On September 24, 1941, German troops went on the offensive in the area of the Perekop Isthmus and the operation to seize Crimea began. After a month of stubborn fighting, German troops managed to break through the defenses and capture most of Crimea. The only place left under control Soviet troops was Sevastopol. This city was very well fortified on both the sea and land sides. There were dozens of fortified gun positions, minefields etc. The defense system also included two so-called “armored turret batteries” (AB), or forts, armed with large-caliber artillery. The BB-30 forts were armed with 305 mm guns.
The Germans used huge artillery pieces. Such guns pierced 30-meter thick concrete. But the city’s defenders desperately resisted. German troops launched several assaults, but all of them were unsuccessful. And only on June 17, 1941, when German troops captured several important heights above the city and the defenders had run out of ammunition, the defense commander, Vice Admiral Oktyabrsky, received permission from the Supreme High Command Headquarters to evacuate. The evacuation plan provided for the removal of only senior and senior command personnel of the army and navy, and party activists of the city. The evacuation of the rest of the military personnel, including the wounded, was not planned. But the troops, even without commanders, continued to resist. And only on July 1 the resistance was broken. The heroic defense of Sevastopol is an example of courage and patriotism.
Sevastopol armored train "Zheleznyakov" in a combat raid. This armored train drove active fighting from November 7, 1941, having carried out 140 military raids on the front line. He died on June 28, 1942, when the arches of the Trinity Tunnel collapsed during another air raid.
German bombs dropped on Sevastopol.
Smoke screen in the South Bay of Sevastopol.
The leader of the destroyers "Tashkent" during the heroic transition from Sevastopol to Novorossiysk. The photo shows the crew of a 12.7-mm DShK machine gun against the background of explosions from enemy bombs.
At the end of June 1942, the position of the defenders of Sevastopol became critical - the city could not be held. On June 26, the last of the large surface ships, the leader of the destroyers Tashkent, broke through the German naval blockade into Sevastopol. The ship took on board over 2,100 people and left Sevastopol on the night of June 27, 1942.
From 5 a.m. to 9 a.m. on June 27, 1942, the leader repelled a group raid by 86 enemy bombers. Nazi planes dropped 336 bombs on the ship. Thanks to skillful maneuvering, it was possible to avoid direct hits (only one 250 kg bomb delivered a glancing blow in the area of the left anchor, but did not explode and sank), but the ship received a lot of damage from close explosions, and some of the evacuees died.
At 20.15 on June 27, 1942, the damaged Tashkent arrived at the entrance to Novorossiysk harbor under tow.
The leader of the destroyers "Tashkent" is approaching the destroyer "Soobrazitelny" to reload evacuees from Sevastopol.
MiG-3 fighters of the 8th Fighter Aviation Regiment of the Black Sea Fleet Air Force at the airfield.
Loading of Soviet troops aboard the leader of the destroyers "Tashkent", going to the aid of besieged Sevastopol.
Soviet light cruiser "Chervona Ukraine" in Sevastopol. 1941
The crew of the 21-K gun of the light cruiser "Red Caucasus" is monitoring the air situation.
The steamer "Georgiy Dimitrov", sunk by German aircraft in the South Bay of Sevastopol.
The crew of the Tashkent leader's anti-aircraft machine gun is preparing to repel an enemy air raid.
After the defense of Sevastopol. German officers They are moving to the position of the broken 35th battery.
The bow of the leader of the Tashkent destroyers is buried in the waves due to the strong trim on the bow.
The leader of the destroyers "Tashkent" is firing at German positions from the South Bay of Sevastopol.
Anti-aircraft crew on the Historical Boulevard of Sevastopol.
A group of officers of the Black Sea Fleet.
Broken equipment on the approaches to the 35th battery of Sevastopol - the last frontier defense, from which fire was fired at the advancing German troops until the last shell.
The destroyer Svobodny shells German positions near Sevastopol.
Control bombing at the entrance to the Northern Bay of Sevastopol.
Loading a 76-mm ZiS-22 cannon onto the leader of the Tashkent destroyers in Novorossiysk for shipment to besieged Sevastopol, 1942.
Wounded soldiers and evacuated civilians who arrived from the besieged Sevastopol go ashore from the leader of the destroyers Tashkent in the port of Novorossiysk.
After the defense of Sevastopol. At the positions of the 35th battery.
German soldiers in battle in the area of the 35th battery of Sevastopol. The Germans were never able to suppress our batteries either with artillery fire or with the help of aviation. On July 1, 1942, the 35th battery fired its last 6 direct-fire shells at the advancing enemy infantry, and on the night of July 2, the battery commander, Captain Leshchenko, organized the explosion of the battery.
Women and children evacuated from Sevastopol disembark from the leader of the destroyers Tashkent in the port of Novorossiysk.
Setting up a smoke screen at the railway junction in Sevastopol during a German air raid.
B-13 gun of senior Red Navy man Grishchenko on Malakhov Kurgan in Sevastopol.
Soviet sappers-reconnaissance junior sergeants F.Ya. Kudin and V.G. Skobelik clears an anti-tank mine.
Soviet Cossack sappers undermine an enemy bunker.
German high-speed landing barges (LDB) during the unloading of troops at Cape Kazantip in the Sea of Azov.
Destroyed turret gun mount No. 1 of the 35th coastal battery of Sevastopol.
Destroyer of the Black Sea Fleet "Boikiy".
Soviet fighters I-153 "Chaika" over Sevastopol.
German super-heavy gun "Dora" (caliber 800 mm, weight 1350 tons) in a position near Bakhchisarai. The gun was used during the assault on Sevastopol to destroy defensive fortifications.
Construction of a firing position for the German super-heavy 800-mm Dora gun near Bakhchisarai.
Transportation of Italian small torpedo boats of the MAS type along mountain serpentine roads to Yalta.
Wehrmacht soldiers on the streets of Feodosia.
The Black Sea Fleet destroyer "Frunze" at sea.
German machine gunners in position near Sevastopol.
130-mm B-7 gun of the light cruiser "Chervona Ukraine" on the Sevastopol battery No. 703 (114).
Soviet fighters I-153 "Chaika" in flight over Sevastopol Bay.
Captured Red Army soldiers in the Alushta region.
The bodies of killed Red Army soldiers in a destroyed fortification in Sevastopol.
German soldiers on the destroyed tower No. 2 (western) of the 30th coastal battery of Sevastopol.
Defenders of Sevastopol at the monument to Admiral Kornilov on Malakhov Kurgan. Winter-spring 1942.
