking through to Leningrad and at that moment it was impossible to change him; K.K. Rokossovsky, who was still recovering in the hospital; Commander of the 51st Army, Lieutenant General V.N. Lvov, whom he met on the Kerch Peninsula. But for some reason the latter’s candidacy did not find Stalin’s support.

By the beginning of May, the front group of troops prepared for an offensive, but it was postponed. On May 6, 1942, Headquarters ordered the front to go on the defensive, apparently having information about the upcoming German offensive. But the front command did not have time to reorganize the troops for defense. Their group remained offensive.

Meanwhile, the German command strengthened its 11th Army. Back in early April, the 22nd Tank Division appeared in its composition (180 Czech tanks LT vz.38: weight - 9.5 tons, frontal armor - from 25 to 50 mm, 37 mm gun). On May 8, the Germans went on the offensive with massive air support (Operation “Hunting for Bustards”). The command post of the 51st Army was destroyed, and General Lvov was killed on May 11.

Already during the May breakthrough of our defense by the Germans, Headquarters gave General Kozlov the following instructions:

“1) The entire 47th Army must immediately begin to withdraw beyond the Turkish Wall, organizing a rearguard and covering the retreat with aviation. Without this there will be a risk of being captured...

3) You can organize a strike with the forces of the 51st Army so that this army is gradually withdrawn beyond the Turkish Wall.

4) The remnants of the 44th Army also need to be withdrawn beyond the Turkish Wall.

5) Mehlis and Kozlov must immediately begin organizing defense along the Turkish Wall.

6) We do not object to the transfer of headquarters to the place you indicated.

7) We strongly object to the departure of Kozlov and Mekhlis to the Lvov group.

8) Take all measures to ensure that artillery, especially large artillery, is concentrated behind the Turkish Wall, as well as a number of anti-tank regiments.

9) If you are able and manage to detain the enemy in front of the Turkish Wall, we will consider this an achievement...”

But neither the Turkish Wall nor the Kerch contours were equipped in engineering terms and did not pose a serious obstacle for the Germans.

Worse than that. All three armies of the front (44th, 47th and 51st), prepared for the offensive, were deployed in one echelon, which sharply reduced the depth of defense and sharply limited the ability to repel enemy attacks in the event of a breakthrough. When the Germans launched a decisive offensive, their main blow fell precisely on the most unsuccessful formation of troops - on the 44th Army (commander - Lieutenant General S.I. Chernyak). The second echelon of this army was located only 3–4 km from the front line, which gave the Germans the opportunity, even without changing the positions of their artillery, to inflict fire on our units throughout the entire operational depth. Which is what they did.

In addition, most of the Soviet troops were concentrated on the northern sector of the Crimean Front. Taking advantage of this circumstance, the German command, imitating the main efforts in the north, delivered the main blow from the south, where the 44th Army was located.

Here is Mehlis’s sharp and emotional opinion about her commander: “Chernyak. An illiterate man, incapable of leading an army. His chief of staff, Rozhdestvensky, is a boy, not an organizer of troops. One can wonder whose hand nominated Chernyak to the rank of lieutenant general.”

“Failures in wars are always inevitable, but they cannot be justified if they arose due to the carelessness of the people entrusted with the conduct of the war. This apparent disregard for the enemy served as a tragic prelude to the fateful turns of May 1942.”

Valentin Pikul. "Square of fallen fighters."

On the night of May 7, the military council of the Crimean Front, with the approval of Mehlis, sent the necessary orders to the troops (in connection with the expected German offensive - Ed.). Alas, the workers at the front headquarters were not concerned with the speed of their transfer. As a result, by morning they had not even reached all the army commanders!

On May 7, the Germans began intensive air strikes against Soviet positions, especially control posts. The next day, under cover of artillery fire, infantry units launched an attack.

On May 8, Mehlis sent a telegram to Stalin in which he wrote: “Now is not the time to complain, but I must report so that Headquarters knows the front commander. On May 7, that is, on the eve of the enemy’s offensive, Kozlov convened a military council to discuss the project for a future operation to capture Koi-Aksan. I recommended that this project be postponed and that instructions be immediately given to the armies in connection with the expected enemy advance. In the signed order of the front commander, he stated in several places that the offensive was expected on May 10–15, and proposed to work until May 10 and study the army defense plan with all command personnel, unit commanders and headquarters. This was done when the entire situation of the previous day showed that the enemy would advance in the morning. At my insistence, the erroneous timing was corrected. Kozlov also resisted the movement of additional forces to the 44th Army sector.”

All the data is stark: tomorrow the Germans will launch an offensive, and the commander in the order indicates the period of May 10–15. Obviously, the reconnaissance of the front headquarters did not work.

In response to his telegram, in which he once again asked to replace Kozlov, Mehlis received a very irritated message from Stalin: “You are holding the strange position of an outside observer, not responsible for the affairs of the Crimean Front. This position is very convenient, but it is completely rotten. On the Crimean Front, you are not an outside observer, but a responsible representative of Headquarters, responsible for all the successes and failures of the front and obliged to correct the command’s mistakes on the spot. You, together with the command, are responsible for the fact that the left flank of the front turned out to be extremely weak. If “the whole situation showed that the enemy would attack in the morning,” and you did not take all measures to organize a resistance, limiting yourself to passive criticism, then so much the worse for you. This means that you have not yet understood that you were sent to the Crimean Front not as State Control, but as a responsible representative of Headquarters.

You demand that we replace Kozlov with someone like Hindenburg. But you cannot help but know that we do not have Hindenburgs in reserve... If you had used attack aircraft not for side activities, but against the enemy’s tanks and manpower, the enemy would not have broken through the front and the tanks would not have gotten through. You don’t need to be Hindenburg to understand this simple thing while sitting on the Crimean Front for two months.”

Mekhlis seems to have deservedly received the nuts. Especially considering that Stalin then recalled him from the front and demoted him. The Supreme’s irritation is understandable: despite the numerical superiority of our troops in the Kerch region, they were unable to stop the German offensive. But let's figure out what in Mehlis's position could have caused Stalin's anger? In my opinion, first of all, Mehlis limited himself to the position of an observer and did not interfere in the decision-making process, which was obvious even to a non-professional military man. Having attack aircraft, anti-tank artillery, and T-34 and KV, superior to German Czechoslovak-made tanks with a weak 37-mm cannon, the Soviet command could stop the German 22nd Panzer Division.

Today all the pressure is falling on the head of Mehlis, on the commander of the Black Sea Fleet, Vice Admiral F.S. Oktyabrsky, who supposedly “created tricks for the Crimean Front,” against the commander-in-chief of the troops of the North Caucasus direction, Marshal S.M. Budyonny, to Headquarters. And the front command had nothing to do with it... Without justifying Mehlis’s mistakes, for which he was punished by Stalin, I note that until the last he tried to reverse the rapidly deteriorating situation in May 1942.

It is known how the German “hunt for bustards” ended: on May 13, the defense of our troops was broken through, on the night of May 14, Marshal Budyonny allowed the evacuation from the Kerch Peninsula, on May 15, the enemy occupied Kerch. This allowed the Germans to concentrate their efforts on taking Sevastopol.

This is the price of the disaster on the Crimean Front. But we will not “savor” its details and will keep in our hearts the bright memory of all the soldiers and commanders of the Red Army who died on Crimean soil.

Order of the People's Commissar of Defense of the USSR

About the facts of replacing educational work with repression

Recently, there have been frequent cases of illegal repression and gross abuse of power by individual commanders and commissars in relation to their subordinates.

Lieutenant of the 288th joint venture Komissarov, without any reason, killed Red Army soldier Kubica with a revolver shot.

The former chief of the 21st UR, Colonel Sushchenko, shot and killed Jr. Sergeant Pershikov because he was slow to get out of the car due to a hand problem.

The platoon commander of a motorized rifle company of the 1026th Infantry Regiment, Lieutenant Mikryukov, shot and killed his assistant, junior platoon commander Baburin, allegedly for not following orders.

The military commissar of the 28th Panzer Division, Regimental Commissar Bankvitser, beat one sergeant for smoking at night; He also beat up Major Zanozny for having an incontinent conversation with him.

The chief of staff of the 529th Infantry Regiment, Captain Sakur, without any reason, hit Art. Lieutenant Sergeev.

Such facts of perversion of disciplinary practice, excesses [the word “excesses” was written by Stalin instead of “violations”, intolerable in the Red Army. - Ed.] granted rights and power, lynchings and assault are explained by the fact that:

a) the method of persuasion was incorrectly relegated to the background, and the method of repression in relation to subordinates took first place;

b) everyday educational work in units in a number of cases is replaced by abuse, repression and assault;

c) the method of explanations and conversations between commanders, commissars, political workers and Red Army soldiers has been abandoned, and clarification of issues incomprehensible to the Red Army soldiers is often replaced by shouting, abuse and rudeness;

d) individual commanders and political workers in difficult battle conditions become confused, panic and cover up their own confusion by using weapons without any reason;

e) the truth has been forgotten that the use of repression is an extreme measure, permissible only in cases of direct disobedience and open resistance in a combat situation or in cases of malicious violation of discipline and order by persons deliberately going to disrupt the orders of the command.

Commanders, commissars and political workers must remember that without the correct combination of the method of persuasion with the method of coercion, it is unthinkable to impose Soviet military discipline and strengthen the political and moral condition of the troops.

Severe punishment in relation to malicious violators of military discipline, accomplices of the enemy and obvious enemies must be combined with a careful analysis of all cases of violation of discipline that require detailed clarification of the circumstances of the case.

Unjustified repressions, illegal executions, arbitrariness and assault on the part of commanders and commissars are a manifestation of lack of will and lack of arms, often lead to the opposite results, contribute to the decline of military discipline and the political and moral state of the troops and can push unstable fighters to defect to the enemy.

I order:

1. Restore rights to educational work, widely use the method of persuasion, and do not replace everyday explanatory work with administration and repression.

2. All commanders, political workers and superiors should talk daily with the Red Army soldiers, explaining to them the need for iron military discipline, honest performance of their military duty, the military oath and orders of the commander and superior. In conversations, also explain that a serious threat looms over our Motherland, that defeating the enemy requires the greatest self-sacrifice, unshakable steadfastness in battle, contempt for death and a merciless fight against cowards, deserters, self-harmers, provocateurs and traitors to the Motherland.

3. Widely explain to the commanding staff that lynchings, assault and public abuse, which humiliates the rank of a soldier of the Red Army, lead not to strengthening, but to undermining the discipline and authority of the commander and political worker.

At the front I found unimaginable panic. All cannons, machine guns, and anti-tank rifles were abandoned on the battlefield, and people fled in groups and alone to the Kerch Strait. And if they saw a board or log floating near the shore, several people immediately jumped on this object and immediately drowned. The same thing happened if they managed to find any floating craft on the shore or saw an approaching boat - they rushed in like a cloud, immediately everything was flooded, and people died.

I have never seen such panic in my life - this has never happened in my military experience.

It was some kind of disaster, although the enemy did not particularly attack. His aviation worked well, and it created panic. But she managed to do this only because our aviation was inactive, and the front command was confused and lost control.

Despite this, I managed to occupy the near defensive Kerch perimeter and gain a foothold on it. I ordered Mehlis and Kozlov to lead this defense, and if we have to evacuate, they must be the last to leave Kerch land.

Some people have already reached the Taman Peninsula through the Kerch Strait. There I had a three-regiment rifle brigade stationed. I ordered her to detain all those crossing and put them on the defensive line of Taman.

After all this, I called HF I.V. Stalin and reported on the situation. He asked, “What do you think you’ll do next?” I replied that we would fight on the near defensive line (to defend Kerch). But Stalin said: “You must now firmly defend the Taman Peninsula and evacuate Kerch.”

I nevertheless decided to defend Kerch for as long as possible, because the fall of Kerch would immediately affect the defense of Sevastopol, which had half of its combat ammunition in this direction when I arrived. And I brought it to 15.5.42 to 6 rounds of ammunition...

I was at the front command post when I.A. approached me. Serov (Deputy People's Commissar of Internal Affairs - Ed.) and introduced himself as an NKVD commissioner from Beria. Serov asked me what the orders would be. I replied that during the evacuation he should sink the locomotives so that they would not fall into the hands of the Germans.

After 2-3 hours, Serov came up to me and reported that my order had been carried out and the locomotives were flooded. I asked: “How?!” He replied that he lowered them from the pier. I said: “What a fool. I told you that this needs to be done during the evacuation, but we are not going to leave yet, and we need steam locomotives.” I ordered him to leave Kerch and not complicate matters.”