Mortar "Gamma" in position near Sevastopol.
The mountain rifle division of Lieutenant Kovalev carries out the task of delivering ammunition to the front line, using domestic donkeys as transport. Crimea, April 1944.
The leader of the destroyers "Tashkent" moored with the submarine D-5 of the Black Sea Fleet.
Marines of the Black Sea Fleet read newspapers.
A German machine gunner with an MG-34 covers the position of the PaK-36 gun.
Project MO-4 boats in Streletskaya Bay of Sevastopol.
Soviet sniper, future Hero of the Soviet Union, senior sergeant Lyudmila Mikhailovna Pavlichenko.
German soldiers are observing Soviet positions from a trench on the Perekop Isthmus.
The Germans are mastering a captured Soviet anti-aircraft gun in Sevastopol.
Soviet Marines are fighting in the Sevastopol area.
Soldiers of the Red Army on the way to Sevastopol on the deck of the light cruiser "Red Crimea".
The crew of a German howitzer 10.5 cm leFH18 is shelling the Konstantinovsky fort, which defended the entrance to Sevastopol Bay.
German soldiers (including a flamethrower) attack Soviet positions near Sevastopol.
A group of correspondents from the newspaper “Red Fleet” in besieged Sevastopol.
Landing of soldiers from the 142nd Marine rifle brigade on the leader of the destroyers "Tashkent".
A German soldier observes the situation through a gap in a stone fence somewhere in Crimea.
A German soldier on a BMW R20/R23 motorcycle drives past an anti-tank barrier in Crimea.
The commander of the submarine Shch-209, captain 3rd rank V.I. Ivanov in the conning tower.
The Soviet ambulance transport "Abkhazia" sunk in the Sukharnaya Balka of Sevastopol.
The destroyer "Svobodny" in Sevastopol.
The destroyer Svobodny in Sevastopol is firing.
A damaged Soviet light double-turret machine-gun tank T-26 near Sevastopol.
Two soviet tank T-34, shot down during the fighting on the Kerch Peninsula.
The leader of the destroyers "Tashkent" goes to besieged Sevastopol.
A column of T-26 tanks during the defense of Sevastopol in 1941.
Evacuees from Sevastopol are moving from Tashkent to Soobrazitelny.
A soldier and sergeant major of the Crimean Wehrmacht group who distinguished themselves in the battles for Kerch.
Commander of the Primorsky Army, Major General I.E. Petrov and the commander of the 345th Infantry Division, Colonel N.O. Guz is at the forefront of defense.
One of the workshops produced by the Sevastopol underground military special plant No. 1. The plant was located in the adits of the Troitskaya Balka and produced 50-mm and 82-mm artillery mines, hand and anti-tank grenades, and mortars.
Captured French tank S35 from the 204th German tank regiment(Pz.Rgt.204) in Crimea.
After the battle on the Kerch Peninsula, the Germans at the entrance to the dugout are waiting for the remaining Red Army soldiers to leave.
Anti-aircraft gunners of the Zheleznyakov armored train at DShK machine guns.
Chief Petty Officer of the Marine Corps of the Black Sea Fleet A. Anikin
Defense of Crimea 1941 - 1942
For the defense of Crimea and the main naval base in Sevastopol, on August 15, the 51st Army was created as part of the Southern Front as part of the 9th rifle corps and the 48th Cavalry Division under the command of Colonel General F.I. Kuznetsova. This army had the task of preventing the enemy from invading Crimea both from the north, through the Perekop and Chongar isthmuses, and from the sea approaches.
Against the Southern Front, whose commander was Lieutenant General D.I. Ryabyshev, member of the Military Council of the front - Army Commissar 1st Rank A.I. Zaporozhets, and the chief of staff was Major General A.I. Antonov, the enemy went on the offensive on September 9. He managed to break through the front of the 9th Army and by the evening of September 12 reached the Perekop Isthmus, and on September 16 - to the Chongar Bridge and the Arabat Strelka. Thus, the enemy came close to the Crimean Peninsula, but his attempt to immediately break through the Perekop Isthmus was repulsed by the troops of the 51st Separate Army.
The troops of the Southern Front, commanded from October 5 by Colonel General Ya.T. Cherevichenko, at the end of September, on their own initiative, they tried to organize an offensive in Northern Tavria with the aim of reaching the Crimean isthmus and establishing direct communication with Crimea. But the Supreme Command Headquarters indicated to the front command that their efforts were untimely and that in the current situation it was advisable to improve their defensive positions. At the same time, the troops of the 51st Separate Army were ordered to hold the Crimean isthmus with all their might and prevent the enemy from breaking through into Crimea.
At the same time, the German High Command, which believed that the forces of the Red Army on the southern sector of the front had been defeated, set Army Group South the task of capturing Crimea and depriving the Black Sea Fleet of its main base, and Soviet aviation, which bombed the Romanian oil industry, airfields in Crimea.
By the time the enemy reached the Crimean isthmus (mid-September), three rifle divisions 51st Separate Army, whose troops were commanded by Colonel General F.I. Kuznetsov.
The 11th German Army, commanded by Colonel General von Schobert, operated on the southern wing of the Soviet-German front. But the commander in mid-September, during one of his daily sorties to the front on a Storch-type aircraft, landed on a field mined by the Russians and died along with his pilot, and on September 16 he was buried in Nikolaev. General Manstein was appointed as the new commander, who on September 17 arrived at the headquarters of the 11th Army in the city and port of Nikolaev, located at the mouth of the Bug, and took command. The chief of staff was Colonel Wehler.
The 11th Army was tasked with occupying Crimea. Moreover, this task seemed especially urgent to the German command. On the one hand, it was expected that the occupation of Crimea and its naval base of Sevastopol would have a beneficial effect on Turkey's position. On the other hand, and this is especially important, large enemy air bases in Crimea posed a threat to the Romanian oil region, which was vital for Germany. And finally, after the capture of Crimea, the mountain corps, part of the 11th Army, was supposed to continue moving through the Kerch Strait towards the Caucasus, supporting the offensive, which was supposed to unfold from Rostov.
For a direct attack on the Crimea, formations of the 54th Army Corps under the command of General Hansen were allocated as part of the 46th and 73rd infantry divisions. In addition, it was planned to send there part of the forces from the 50th Infantry Division, which had arrived from Greece, which at that time, as part of the 4th Romanian Army, was still located near Odessa, clearing the Black Sea coast of the remnants of Soviet troops.