Then we moved to Taman, where my command post was. And suddenly I lost contact with Kerch, with which we were connected by a single wire - a high-frequency telephone. It turned out that Serov ordered him to be cut.

When I asked why he did this, Serov replied that this connection belonged to the NKVD and he had the right to dispose of it.

I told him: “But, unfortunately, you don’t know how to manage things. Therefore, I will put you on trial as a traitor to the Motherland, because you deprived me of the opportunity to manage the front, I was left without communication.”

The next day, Beria called me from Moscow and asked me to settle the matter with Serov. I repeated that Serov would be brought to justice. Then Beria said that he was recalling Serov to Moscow and would punish him himself.”

From the diary entries of Marshal of the Soviet Union S.M. Budyonny,
in May 1942, commander-in-chief of the troops
North Caucasian direction.

Letter from the “disgraced general”

“11.2.66 Hello, Alexander Ivanovich!

Thank you very much for not forgetting the old disgraced general. My fall from grace has lasted for almost 25 years.

The events of those days often appear in my memory. It’s hard to remember them, especially because the blame for the death of all our regiments lies not only with us, the direct participants in these battles, but also with the leadership that was exercised over us. I don’t mean Mehlis, a layman in operational art, but the commander of the North Caucasus direction and Headquarters. I also mean Oktyabrsky The outstanding writer of the twentieth century, Konstantin Simonov, who repeatedly visited the Kerch Peninsula during the days of military confrontations reflected in his famous “Different Days of the War,” had every right to declare: “You can’t film a war from afar, a war can only be filmed up close.” With these words, K. Simonov once again emphasized the invaluable role of film and photographic documents, which left for posterity the heroism and tragedy of the people's victory over fascism.

One of such genuine evidence of the horrors of the Great Patriotic War was the photograph “Death of a Soldier” by military photojournalist Anatoly Garanin, which became a classic of Soviet military photography.

Assigned to the headquarters of the Crimean Front, A. Garanin, as a representative of the Krasnaya Zvezda newspaper, in the spring of 1942 once again went to the front line to film the attack of soldiers on the enemy during the battle.

The unit, carried away by the commander, rushed forward. Anatoly pointed his “watering can” at a group of soldiers. The shot should have been successful - several people were caught in the lens, rushing forward in a single impulse towards the enemy. But at that very moment, before the camera shutter was released, an enemy shell suddenly exploded a few meters from the attackers. The frame instantly became different. The explosion disrupted the picture of the battle and made terrible adjustments to the photo. Instead of the supposed snapshot of the attack, the film captured the tragedy. The mortally wounded soldier closest to us slowly sinks to the Crimean soil. For him, the war was over - his body accepted the deadly metal.

Somewhere far from here there will be the tears of a wife, mother, children and relatives and the eternal hope for the return of a loved one from that damned war - a hope that fades away every day after the Victory...

An archive of film and photographic documents helped establish that the famous Ak-Monai positions, located in the western part of the Kerch Peninsula, were the location where the photograph “Death of a Soldier” was taken. Unfortunately, no one yet knows the exact location of filming. A strip of land from the village of Ak-Monay (Kamenskoye) to the Black Sea itself, almost 17 kilometers long, bears witness to the death of a soldier. The very place where from January to May 1942 there were fierce battles with varying success, ending in tragedy for the troops of the Crimean Front.

Who is the fighter whose death we see in the picture? His name remains unknown. He was most likely buried in one of the many mass graves located in the Ak-Monai Isthmus area. The remains of a soldier may rest in Semisotka, Kamenskoye, Batalny, Yachmennoye, Uvarovo and other villages, in which there are several mass graves with thousands buried. The majority, despite the almost seventy years that have passed since the end of hostilities in Crimea, remain nameless. And the main reason for this is the destruction of archival documents.

The photograph “Death of a Soldier” once again makes us think about the cruelty of the most barbaric war in the history of mankind, where the death of one is a tragedy, and the death of millions is a statistic. The same imperturbable statistics that consider more than seventy percent of those who did not return from the war to be missing in action. In combat - Marines of the 83rd Brigade (1942).

At a time when the Germans were conducting a decisive assault on Sevastopol, the forces of the defenders were uncontrollably melting away. The supply of reinforcements and ammunition by sea by transports and warships did not have time to compensate for the loss. There was a threat that the city would fall in the first week of January 1942. In such a difficult situation, the Soviet command decides to conduct a landing operation in the area of ​​​​Kerch and Feodosia in order to pull enemy forces away from Sevastopol.

The Kerch enemy group consisted of units of the 46th Infantry Division of the 11th German Army, the 8th Romanian Cavalry Brigade, two tank battalions, two field artillery regiments and five anti-aircraft artillery battalions. By the beginning of January 1942, the enemy group was reinforced by the 73rd Infantry Division. Its total number did not exceed 25 thousand people. The troops were covered from the air by two air groups. It was taken into account that with the start of the operation the enemy could transfer reinforcements to the Kerch Peninsula from near Sevastopol. The basis of defense on the peninsula was a system of fortified strongholds, which were located along the coast and consisted of field-type fortifications that were in fire interconnection. The city of Feodosia was turned into an anti-landing defense hub. Its garrison numbered more than 2 thousand people. The total number of enemy troops on the Kerch Peninsula reached: personnel - up to 25 thousand people, guns - up to 180, tanks - 118.

In addition, two aviation groups with up to 100 aircraft were based at airfields in the Kerch region. It could also be supported by aviation from airfields located in the areas of Simferopol and Saki. The enemy naval forces operating in the Black Sea were based in the ports of Romania and Bulgaria and did not undertake active military operations against the Black Sea Fleet, limiting themselves to providing maritime communications along the coasts of Bulgaria and Romania.

The idea of ​​the operation was to simultaneously land the 51st (Lieutenant General V.N. Lvov) and 44th (Major General A.N. Pervushin) armies in the Kerch region and in the Feodosia port to encircle and destroy the Kerch enemy group . In the future, it was planned to develop the offensive deep into the peninsula, release the troops of the Sevastopol defensive region and completely liberate Crimea. The landing of troops was entrusted to

The Black Sea Fleet and the Azov military flotilla that was part of it. The general leadership of the operation was carried out by the commander of the Transcaucasian (from December 30 - Caucasian) Front, General D.T. Kozlov.