Manstein believed that, given the terrain, “even the stubborn defense of three divisions was enough to prevent the invasion of the Crimea by the 54th Army Corps or, at least, to significantly exhaust its forces in the battles for the isthmus.” He explained this from the perspective of the complex nature of the terrain and the defense power of the Soviet troops. In particular, he wrote:
“Crimea is separated from the mainland by the so-called “Rotten Sea”, Sivash. It is a kind of wattle or salt marsh, for the most part impassable to infantry, and, owing to its shallow depth, it is, moreover, an absolute obstacle to landing craft. There are only two approaches to Crimea: in the west - the Perekop Isthmus, in the east - the Genichesk Isthmus. But this latter is so narrow that only the road and railway tracks fit on it, and even then they are interrupted long bridges. This isthmus is unsuitable for conducting an offensive.
The Perekop Isthmus, the only one suitable for an offensive, is also only 7 km wide. The attack on it could only be carried out frontally; the terrain did not provide any hidden routes of approach. A flanking maneuver was ruled out, since there was sea on both sides. The isthmus was well equipped for defense with field-type structures. In addition, the entire width of it was crossed by the ancient “Tatar Ditch”, which has a depth of up to 15 m.
After breaking through the Perekop Isthmus, the attacker found himself further south on another isthmus - Ishunsky, where the offensive line German troops, due to the narrowing between the salt lakes, decreased to 3-4 km.
Given these terrain features and taking into account that the enemy had air superiority, it could be assumed that the battle for the isthmuses would be difficult and exhausting. Even if it were possible to achieve a breakthrough at Perekop, it remained doubtful whether the corps would have enough strength to carry out a second battle at Yishun. But, in any case, 2-3 divisions were clearly not enough to occupy the entire Crimea, including the powerful fortress of Sevastopol.”
Despite such dubious prospects, on September 24, 1954 army corps The enemy launched an attack on the Perekop Isthmus. Despite the resistance of the Soviet troops, the corps managed, repelling strong counterattacks, to take Perekop and overcome the “Tatar Ditch” on September 26.
During these battles Soviet command threw all the tanks they had against the enemy, including the T-34. A German engineer officer describes the first meeting with these tanks (in the text - “heavy tanks”) in the battles for the Perekop positions:
“...We had barely crossed the ditch when heavy tanks attacked us from the direction of Armyansk. One of my Rottenführers, to everyone's amusement, opened fire with a completely useless anti-tank rifle - an "infantry door knocker". We were saved by a Romanian battery of heavy howitzers, whose shells tore out huge craters, and Stalin’s tanks had to retreat.” These were the latest for that time 149-mm howitzers from Skoda, model 1934 and 1937.
In the next three days of the most difficult offensive, the corps broke through the defenses of the Soviet troops to its entire depth, took the heavily fortified settlement of Armyansk and entered the operational space. The remnants of the divisions of the 51st Army retreated to the Ishun Isthmus with heavy losses; according to Manstein, German troops captured 10,000 prisoners, 112 tanks and 135 guns.
But later, as a result of counterattacks carried out at that time by the troops of the 9th and 18th armies of the Southern Front, German troops were forced to stop the attack on Crimea. At the same time, the enemy’s breakthrough of the first line of Perekop fortifications of Soviet troops indicated the insufficient strength of the Crimean defense. Having no free units to strengthen the 51st Separate Army, Headquarters Supreme High Command On September 30, she decided to evacuate the Odessa defensive region and strengthen the defense at the expense of its troops Crimean peninsula. Before the arrival of troops from Odessa, which required about three weeks, the commander of the 51st Separate Army was ordered to concentrate all forces to hold the Arabat Spit, the Chongar Isthmus, the southern bank of Sivash and the Ishun positions.
While the evacuation of Odessa and the transfer of troops to the Crimea were carried out, the enemy, continuing to advance in the general offensive towards Rostov, pushed the troops of the Southern Front to Taganrog and was able to resume the offensive on the Crimea. This time, for the invasion of Crimea, the German command allocated the 11th Army with the Romanian mountain corps, a total of seven German infantry divisions and two Romanian brigades.
Manstein decided to deliver the main blow with German divisions across the Perekop Isthmus; auxiliary - by the Romanian mountain corps across the Chongar bridge. To do this, by October 18, four infantry divisions of the 54th Army Corps were concentrated on the Perekop Isthmus. Two more divisions of the 30th Army Corps, heading towards Perekop, were located halfway between Genichesk and Perekop. Another division, the German 132nd, was at that time approaching the Southern Bug River. The Romanian mountain corps concentrated towards Genichesk.
Soviet troops in Crimea, together with the arriving four rifle and one cavalry divisions of the Primorsky Army, consisted of 12 rifle and four cavalry divisions on October 18. These forces were quite sufficient to organize a strong defense of the Crimean isthmuses. And since our fleet dominated the Black Sea, the possibility of landing amphibious assault the enemy was excluded. An enemy airborne landing in Crimea was also unlikely.
However, the commander of the 51st Army failed to correctly assess the situation and scattered his forces throughout the peninsula. He kept three rifle and two cavalry divisions guarding the coast, two rifle and one cavalry divisions in reserve. To defend the isthmuses, four rifle divisions were deployed in the Ishun positions in one echelon and one rifle division on the Chongar Peninsula. Two divisions of the Primorsky Army were on the march from Sevastopol to the isthmuses and could arrive there no earlier than October 23.
The enemy, having launched an offensive on the Ishun positions on October 18, main blow attacked with two divisions in a narrow area between the railway and the Black Sea coast. On October 20, he managed to break through the Ishun fortifications. Instead of organizing counterattacks on the flank of the enemy who had broken through, the commander of the 51st Army sought to close the resulting breakthrough and only on October 23 launched a frontal counterattack with the forces of the approaching 25th and 95th Infantry Divisions of the Primorsky Army. This counterattack managed to delay the advance. Nazi troops until October 25. But with the loss of the Ishun positions convenient for defense, our troops found themselves at a disadvantage in positions that were almost unprepared for defense.
“Our immediate task was to resume fighting on the approaches to the Crimea, for the Ishun Isthmus. They may say that this is the most ordinary attack. But these ten-day battles stand out from the series of ordinary offensives as the clearest example the offensive spirit and selfless dedication of the German soldier. In this battle we had almost none of the prerequisites that are usually considered necessary for an attack on a fortified defense.