The development of the operation plan was entrusted to the headquarters of the Transcaucasian Front, taking into account its addition by proposals from the command of the Black Sea Fleet. To carry it out, the lion's share of all combat-ready forces of the Black Sea Fleet and the Azov Military Flotilla, a number of marine units, as well as the 51st and 44th combined arms armies were involved. The landing detachments included several tank companies equipped with T-26 light tanks and T-38 amphibious tankettes.

The landing was planned to be carried out simultaneously on a wide 250-km front of the coast of the Kerch Peninsula (from Arabatskaya Strelka to Feodosia), which was supposed to disperse the attention and efforts of the defending enemy troops. The main blow was planned to be delivered in the Feodosia direction by the forces of the 44th Army in cooperation with the Black Sea Fleet. The second blow was to be delivered by the 51st Army in cooperation with the Azov military flotilla and the Kerch naval base in the Kerch direction. Preparations for the operation were ordered to be completed by December 19 in order to begin on December 21.

In addition, the plan for the Kerch-Feodosia operation also provided for the use of airborne troops of up to a brigade to capture Vladislavovka. Options for a more daring use of paratroopers were also explored, including an airborne assault on Dzhankoy, the largest railway junction in Crimea north of Simferopol.

In accordance with the operation plan, on December 26-27, landing troops were landed on several bridgeheads north and south of Kerch. However, during their landing, the paratroopers suffered serious losses, and then, having already captured the bridgeheads, they were surrounded by the enemy. The position of the landed troops especially worsened in the next two days, when a strong storm and freezing of the Azov Sea disrupted the delivery of reinforcements and supplies to the bridgeheads. As a result, the goal of the landing troops - the capture of Kerch - was not achieved in the first three days.

Despite this, it was decided, in accordance with the plan, to carry out a landing in the Feodosia area. At the same time, the ships of the squadron were assigned the following tasks: to land an advanced landing detachment consisting of two regiments in the Feodosia port, suppress enemy opposition at the landing sites with artillery fire, and then support the landing operations with artillery.

To solve these problems, two detachments of ships were formed under the overall command of Captain 1st Rank N.E. Basistogo. To the landing and artillery support detachment, commanded by Captain 1st Rank V.A. Andreev, included the cruisers "Red Caucasus" and "Red Crimea", the destroyers "Nezamozhnik", "Zheleznyakov" and "Shaumyan" (all three are of the "Novik" type), as well as the transport "Kuban". This detachment was assigned the letter "A". A detachment of landing craft under the command of Lieutenant Commander A.I. Ivanov was formed from the minesweepers “Shield”, “Vzryv” and 12 hunting boats of the MO-4 type.

In total, the first (assault) landing echelon included two cruisers, three destroyers, two minesweepers and 12 MO-4 boats. The landing force itself consisted of units of the 251st mountain rifle and 633rd rifle regiments with a total number of more than 5 thousand soldiers and commanders.

After the landing of the first echelon and the capture of the bridgehead, two detachments of transports with security forces were supposed to deliver the main forces of the 44th Army - the 263rd Rifle and 63rd Mountain Rifle Divisions - to Feodosia. Also, on the “Jean Zhores” transport, 20 T-38 light amphibious tanks were delivered to the landing site, and on the “Kalinin” transport - 14 T-26 tanks.

In total, the operation plan provided for the landing of almost 23 thousand soldiers of the 44th Army in three echelons in Feodosia. But the sailors had to play a vital role in this landing operation - to ensure the capture of the landing bridgehead.

To solve this problem, a Marine assault detachment of 600 people was formed as part of the first echelon of the landing force under the command of Senior Lieutenant A.F. Aidinova. Together with the assault detachment, reconnaissance detachments of the fleet headquarters and the hydrographic department of the fleet, as well as adjustment groups of ships of the landing detachment and artillery support, also landed. This detachment was supposed to be landed on land from the MO-4 boat.

Landing detachment “A” approached Feodosia on the night of December 29, and at 3 hours 48 minutes N.E. Basisty ordered the start of artillery preparations for the landing.

The ships opened fire on the port and artillery batteries. The destroyers fired the first salvo of illuminating shells, then the cruisers opened fire. At 4 o'clock the landing craft began moving into the port.

The first to break into the waters of the Feodosia port was the boat “MO-0131” (commander - Lieutenant I.G. Chernyak), the second was “MO-013” (commander - Lieutenant

N.N. Vlasov) with the commander of the landing craft detachment, Lieutenant Commander A.I. Ivanov on board. They landed marines and spotters on the Protective (Long) pier.

The landing group was led by the commander of the small hunter detachment, Senior Lieutenant V.I. Chupov. The Marines quickly captured the lighthouse building on the pier, and then began to advance along the pier towards the shore. The hydrographers who were part of this group measured the depths at the pier to determine the mooring places for ships.

After the lighthouse was captured, the signal “Free entry” was transmitted from it to the ships. Having received it, at 4 hours 10 minutes N.E. Basisty gave the order for minesweepers and destroyers to break into the port.

The destroyer “Shaumyan” was the first to moor at the Shiroky Pier at 4:26 a.m. and began landing paratroopers. But at this time, having recovered from the unexpected invasion, the enemy concentrated fire on the stationary ship. And although the landing of the paratroopers took only a few minutes, the unloading of cargo, mainly ammunition, required much more time. Therefore, the ship was hit by several shells, the fragments of which killed and wounded about 20 people. However, only after completely unloading the cargo did the Shaumyan leave the port. In the same difficult conditions, troops landed at the port from the destroyers Nezamozhnik and Zheleznyakov.

The time has come to land troops from the cruisers "Red Caucasus" and "Red Crimea". To do this, in accordance with the plan, the “Red Caucasus” was supposed to moor on its left side to the outer side of the Shirokoy Mole. However, due to the strong squeezing wind, he was not immediately able to perform this maneuver. Then, at 5 hours 08 minutes, two mines hit this cruiser, their explosion killed several people, and a fire started in the first pipe. Then an enemy shell hit the foremast and caused a fire in the chart room area. At 5:23 a.m., an artillery shell pierced the armor and exploded inside the fighting compartment of the second turret. Despite this, the cruiser began landing troops.