Numerical superiority was on the side of the defending Russians, and not on the side of the advancing Germans. The six divisions of the 11th Army were very soon opposed by 8 Soviet rifle and four cavalry divisions, since on October 16 the Russians evacuated the fortress of Odessa, which was unsuccessfully besieged by the 4th Romanian Army, and transferred the army defending it by sea to the Crimea. And although our aviation reported that Soviet ships with a total tonnage of 32,000 tons were sunk, most of the transport from Odessa reached Sevastopol and ports on the western coast of Crimea. The first of the divisions of this army appeared at the front soon after the start of our offensive.
German artillery had superiority over enemy artillery and effectively supported the infantry. But on the enemy’s side, on the northwestern coast of Crimea and on the southern bank of Sivash, armored batteries of coastal artillery operated, so far invulnerable to German artillery. While the Soviets had numerous tanks for counterattacks, the 11th Army had none.
Dominance in the air belonged to Soviet aviation. Soviet bombers and fighters continuously attacked any detected target. Not only the infantry at the front line and batteries had to dig in, but trenches had to be dug for every cart and horse in the rear zone to protect them from enemy aircraft. Things got to the point that anti-aircraft batteries did not dare to open fire, so as not to be immediately suppressed by an air raid. Only when Mölders and his fighter squadron were subordinated to the army was he able to clear the skies, at least during the daytime. At night, he could not prevent enemy air raids.
On October 25, it seemed that the offensive impulse of the troops had completely dried up. The commander of one of the best divisions had already reported twice that the strength of his regiments was running out... Nevertheless, on October 27, decisive success was achieved. On October 28, after ten days of fierce fighting, the Soviet defenses collapsed and the 11th Army could begin pursuit of the enemy."
To unite the actions of the troops of the 51st and Primorsky Separate Army and the Black Sea Fleet for the defense of Crimea, at the direction of the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command, a command of the Crimean troops was created. Vice Admiral G.I. was appointed commander. Levchenko, deputy for ground forces - Lieutenant General P.I. Batov.
After the defeat at the Yishun positions, the divisions of the Primorsky Army began to retreat south, and the four rifle divisions of the 51st Army, against which five German divisions were advancing, slowly retreated in the direction of Dzhankoy.
Manstein ordered the troops of the 30th Army Corps, consisting of the 72nd and 22nd Infantry Divisions, to advance to Simferopol. The 54th Army Corps, part of the 50th Army, the newly arrived 132nd Infantry Division and a hastily formed motorized brigade were ordered to pursue the enemy in the Bakhchisarai-Sevastopol direction.
On October 29, the commander of the Crimean troops decided to withdraw the troops of the Primorsky and 51st armies to a poorly prepared rear defensive line, running along the Sovetsky, Novo-Tsaritsyno, Saki line, and gain a foothold on it. But in practice, this decision could not be implemented, since on October 31, the enemy’s mobile detachment reached the Alma station, and after it the divisions of the 54th Army Corps advanced.
In order to prevent the enemy troops from breaking through to Sevastopol, the garrison of which was very weak at that time, it was decided to withdraw the troops of the Primorsky Army to Sevastopol and organize the defense of this port city there, and cover the Kerch direction with the 51st Army. As a result of this decision, the forces of the Soviet troops in Crimea were divided into two parts, and the enemy was able to defeat them piece by piece.
The retreat to Sevastopol took place under difficult conditions. Soviet troops waged continuous battles with the enemy's 30th Army Corps, which was pressing on them and turned south from Dzhankoy. On November 6, the advanced units of the Primorsky Army reached Sevastopol just at the moment when the city’s garrison, consisting mainly of marines, was repelling at the forefront the attacks of the 54th Army Corps, which was trying to break through to the city from the east along the shortest direction. With the approach of the troops of the Primorsky Army, the strength of the defenders of Sevastopol increased, which gave them the opportunity to repel the enemy's advance.
At a time when the troops of the Primorsky Army were retreating to Sevastopol, the 51st Army, which took command of the troops on October 30, Lieutenant General P.I. Batov, was allocated for the defense of the Kerch Peninsula. On November 4, by order of the commander of the Crimean troops, the Kerch defensive region was created on the basis of the 51st Army, which included all formations and units of the 51st Army and the Kerch naval base.
Despite the terrain convenient for defense and sufficient forces (seven rifle divisions), the command of the defensive region was unable to organize the defense of the Kerch Peninsula and stop the enemy’s offensive. On November 16, the last units of the 51st Army were evacuated to the Taman Peninsula.
Thus, by mid-November 1941, the enemy captured almost the entire Crimea and blocked Sevastopol from land. The main base of the Black Sea Fleet found itself under fire from German field artillery and under attack from German aviation, which had relocated to Crimean airfields. Because of this, the Black Sea Fleet, except for a few old ships left for fire support of the Sevastopol garrison, had to be relocated to inconvenient ports on the Caucasian coast. The advance of the enemy to the Kerch Strait made it difficult for our fleet to communicate between the Azov and Black Seas.
From the memoirs of E. Manstein: “On November 16, the persecution was completed, and the entire Crimea, with the exception of the Sevastopol fortress region, was in our hands.
The swift actions of the 42nd Army Corps thwarted the enemy's attempt to resist us on the Parpach Isthmus. The corps took the important port of Feodosia before the enemy managed to evacuate any significant forces through it. On November 15, the corps took Kerch. Only insignificant enemy forces managed to cross the strait to the Taman Peninsula.
The 30th Army Corps managed to split the main enemy forces into two parts, making a bold breakthrough along the mountain road to Alushta, located on the southern bank, after Simferopol was taken on November 1 by the advance detachment of the 72nd Infantry Division. The enemy was thus not only deprived of the opportunity to create a defense on the northern spurs of the mountains, but also all his forces, pushed into the mountains east of the road Simferopol - Alushta were doomed to destruction.
Although the pursuit thus failed to end with the capture of the fortress of Sevastopol, it nevertheless led to the almost complete destruction of the enemy outside it. The six divisions of the 11th Army destroyed most of the enemy's two armies, which numbered 12 rifle and four cavalry divisions. Only the remnants of the troops, having lost all their heavy weapons, escaped through the Kerch Strait and retreated to Sevastopol. If they were soon able to be transformed into full-fledged combat-ready troops in Sevastopol, it was due to the fact that the enemy, having dominance at sea, was able to ensure the timely delivery of reinforcements and equipment.
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 landing of Soviet troops on the Kerch Peninsula, undertaken just at the moment when the outcome of the battle on the northern sector of the Sevastopol Front was being decided, as it soon turned out, was not just an enemy maneuver designed to divert our forces. Soviet radio stations reported that this was an offensive with a decisive goal, with the goal of returning Crimea, carried out on the orders and plans of Stalin. As it was announced on the radio, the fight would only end with the destruction of the 11th Army in the Crimea, and the fact that these words were not an empty threat was soon confirmed large mass troops committed to this offensive. In this circumstance, as well as in the fact that the enemy wasted his strength without taking anything into account, Stalin’s cruel will was felt.
On December 28, 1941, the 54th Army Corps transferred to final offensive near Sevastopol... 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. Besides her personnel was 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.
But the enemy failed to take advantage of the favorable moment. Either the enemy command did not understand its advantages in this situation, or it did not dare to immediately use them. From the operational maps we captured, it was clear that the 44th Army that landed at Feodosia had only one goal - to reach the area to the west and north by January 4th. west of the city Old Crimea with the six divisions at its disposal by this time, in order to then take up defense at the reached line. Apparently, even having a triple superiority in forces, the enemy did not dare to undertake a bold deep operation that could lead to the defeat of the 11th Army. Obviously, he wanted to accumulate even more strength first. But the enemy did not actually reach even 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, initially undertook only cautious forays in the decisive western and northwestern directions. To our surprise, she sent her main forces not in this direction, but 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, by the end of 1941, the way to the vital artery of the 11th Army: the Dzhankoy-Simferopol railway was actually open to the enemy troops who had landed at Feodosia and were approaching from Kerch. The weak security front that 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. Until the divisions brought up from Sevastopol arrived, the fate of the 11th Army really hung in the balance. However, the enemy tried to prevent the withdrawal of troops from the Sevastopol front, now launching an offensive on our new and insufficiently fortified positions.
Proof that we treated the prisoners well was their own behavior during the Soviet landing near Feodosia. There was a camp with 8,000 prisoners, the guards of which fled. However, these 8,000 people did not at all rush into the arms of their “liberators”, but, on the contrary, marched without security in the direction of Simferopol, that is, to us.”
Thus, the capture of almost all of Crimea by German troops in 1941 should be regarded as a significant victory German weapons on the southern wing of the Soviet-German front and as a major failure of the Soviet command in the most important strategic direction. With the fall of Odessa and the seizure of Crimea, the Black Sea Fleet lost the ability to freely maneuver in a significant part of the Black Sea and practically found itself pressed against the Black Sea coast of the Caucasus, where there were no basing ports convenient for it. From the Crimean side, the Germans were able to influence the territory of the Krasnodar Territory and the North Caucasus.
True, in 1941 Kerch and Sevastopol still held out. Later Soviet historians wrote that in 1941, Soviet troops pinned down the 11th German army in the Crimea, not allowing the fascist German command to use it either to attack the Caucasus through the Kerch Strait, or to provide assistance to the 1st tank army, which was hit by our troops near Rostov in the second half of November.
V. Runov, L. Zaitsev.
Photo beautiful places Crimea
Defense of Sevastopol - a large-scale defensive operation of Soviet troops in the vicinity of Sevastopol in the first period of the Great Patriotic War.
Background and position of the parties
Ukraine in the first period of the war was one of the main strategically important for German command points, since the capture of Ukraine would allow Hitler to open routes to Moscow from the southern borders, as well as provide his army with food and heat for conducting military operations in the winter. In addition, Crimea was a particularly important part of Ukraine, as it opened the way for the Nazis to the Caucasus, where there were large oil reserves. Aviation was also based in Crimea, and the capture of the peninsula would simultaneously close the way for Soviet aviation and open up new opportunities for German aviation.
By the end of September 1941, German troops managed to conquer Smolensk, Kyiv, and also blockade Leningrad. In the South-Western direction, Hitler also achieved significant success - he managed to subjugate almost half of Ukraine and smash the defenses of the Soviet troops. Inspired by their success, the Germans moved towards Crimea, and Soviet troops began preparing the defense of the peninsula, and Sevastopol in particular.
At the time of the start of the clash, the forces of the opponents were approximately equal.
Progress of the defense of Sevastopol
The defense of Sevastopol lasted almost a year and had several main stages:
- First German offensive;
- Second German offensive;
- Calm period in January-May 1942;
- Third German offensive.
On October 25, 1941, German troops broke through the defense line of the Soviet army and moved towards Crimea with the goal of as soon as possible occupy the peninsula. At the same time, the Soviet command began a retreat towards Kerch, from where part of the army later crossed to Kuban. The remainder of the Soviet troops began to retreat towards Sevastopol to defend the city. The Germans pursued both parts of the Soviet army, and also sent another detachment directly to Sevastopol, bypassing the Russian army, to surround the city and capture it.
By November 1941, there were about 20 thousand Soviet troops in Sevastopol, and on November 5, the first clashes began between the Germans and the Soviet army on the distant approaches to the city.
The first German offensive on Sevastopol
On November 11, several German divisions attacked Soviet troops on the approaches to the city, but met serious resistance - fierce fighting continued until the 21st. During the battles, the Germans managed to advance several kilometers inland in two directions at once, and the front line was established 12 kilometers from Sevastopol.
After this, both armies began to strengthen their composition, reinforcements arrived to the Soviet troops, and the Germans focused their attention on other territories of Crimea. As a result, by November 16, the peninsula, except for Sevastopol, was captured by German troops. Hitler decided to “finish off” Sevastopol and all free armies moved towards the city.
Second German offensive on Sevastopol
A new attack was planned for November 27, but due to a number of problems it took place only on December 17, 1941. The Germans attacked the Soviet front and fierce fighting began again, as a result of which the German army was again able to gain the advantage and advance towards the city.
On December 19, the Soviet command reported that there was no longer any strength left for defense and the city would not hold out even until the 20th, but contrary to forecasts, the army was able to resist until November 21, when help arrived.
In two weeks of fighting, the Germans were able to move the front line by an average of 10 kilometers, which meant that they practically came close to the city.
January-May 1942
It was a relatively calm period, only small, local battles took place, as German troops went to the east of the Crimean Peninsula, and the Soviet army at that time replenished its troops with new divisions.
Third German offensive on Sevastopol
On May 18, Soviet resistance in eastern Crimea was finally destroyed, and the German army again concentrated on Sevastopol. It was necessary to capture the city in the near future - for this, artillery was brought to the border.
On June 2, the assault on Sevastopol began simultaneously from the ground and air, part German army distracted the enemy in the east, and some participated directly in the assault.
By June 17, the north of Sevastopol, as well as part of the south, was captured. By June 29, the Germans entered the city, and the fighting continued there.