All this time, the cruiser fired at the enemy using a 180 mm main caliber cannon, 100 mm and 76 mm guns. He suppressed enemy batteries located on the heights around the city, and also dispersed a column of vehicles with infantry approaching the city. At 8:15 a.m., having completed the landing and unloading of equipment, “Red Caucasus” moved away from the pier to the outer roadstead, from where it continued to fire at the enemy based on data from correction posts.

The cruiser "Red Crimea" anchored in the outer roadstead, three cable lengths from the entrance to the port, and at 4:50 a.m. also began landing troops, using first the ship's watercraft, and then the MO-4 boats and the minesweeper "Shield". The landing from this cruiser was completed at 9:30 am.

At 7:20 a.m., the Kuban transport moored in the port captured by the assault detachment, from which 627 troops were disembarked and 9 guns, 6 mortars, 15 vehicles and about 112 tons of ammunition, food, etc. were unloaded.

Thus, in the period from December 28 to 31, the 157th and 236th rifle divisions, the 63rd mountain rifle division and the 251st rifle regiment of the 9th mountain rifle division were transported and landed in the Feodosia area. In total, these forces included 23 thousand personnel, 1,550 horses, 34 tanks, 109 guns, 24 mortars, 334 vehicles and tractors, 734 tons of ammunition and 250 tons of other cargo.

By that time, from 5 o’clock in the morning, street battles were already taking place in Feodosia. By the end of December 29, the paratroopers captured the city, although individual enemy groups continued to resist on December 30.

Writer Konstantin Simonov, who arrived in Feodosia on January 1, 1942, saw the following picture: “All the piers, the entire shore were cluttered with boxes of ammunition, some other boxes and cars. In the distance one could see the fantastic outlines of shattered warehouses, blown-up iron, and roofs bent and raised into the sky. Near the low port wall, which I remembered in Feodosia from childhood, from the year twenty-four, the twisted corpses of Germans lay scattered.

Having wandered a little among this entire labyrinth of ruins and debris - the result of our artillery shelling on the night of the landing and the German bombing that followed our landing - we got out of the port... By the appearance and number of vehicles it was not difficult to determine what and where the Germans had . The corpses lying on the streets were sometimes half naked: the Germans, taken by surprise, often jumped out of the houses in anything they could find, and many were killed right in their houses.”

Having landed in Feodosia and gained a foothold in this city, the landing forces began to advance to the west and southwest, in the directions to Old Crimea, Karagoz and Koktebel, as well as in the northern direction to Vladislavovka, which was a major road junction.

At that time, the Kerch Peninsula was held by the German 42nd Army Corps from the 11th Army under the command of Lieutenant General Count von Sponeck. This corps included the 46th Infantry Division and a number of separate units. In addition, the Romanian 8th Cavalry Brigade and a very capable motorized brigade under the command of Colonel Radu Corne, which was better known as the Cornet Brigade, were also subordinate to von Sponeck. According to estimates, the total number of troops under Sponeck's control reached 35 thousand people. But since the enemy did not expect a landing, only the duty units actually carried out the defense, and both Romanian brigades were on the march at that time, far east of Feodosia. In the event of a successful attack by the landing forces on Vladislavovka and further north, there was a threat that the 42nd Army Corps and Romanian units could be cut off on the Kerch Peninsula.

In such a situation, the commander of the 42nd Army Corps decides to withdraw troops from Kerch in order to, together with the Romanian brigades, attack the paratroopers in the area of ​​​​Vladislavovka and Feodosia in order to avoid encirclement and connect with the main forces of the 11th Army. This allowed Soviet troops to capture Kerch with minimal effort, essentially without bloodshed.

At the same time, the main battles between the advanced units of the 44th Soviet Army and the enemy 42nd Army Corps on December 30 - January 1, 1942 took place in the vicinity of Vladislavovka and in the village itself. In addition to infantry, artillery and Romanian cavalry, Soviet T-26 tanks, Romanian R-1 tankettes and several German StuG assault guns took part in these battles. III. A witness to these battles, the German historian Paul Karel, described what happened near Vladislavovka as follows:

“On the morning of December 31, 1941, the leading battalions of the 46th Infantry Division reached the Parpach Isthmus. But the head units of the Soviet 63rd Rifle Division got there before them and captured Vladislavovka, north of Feodosia...

Attack, break through and take Vladislavovka! - General Gimer ordered the 46th Infantry Division. The troops quickly lined up for the attack on a flat snow-covered plateau. The icy wind blowing from the Caucasus pierced their thin overcoats and made their blood run cold. Tears of weakness and helplessness flowed down her unshaven cheeks.

The exhausted regiments advanced another six and a half kilometers. Then they stopped. Exhausted, the soldiers simply fell into the snow.”

But this is poetry, albeit a bitter one... In the battles near Vladislavovka, the German 42nd Army Corps suffered a heavy defeat, almost all of its heavy material was lost, and above all all its artillery. Soviet troops retained Kerch, Feodosia, and the entire Kerch Peninsula. However, subsequently the troops of the 44th and 51st armies failed to advance further to the west - to Dzhankoy and Simferopol. Manstein, having removed several divisions from near Sevastopol, was able to stop the Soviet offensive in the area of ​​​​Vladislavovka and Kiet.

In order to develop the offensive, by decision of the Soviet command, on December 31, in the area of ​​​​the village of Ak-Monaya, located at the base of the Arabatskaya Strelka spit, northeast of Vladislavovka, an airborne assault force up to a battalion was landed under the command of Major Nyashin. The landing was carried out by a group of 19 heavy special-purpose TB-3 bombers from the 250th and 14th heavy bomber air regiments.

Immediately after the landing, Soviet paratroopers captured a German stronghold and a coastal battery in the Ak-Monaya area. Participant of the landing, S.P., later recalled how this happened. Vyskubov:

“The Nazis abandoned their vehicles, weapons, property and fled to the west of the Crimean Peninsula...

A group led by battalion commander Nyashin was operating next to us. The paratroopers attacked a convoy accompanying a column of Soviet prisoners of war and destroyed it, freeing sixty people, some of whom were immediately armed with captured weapons.

Soon everyone together raided the village of Kiet, where the Romanian infantry regiment was located. This operation was so swift that the enemy left all his property, staff documents, military maps and fled in horror, suffering heavy losses...

A few days later, on the ship Anatoly Serov, we returned from our first raid to Krasnodar, presenting the front intelligence department with a valuable trophy - staff documents of the 46th German Infantry Division and the Romanian regiment, as well as operational intelligence reports and orders for the 42nd Corps of the 11th. th German army, two encryption machines."

As a result of the Kerch-Feodosia landing operation, over several days of combat, the Soviet marines, ground army, and paratroopers were able to recapture the ports of Kerch and Feodosia, as well as many other settlements, from the enemy and advance 100-110 km to the west.

In the battles, the enemy suffered significant casualties, 100 various guns and mortars, as well as over 800 trucks and cars were captured. But the main thing was that the most important strategic task was solved: the German command was forced to interrupt the assault on Sevastopol at the most critical moment.

Hitler was very dissatisfied with the actions of the commander of the 42nd Army Corps, General von Sponeck. For his panicked abandonment of Kerch, he was removed from office, put on trial and sentenced to death. True, at the last moment, Hitler, by personal decree, replaced the execution of the general with imprisonment, but on July 23, 1944, von Sponeck was nevertheless executed during the mass repressions that followed the assassination attempt on Hitler.

Of particular interest is how the commander of the 11th German Army E. von Manstein describes the events that took place in the region of Kerch and Feodosia in his memoirs in his book “Lost Victories.” This material is offered to the reader with minor abbreviations:

“On December 26, the enemy, having transported two divisions across the Kerch Gulf, landed troops on both sides of the city of Kerch. This was followed by the landing of smaller troops on the northern coast of the peninsula.

The command of the 42nd Army Corps (General Count Sponeck), which had only one 46th Infantry Division at its disposal for the defense of the peninsula, found itself, of course, in an unenviable position. Count Sponeck therefore requested permission from the army command to leave the Kerch Peninsula, meaning to block the exits from it at the Parpach Isthmus. But the army command did not share his opinion...

The army command ordered the 42nd Army Corps, taking advantage of the weakness of the enemy that had just landed, to throw it into the sea. In order to/fulfill this task/the army command sent to the Feodosia area... the 4th Romanian mountain brigade... the 8th Romanian cavalry brigade and... the last of the regiments of the 73rd infantry regiment withdrawn from the Crimea (reinforced 213th infantry regiment ).

The 46th Infantry Division actually managed to eliminate enemy bridgeheads north and south of Kerch by December 28, with the exception of a small strip of land on the northern coast. Nevertheless, Count Sponeck again requested permission to leave the Kerch Peninsula. The army command categorically objected to this.

On December 29, we received a report from Feodosia that at night the enemy had landed troops there under the cover of significant naval forces. The small forces of our troops stationed near Feodosia (one engineer battalion, anti-tank destroyer artillery and several coastal batteries; the Romanians arrived in Feodosia only during the first half of the day) were not able to prevent the landing. Telephone communication with the headquarters of the 42nd Corps, located approximately in the center of the peninsula, was interrupted.

At 10 o'clock a radiogram was received from him stating that Count Sponeck, in view of the enemy's landing at Feodosia, ordered the immediate abandonment of the Kerch Peninsula. The order of the army command prohibiting this withdrawal was no longer accepted by the radio station of the corps headquarters. Although it was possible to agree with the fears of the corps headquarters, which was afraid of being cut off from the 46th Infantry Division on the Kerch Peninsula by an enemy landing force, we still believed that an overly hasty withdrawal could in no way contribute to improving the situation...

Simultaneously with the order prohibiting the abandonment of the Kerch Peninsula (this order, as mentioned above, could no longer be accepted by the headquarters of the 42nd Army Corps), the army command gave the order to the Romanian mountain corps with the forces of the two brigades mentioned above and the Romanian motorized regiment that was on the way to immediately reset The enemy landing force landed at Feodosia at sea. We, however, had no illusions about the offensive spirit of the Romanian formations. But the enemy could not yet have large forces on land near Feodosia. Decisive action could take advantage of this weakness. We had reason to hope that the Romanians would at least be able to hold the enemy within a small bridgehead near Feodosia until German troops arrived. But this hope was not destined to come true. The offensive of the Romanian mountain corps on Feodosia was not only unsuccessful, but moreover, the Romanians retreated in front of a few Soviet tanks, moving away from the line east of the city of Stary Krym.

The 46th Infantry Division with a forced march reached the Parpach Isthmus. But at the same time she had to leave most of her guns on the icy roads. In addition, its personnel were completely exhausted by the hardships of this retreat.

Following the 46th Infantry Division, the enemy was immediately able to begin pursuit from the small bridgeheads remaining behind him. The Kerch Strait froze, which allowed the enemy to quickly bring up new forces. If the enemy took advantage of the created situation and quickly began to pursue the 46th Infantry Division from Kerch, and also struck decisively after the Romanians retreating from Feodosia, then a situation would have been created that was hopeless not only for this newly emerging sector of the Eastern Front of the 11th Army. The fate of the entire 11th Army would be decided. A more decisive enemy could have paralyzed all the army's supplies with a rapid breakthrough on Dzhankoy. The troops recalled from Sevastopol - the 170th Infantry Division, and after the cessation of the offensive from the north, the 132nd Infantry Division - could arrive in the area west or north-west of Feodosia no earlier than 14 days later.

But the enemy failed to take advantage of the favorable moment... From the operational maps we captured, it was clear that the 4th Army that landed at Feodosia had only one goal - to reach the area west and north-west of the city of Stary Krym by January 4 with the forces available by that time in at its disposal with six divisions, in order to then take up defense at the achieved line... But the enemy did not actually even reach the above-mentioned line west of the city of Old Crimea.

The 51st Army advancing through Kerch pursued the 46th Infantry Division very hesitantly. The 44th Army, which landed at Feodosia... to our surprise, sent its main forces... to the east, towards the 51st Army. The enemy clearly saw only his tactical goal - the destruction of our forces on the Kerch Peninsula - and completely lost sight of the operational goal - crossing the main vital artery of the 11th Army.

Thus, we managed to create from the exhausted 46th Infantry Division, the reinforced 213th Infantry Division, which had arrived in the meantime, and the Romanian units, a very fragile covering front at the line between the northern spurs of Yayla near the Old Crimea - the coast of Sivash west of Ak-Monai. All officers, non-commissioned officers and soldiers (including from the army headquarters) who could be released were sent to strengthen the Romanian units, and they were also supposed to ensure the correct use of heavy weapons by the Romanians...