On July 1, 1942, Sevastopol was completely captured by the Germans, and the remnants of the Soviet army went to Chersonesos, expecting to be evacuated from there. The fighting continued in Chersonesos for several more days, no one evacuated the army, and the soldiers were soon captured or killed.
Results of the defense of Sevastopol
The defense of Sevastopol went down in history as an example of courage Soviet soldiers, as well as one of the most difficult and lengthy operations of the first period of the war. Despite the resistance, the city was taken, which meant that the entire Crimea came under the jurisdiction of Germany. Hitler received a very advantageous position, and the Soviet command was forced to admit that they had actually lost Ukraine.
By the end of September 1941, German troops captured Smolensk and Kiev and blocked Leningrad. In the southwestern direction, the enemy also achieved significant successes: in the battle of Uman and in the Kiev cauldron the main forces were defeated Southwestern Front The Red Army was busy most of Ukraine. In mid-September, the Wehrmacht reached the approaches to Crimea.
Crimea was of strategic importance as one of the routes to the oil-bearing regions of the Caucasus (through the Kerch Strait and Taman). In addition, Crimea was important as an aviation base. With the loss of Crimea, Soviet aviation would have lost the ability to raid Romanian oil fields, and the Germans would have been able to strike targets in the Caucasus. The Soviet command understood the importance of holding the peninsula and focused its efforts on this, abandoning the defense of Odessa.
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Troop position before the start of the operation
The only land route to Crimea lay through the Perekop Isthmus. In general, the defense of the peninsula was entrusted to the 51st Separate Army formed in August, directly subordinate to the Supreme Command Headquarters, under the command of Colonel General F. I. Kuznetsov. The northern direction was covered by three rifle divisions: 276th (Commander Major General I.S. Savinov) - Chongar Peninsula and Arabat Strelka, 156th (Major General P.V. Chernyaev) - Perekop positions, 106- I (Col. A.N. Pervushin) stretched for 70 kilometers along the southern bank of Sivash. Three cavalry divisions - 48th (Major General D.I. Averkin), 42nd (Regiment V.V. Glagolev) and 40th (Regiment F.F. Kudyurov), as well as the 271st The rifle division (regiment M.A. Titov) had anti-landing missions. Four divisions formed in Crimea - 172nd (regiment I.G. Toroptsev), 184th (regiment V.N. Abramov), 320th (regiment M.V. Vinogradov), 321st (regiment . I. M. Aliev) guarded the coast.
On September 12, advanced German units reached the Crimea. The commander of the 11th Army, Manstein, decided to create a group of troops consisting of: the 54th Army Corps, the 30th Army Corps, the 3rd Romanian Army and the 49th Mountain Corps, removed from the Rostov direction, artillery, engineering troops and anti-aircraft artillery. Air support was provided by units of the 4th Luftwaffe Air Fleet.
By mid-October, by decision of the Supreme Command Headquarters, the Primorsky Army was transferred from Odessa. Thus, the Soviet troops began to number 12 rifle divisions (probably two to four of them were not fully formed) and 4 cavalry divisions. At the same time, the Germans were able to allocate the 11th Army, consisting of 7 infantry divisions (according to Manstein’s memoirs, six: 22nd, 72nd, 170th, 46th, 73rd, 50th) to capture Crimea. and the Romanian mountain corps of two brigades.
Progress of hostilities
Battles for Perekop
On September 24, German troops, with the help of two infantry divisions (46th and 73rd), with the support of artillery and aviation, went on the offensive on the Perekop Isthmus. During heavy fighting, they managed to break through the Turkish Wall by September 26 and capture the city of Armyansk. The counterattack, hastily organized by the commander of the operational group, Lieutenant General P.I. Batov, by the arriving units of two rifle and cavalry divisions, did not lead to the desired result. By September 30, Soviet troops retreated to the Ishun positions, where they repulsed German attempts to develop an offensive. Manstein, due to large losses (about 16% of personnel in both divisions) and the almost complete consumption of ammunition (the artillery shot even the “emergency reserve”), as well as the fact that part of the forces is the SS motorized division “Adolf Hitler” and the 49th Mountain Corps, - were diverted to the Rostov direction, refused further advancement. According to German data, as a result of the fighting, 135 guns, 112 tanks and 10 thousand prisoners were captured.
Battles for Ishun positions and abandonment of Crimea
18 October German 11th Army by three divisions began an attack on the Ishun positions. They were defended by units of the 9th Rifle Corps with the help of coastal batteries and individual units of the Black Sea Fleet. Continued for 5 days heavy fighting, in which the Germans gradually pushed back the Soviet troops. On October 24, the arriving units of the Maritime Army launched a counterattack and fought a fierce counter-battle with the enemy for two days. However, on October 26, Manstein introduced two fresh infantry divisions at the junction of the armies and broke through the defenses on October 28. Units of the Red Army, offering scattered resistance to better organized and more mobile formations of the Nazis, retreated to Sevastopol, Kerch and partially scattered in the mountainous terrain. The attempt of the retreating Soviet troops to gain a foothold on the Kerch Peninsula was unsuccessful. As a result, under pressure from the German 42nd Army Corps (three infantry divisions), the remnants of the 51st Army were unable to hold out in Crimea and by November 16 were evacuated to the Taman Peninsula. The Primorsky Army, consisting of five rifle and three cavalry divisions, retreated to Sevastopol. They were pursued by the 54th Army Corps (two infantry divisions and a formed motorized brigade), in addition, the 30th Army Corps, consisting of two infantry divisions, crossed the Crimean Mountains to reach the southern coast of Crimea and cut the Alushta-Sevastopol road.
Defense of Sevastopol
Sevastopol fortified area
At the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, the Sevastopol Defense Region (SOR) was one of the most fortified places in the world. The SOR structures included dozens of fortified gun positions, minefields, etc. The defense system also included two so-called “armored turret batteries” (AB), or forts, armed with large-caliber artillery. Forts BB-30 (commander - G. A. Alexander) and BB-35 (commander - A. Ya. Leshchenko) were armed with 305 mm caliber guns.
First assault
In Soviet historiography, the first assault on Sevastopol is considered to be the attempt of German troops to seize the city on the move during October 30 - November 21, 1941. Foreign, primarily German, historians, on the contrary, do not identify these attacks as a separate phase of the battle.
From October 30 to November 11, battles were fought on the distant approaches to Sevastopol; on November 2, attacks began on the outer line of defense of the fortress. There were no ground units left in the city; protection was carried out by the marine corps of the Black Sea Fleet, coastal batteries, and separate (training, artillery, anti-aircraft) units with fire support from ships. True, even the Germans only advanced detachments reached the city. At the same time, parts of the scattered Soviet troops retreated to the city. The Soviet group initially numbered about 20 thousand people.