Finally, on January 15, everything was ready for a counterattack on Feodosia with the forces of the 30th and 42nd AK. It was not easy to decide on this attack. It was to be carried out by three and a half German divisions and one Romanian mountain brigade against the enemy, whose forces had now increased to eight divisions and two brigades. While the enemy had tanks, albeit in limited numbers, we had none. Air support was in question due to bad weather. Nevertheless... thanks to the bravery of the troops... the offensive was a success... By January 18, Feodosia was in our hands. The enemy lost 6,700 people killed, 10,000 prisoners, 177 guns and 85 tanks."

Also of some interest is the opinion of E. von Manstein regarding the case of General Sponeck, who was his direct subordinate. In particular, he wrote that “the case of Count Sponeck shows how tragic the conflict between the obligation to carry out an order and his own opinion about operational necessity can be for a military leader. He knows that by disobeying an order he is risking his life, and yet he may be forced to act contrary to the order...

Having received a report that, contrary to the repeated orders of the army commander prohibiting withdrawal from the Kerch Peninsula, the corps commander nevertheless ordered his troops to withdraw, I removed Count Sponeck from command... because I was not sure that he was capable of doing so. time to cope with the critical situation on the Kerch Peninsula...

As a circumstance mitigating Count Sponeck's guilt, it was necessary to admit that he found himself in an extremely difficult situation, that, having found himself in an extremely difficult situation, he was deeply convinced that it was impossible to do otherwise.

As soon as I learned of the verdict, in a report addressed to the commander of the army group, I stood up for Count Sponeck and demanded that, first of all, they listen to me again. Field Marshal von Bock fully supported my position. However, we only received Keitel's response, which rejected our point of view in a completely unjustifiably harsh form... My repeated attempts to achieve the complete rehabilitation of Sponeck remained unsuccessful. Then he was vilely shot by order of Himmler after July 20, 1944.” .

Thus, as a superior commander, Field Marshal General E. von Manstein, to a certain extent, even justifies the unauthorized act of his subordinate, referring to the operational rationality of his decision in the current situation. On the one hand, this is a somewhat new approach to the relationship between boss and subordinate, on the other hand - and this should not be forgotten - Manstein wrote the book after the end of the war, at a time when it was no longer dangerous to openly accuse Hitler of injustice. It is possible that it was the latter circumstance that played a decisive role in his assessments and conclusions.

In general, if we talk about the Kerch-Feodosia operation, it should be noted that this is the first major landing operation of the Red Army since the beginning of the Great Patriotic War. Its implementation significantly contributed to improving the situation on the southern wing of the Soviet-German front and led to the disruption of the enemy’s second offensive on Sevastopol. With the capture of the Kerch Peninsula at the beginning of 1942, Soviet troops eliminated the threat of an enemy offensive from the Crimea to the Kuban and the Caucasus.

It lasted for nine days and was fought at a front of about 250 km. The maximum depth of advance of Soviet troops was 110 km, the average daily rate of advance of rifle formations fluctuated between 10-12 km per day. During this operation, Soviet troops (together with the fleet) irrevocably lost almost 35 thousand people killed, captured and missing, and about 9.5 thousand people wounded and sick.

At the same time, this landing operation, as the most complex method of combat operations, showed the need for special precision in its preparation and conduct, especially in the field of control of ground, sea and air forces.

It must be admitted that in this operation there was essentially no unified command. The commander of the Caucasian Front had a command post in Tbilisi, and an operational group in Krasnodar. The command of the Black Sea Fleet was located in Novorossiysk and also could not exercise overall control of the operation, since the Azov military flotilla and the Kerch naval base were operationally subordinate to the commander of the 51st Army. At the same time, the commander of the Azov military flotilla and the commander of the Kerch naval base were on land and, therefore, could not control all the detachments at sea. In addition, the detachments of ships at sea were not united under a single command.

As a result of major deficiencies in management, the landing forces landed in the Kerch region and in Feodosia were delayed at the landing points and slowly advanced deeper into the Kerch Peninsula. The enemy was forced out of the peninsula, but was not surrounded and destroyed.

The operation failed to achieve the secrecy of preparations, surprise and swiftness of the landing. The landing of troops on ships was discovered by enemy aerial reconnaissance, as it was carried out not only at night, but also during the day. The secrecy of the transition of detachments by the Azov military flotilla and the Kerch naval base was also violated - most of them did not have time to complete the transition by sea by the morning.

To provide fire support for the landing, a special naval support detachment was not formed in the Azov military flotilla; the detachments of ships did not have sufficient firepower, and therefore the landing forces suffered significant losses from enemy fire during the landing.

The operations clearly demonstrated the enormous importance of air support for landing forces, as well as the importance of the air defense system. The Air Force of the Black Sea Fleet did not fulfill its main task of gaining air supremacy. Due to the remoteness of the airfields, our fighter aircraft could not organize reliable air cover for the landing detachments during the sea crossing, in the landing areas, especially in the most remote places (Cape Zyuk, Feodosia), as well as during the development of the operation on land. Having abandoned the airborne landing in Vladislavovka, the Soviet command was deprived of the opportunity to quickly relocate part of the fighter aircraft to the local airfield, from where it was possible to organize effective support for the troops. At the same time, the activity of Soviet aviation was quite high. Thus, during the period from December 26 to January 2, it carried out 1,250 sorties.

The operation did not pay due attention to organizing the defense of the landing points captured by the first landings. Often the units that made up these forces sought to advance as deep as possible while leaving their flanks exposed. The enemy, striking on the flanks, prevented the landing of subsequent echelons.

The Azov military flotilla and the Kerch naval base did not pay enough attention to organizing communications with the floating assets involved in the operation (seiners, tugs). When going to sea, communication with these means, as a rule, ceased. The weather service did not work satisfactorily. All this as a whole significantly reduced the effectiveness of the operation and negatively affected its progress and outcome.

Notes

. Manstein E. Lost victories. M.: AST, 2003. pp. 255-258.

. Manstein E. Lost victories. pp. 258-264.

Russia and the USSR in the wars of the 20th century. Statistical research. M., 2001. P. 277.

Preparations for the operation were ordered to be completed by December 19. The landing was supposed to begin on December 21.

Preparations for the operation were interrupted by the aggravation of the situation in the Sevastopol region. To counter the crisis, it was necessary to transfer to the city on December 20 and 21 the 345th Infantry Division and the 79th Marine Brigade, originally intended for landing in Feodosia. The transfer of troops also distracted the combat and transport ships involved in the landing operation. As a result, it was possible to begin the landing only on December 26.