At the end of October, the Supreme Command Headquarters decided to strengthen the garrison of Sevastopol with the forces of the Primorsky Army (commander - Major General I.E. Petrov), which had until then defended Odessa. On October 16, the defense of Odessa was stopped and the Primorsky Army was transferred by sea to Sevastopol. The reinforcement forces amounted to up to 36 thousand people (according to German data - more than 80 thousand), about 500 guns, 20 thousand tons of ammunition, tanks and other types of weapons and materials. Thus, by mid-November, the garrison of Sevastopol numbered, according to Soviet data, about 50-55 thousand people.
On November 9-10, the Wehrmacht managed to completely encircle the fortress from land, but throughout November, rearguard forces made their way to their own, in particular, units of the 184th NKVD Rifle Division, which covered the retreat of the 51st Army.
On November 11, with the approach of the main group of the 11th Army of the Wehrmacht, battles began along the entire perimeter. Over the course of 10 days, the attackers managed to slightly penetrate the forward defense line, after which there was a pause in the battle.
Landing in Evpatoria
On January 5, 1942, the Black Sea Fleet carried out a landing in the port of Yevpatoria by a marine battalion (commander - Lieutenant Commander K. G. Buzinov). At the same time, an uprising broke out in the city, in which part of the city’s population and partisans who arrived to help took part. At the first stage, the operation was successful; the Romanian garrison was driven out of the city by force up to a regiment. However, the Germans soon brought up their reserves. In the street battles that ensued, the enemy managed to gain the upper hand. On January 7, the battle in Yevpatoria was over. The landing forces were partially killed in an unequal battle and partially captured.
Kerch landing
On December 26, 1941, the Soviet command attempted a strategic offensive in the Crimea, known as the “Kerch landing”. At the end of January 1942, the Crimean Front of the Red Army was formed on the Kerch Peninsula. Despite initial success, the Soviet offensive was stopped. At the end of May 1942, the enemy defeated the main forces of the Crimean Front during Operation “Hunting for Bustards,” after which the third assault on Sevastopol began.
Aviation actions
Luftwaffe
The actions of Army Group South were supported by the 4th Luftwaffe Fleet, which at the beginning of the invasion of the USSR consisted of two air corps - IV and V, total number about 750 aircraft of all types. In the winter of 1941, V Air Corps was transferred from the fleet to the Mediterranean theater. At the beginning of May 1942, to support the offensive against the Kerch group of Soviet troops, the VIII Luftwaffe Air Corps under the command of V. von Richthoffen, specially designed to support important ground operations(See Operation Bustard Hunt). After the end of the fighting on the Kerch Peninsula, the VIII Corps was transferred to Sevastopol. With the start of the active offensive, Sevastopol was subjected to massive air strikes: on average, Luftwaffe aircraft carried out 600 sorties per day. About 2.5 thousand tons of high-explosive bombs were dropped, including large caliber bombs - up to 1000 kg.
Second assault
The defense of Sevastopol from land relied on a series of large long-term structures (artillery forts). The Germans used large-caliber siege artillery to destroy the forts. In total, over 200 heavy artillery batteries were located on a 22 km perimeter. Most of the batteries consisted of conventional large caliber field artillery, including heavy 210 mm howitzers, and heavy 300 and 350 mm howitzers, surviving from the First World War. Super-heavy siege weapons were also used:
- Gamma Mörser howitzer - 420 mm
- 2 self-propelled mortars Karl - 600 mm
Near Sevastopol also in the first and last time a super-heavy 800-mm Dora-class gun was used. gun total mass more than 1000 tons were secretly delivered from Germany and secretly placed in a special shelter carved into a rock mass in the Bakhchisarai area. The gun entered service at the beginning of June and fired in total, fifty-three 7-ton shells. Dora's fire was directed against forts BB-30, BB-35, as well as underground ammunition depots located in rocky areas. As it turned out later, one of the shells pierced a rock mass 30 m thick. 88-mm anti-aircraft guns and 20-mm and 37-mm rapid-fire anti-aircraft guns firing direct fire were widely used against less fortified bunkers and bunkers.
Initially, the German command planned the start of the assault on November 27, 1941, but due to weather conditions and the actions of the partisans, by November 17, 50% of the horse-drawn transport and 4 of the 5 steam locomotives at the disposal of the 11th Army were out of action, resulting in the assault started on December 17th. After massive artillery preparation, German units went on the offensive in the river valley. Belbek. The 22nd Lower Saxons and 132nd Infantry Divisions were able to break through into the fortified zone south of the valley; the 50th and 24th Divisions, having suffered heavy losses, were unable to advance any further.
After the Soviet landing in Feodosia, the German command was forced to transfer the 170th Infantry Division to the Kerch Peninsula, while the remaining units continued to storm the fortress. German troops were able to approach Fort Stalin. However, by December 30, the offensive capabilities of the 11th Army had dried up. According to Manstein, the withdrawal of German units to the starting lines was his initiative; Soviet historiography claims that German troops were knocked out by a series of counterattacks.
The final assault
For the summer assault, the German command as part of the 11th Army used the forces of six corps:
- 54th Army: 22nd, 24th, 50th, 132nd Infantry Divisions;
- 30th Army: 72nd, 170th Infantry, 28th Light Divisions;
- 42nd Army: 46th Infantry, Groddeck Motorized Brigade;
- 7th Romanian: 10th, 19th Infantry, 4th Mountain Divisions, 8th Cavalry Brigade;
- Romanian Mountain: 1st Mountain, 18th Infantry Division, 4th Mountain Brigade;
- 8th Aviation Corps.
The 42nd Army and 7th Romanian Corps were located on the Kerch Peninsula, their units were supposed to be used to replace divisions that would suffer the greatest losses. The 46th Infantry and 4th Mountain Divisions replaced the 132nd and 24th Divisions in the second phase of the assault. Anticipating heavy losses, the command of the 11th Army requested an additional three infantry regiment, which were used in the last stage of the battle. Several anti-aircraft artillery regiments of the 8th Aviation Corps were used to conduct ground battles. The army also had at its disposal the 300th separate tank battalion, three divisions of self-propelled guns, 208 batteries of guns (not counting anti-aircraft), including 93 batteries of heavy and super-heavy guns. Assessing the power of artillery, Manstein says: “In general, in the Second World War, the Germans never achieved such a massive use of artillery.” Comparing the strength of the parties in manpower, he twice claims that the German-Romanian army and the Soviet garrison were quantitatively equal.