On December 26, troops of the 51st and 40th Soviet armies were landed in the Kerch area and 30 in the Feodosia area.

At that moment, enemy forces on the Kerch Peninsula were represented by the German 46th Infantry Division and the Romanian regiment of mountain riflemen guarding the Parpach ridge area.

The total number of enemy troops on the Kerch Peninsula was 25 thousand personnel, 180 guns and 118 tanks. Two aviation groups with up to 100 aircraft were based at airfields in the Kerch region. In addition, the grouping of enemy troops on the Kerch Peninsula could be supported by aviation from airfields located in the areas of Simferopol and Saki.

On the afternoon of December 25, the 1st–5th Airborne Troops began moving along assigned courses with the expectation of arriving at their designated landing areas two hours before dawn on December 26th. However, due to the onset of a strong storm and continuous raids by enemy aircraft, the 1st and 2nd detachments were unable to fully land in the area of ​​Cape Zyuk. Most of the detachment units returned to Temryuk. The landing of the 3rd and 5th detachments failed. The most successful was the landing of the 4th detachment in the area of ​​​​Cape Khroni. This detachment arrived at the designated area at 6:30 a.m. and immediately began the landing, which was carried out under the cover of fire from two gunboats. By 13:00 on December 26, the landing of the detachment was completely completed, and the troops gained a foothold on the captured bridgehead.

Attempts made on December 27 and 29 to continue the landing were unsuccessful due to stormy seas and strong enemy resistance. Further landing of troops of the 51st Army became possible only on December 30. In total, from December 26 to 31, the Azov military flotilla landed more than 6 thousand people and transferred 9 tanks, 10 guns (37-, 76-mm caliber), 28 mortars and 204 tons of ammunition. The landing of the troops of the 51st Army on the ships of the Kerch naval base was unorganized. Only one of the three completed the landing at the appointed time. The delay in landing led to a disruption in the schedule for the detachments to cross the Kerch Strait. In addition, the ships arrived at the landing areas at different times. On the first day, the landing was most successful in the Kamysh-Burun area. It was carried out under the cover of a smoke screen delivered by specially designated boats, and with the support of artillery fire from the Taman Peninsula. On December 27, the landing was not carried out due to a strong storm (7–8 points). It resumed on December 28 and continued until December 30. In total, from December 26 to 29, in the Kamysh-Burun region, more than 11,200 people were landed from the 302nd Infantry Division and 47 guns, 229 machine guns, 198 mortars, 12 vehicles, and 210 horses were unloaded.

The landing of the 44th Army in the area of ​​Mount Opuk, carried out by the Black Sea Fleet, failed. In general, from December 26 to 31, the Azov military flotilla, the Kerch naval base and partly the Black Sea Fleet, despite a number of serious shortcomings in organizing the landing and landing of troops, strong enemy resistance, as well as extremely unfavorable meteorological conditions, landed part of the troops on the Kerch Peninsula and military equipment. However, the landing forces had very little artillery and tanks. Therefore, instead of the planned offensive, they were forced to go on the defensive, waging stubborn battles with the enemy, who took all measures to throw them into the sea.

The cruiser "Red Caucasus", taking part in the landing of the Feodosia landing force, at 3 hours 48 minutes opened fire on the city and port of Feodosia. The artillery raid lasted 13 minutes, during which the Red Caucasus managed to fire 26 shells of the main 180-mm caliber. In total, during the landing and support of the paratroopers, the cruiser expended 70 main battery shells and 429 100-mm shells.

Only after the capture of Feodosia and the creation of a threat to the communications of the enemy group operating on the peninsula, there was a sharp change in the situation on the Kerch Peninsula in favor of the Soviet troops. The landing of the 44th Army in the Feodosia area was more successful. It began at 4 a.m. on December 29 after a short artillery preparation. Thanks to the surprise achieved, the assault troops quickly captured important port facilities and created favorable conditions for the operations of the first echelon troops. In a short time, landing units were transferred from the cruisers "Red Crimea" and "Red Caucasus", from the destroyer "Shaumyan" and other ships. At the same time, these ships supported the landing operations on the shore with the fire of their guns. The enemy air raids that began after dawn were repelled by naval anti-aircraft artillery fire and fighter aircraft of the Black Sea Fleet. On December 29, warships maneuvered in the bay and fired artillery, supporting the landing operations.

On the evening of December 29, the landing of troops from transports began in the Feodosia port. By the morning of December 30, Feodosia was completely liberated from the enemy.

The successful landing of troops of the 44th Army in Feodosia dramatically changed the situation on the Kerch Peninsula. The entire enemy group located in the eastern part of the peninsula faced the threat of encirclement. The command of the 11th German Army was forced to decide to withdraw its troops from the peninsula. On December 30, the enemy left Kerch without a fight. The fascist German command was forced to urgently strengthen its troops in the Feodosia direction. In early January, northwest and west of Feodosia, in addition to the 46th Infantry Division, units of the 73rd Infantry Division and the Romanian Mountain Rifle Corps were already operating. In addition, on the approach to this area were the 132nd and 170th infantry divisions, transferred from near Sevastopol, where the heroic efforts of the soldiers of the Sevastopol defensive region were thwarted by the second offensive of the Nazi troops. By the end of January 2, Soviet troops reached the Kiet-Koktebel line, where they encountered organized enemy resistance. This concluded the operation to capture the Kerch Peninsula. The Kerch-Feodosia landing operation ended with the capture of an important operational bridgehead in Crimea - the liberation of the Kerch Peninsula, the capture of important enemy strongholds in Crimea - the cities and seaports of Kerch and Feodosia, the troops advanced 100-110 km to the west.

As a result of the operation, the position of the troops of the Sevastopol defensive region was strengthened. On January 1, 1942, the German command was forced to stop its second attack on Sevastopol and transfer part of its forces from there to the Feodosia region. The Kerch enemy group suffered heavy losses. These results were achieved thanks to the heroic actions of the ground forces and navy. The operation, carried out as part of the Red Army's counteroffensive in December 1941, was the largest amphibious landing operation during the Great Patriotic War. Its main significance was that the enemy lost the opportunity to use the Kerch Peninsula as a springboard for penetration into the Caucasus. At the same time, it diverted part of the enemy’s forces from near Sevastopol, making it easier for its defenders to repel the second enemy assault.

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