The book “Lost Victories” provides information available to the headquarters of the 11th Army about Soviet forces located in Sevastopol: Headquarters of the Primorsky Army, 2nd, 95th, 172nd, 345th, 386th, 388th rifle divisions, 40th cavalry division, 7th, 8th, 79th Marine Brigades. According to Manstein, 7 Soviet divisions and 3 brigades are “at least equal” to 13 divisions, an air corps and 3 brigades (not counting individual infantry and artillery regiments, and numerous units that were part of each of the 6 corps directorates ).
The assault began on June 7. The stubborn struggle and counterattacks of the defenders continued for more than a week. An average of 25 people remained in the attacking German companies. The turning point came on June 17: on southern In the area, the attackers took a position known as the “eagle’s nest” and reached the foot of Sapun Mountain. On northern Fort Stalin and the foot of the Mekenzi Heights were captured in the area. On this day, several more forts fell, including the BB-30 battery (as the Germans called it, Fort Maxim Gorky-1).
From this moment on, German artillery could shell the Northern Bay, and the delivery of reinforcements and ammunition became impossible. However, the inner ring of defense still remained, and a frontal assault did not bode well for the Germans. Manstein decided to attack the inner ring not head-on from the southeast, but on the flank from the north, for which he had to cross the Northern Bay. The southern shore of the bay was heavily fortified, and a landing seemed almost impossible, which is why Manstein decided to rely on surprise. On the night of June 28-29, without artillery preparation, the advanced units of the 30th Corps secretly crossed the bay in inflatable boats and suddenly attacked. On June 30, Malakhov Kurgan fell. By this time, the defenders of Sevastopol began to run out of ammunition, and the commander of the defense, Vice Admiral Oktyabrsky, received permission from the Supreme High Command Headquarters to evacuate. The evacuation plan provided for the removal of only senior and senior command personnel of the army and navy, and party activists of the city. The evacuation of the rest of the military personnel, including the wounded, was not planned.
The evacuation of the high command began with the help of aviation. 13 PS-84 aircraft transported about 200 people to the Caucasus. About 700 people commanding staff were taken out by submarines. Several thousand more were able to escape on light watercraft of the Black Sea Fleet. The commander of the Primorsky Army, General Petrov, was evacuated on the submarine Shch-209 on the evening of June 30.
The remnants of the Maritime Army, deprived of high command, retreated to Cape Chersonesos, where they resisted for another three days. German General Kurt von Tippelskirch announced the capture of 100 thousand prisoners, 622 guns, 26 tanks and 141 aircraft at Cape Chersonesus. Manstein more cautiously reports that 30,000 Red Army soldiers were captured at the extreme tip of the peninsula and about 10,000 in the Balaklava area. According to Soviet archival data, the number of prisoners did not exceed 78,230 people, and there was no seizure of aircraft: the aircraft that remained in service at the time of the 3rd assault were partially redeployed to the Caucasus, partially dropped into the sea and scuttled. In the period from July 1 to July 10, 1942, 1,726 people, mainly command and political personnel of the army and navy, were taken out of Sevastopol by all types of vehicles.
For the capture of Sevastopol, the commander of the 11th Army, E. von Manstein, received the rank of field marshal, and the entire army personnel received a special sleeve insignia “Crimean Shield”.
results
The loss of Sevastopol led to a deterioration in the Red Army's position and allowed German troops to continue their advance towards the Volga and the Caucasus. A group of more than one hundred thousand, located on a strategically important section of the front, was lost. Soviet aviation could no longer threaten the Romanian oil fields in Ploiesti, soviet fleet lost the opportunity to operate on enemy communications in the northern and northwestern parts of the Black Sea. In addition to the battle-hardened fighters of the Primorsky Army, qualified personnel from among the residents of the fortress city were lost.
At the same time, the German command achieved victory at an extremely high price. the main task The Wehrmacht was reduced to the release of the 11th Army from near Sevastopol for further use in the directions of the main attacks of the summer campaign of 1942. According to Manstein, after the capture of Sevastopol, the forces of the army subordinate to him should have been transferred across the Kerch Strait to the Kuban in order to cut off the escape routes of the Red Army, which was retreating before Army Group A from the lower Don to the Caucasus, or at least kept in reserve behind the southern flank, which might have prevented the defeat of German troops at Stalingrad. However, due to the huge losses suffered, this task could not be completed. The German command is in full swing summer offensive, was forced to give units of the 11th Army and the Romanian corps a rest of six weeks, which was used to receive reinforcements. Manstein himself was on vacation in Romania until August 12. However, after his return, it became clear that of the 13 divisions, 3 brigades and six corps directorates involved in the Crimean Peninsula, only four divisions and two corps directorates could be used for further operations:
- The 7th Romanian Corps, consisting of the 10th and 19th Infantry Divisions, is sent to the Stalingrad area;
- the headquarters of the 42nd Corps and the 42nd Division were transferred to Taman;
- The 72nd Division is involved in Army Group Center (in a secondary sector).
50th German Division, Romanian Mountain Corps: 1st and 4th Mountain, 18th Infantry Divisions, 4th Mountain Brigade, 8th Cavalry Brigade were left in Crimea; The 22nd Division was sent to Crete, where it remained until the end of the war (in combat in North Africa did not take part); the headquarters of the 54th and 30th corps, the 24th, 132nd, 170th, 28th light (mountain) divisions went to the Leningrad area, where active actions were not expected in the coming months. As Manstein writes: “it was necessary to find out the possibilities for striking and draw up a plan for an attack on Leningrad.” That is, the divisions essentially continued to undergo reorganization until September 6, when they were brought into battle against the 2nd shock army. At the same time, units of the 18th Army were not redeployed for use in the directions of the main attacks from near Leningrad.
The German command lost the opportunity to use the 11th Army in the Caucasus or near Stalingrad, and also lost the opportunity to use Richthofen’s 8th Aviation Corps in these areas, which no later than August 27 ended up in the same place as Manstein’s army - in the Leningrad area.
Memory
To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the victory, a bullet-shaped chapel of St. George was erected on Sapun Mountain. Its construction took exactly 77 days, and on May 6, 1995, the chapel was consecrated by Metropolitan Vladimir of Kyiv and All Ukraine. The architect was G. S. Grigoryants, the angel at the cross was made according to the sketches of Archpriest Nikolai Donenko. The authorship of the icon of St. George the Victorious belongs to the Honored Artist of Ukraine G. Ya. Brusentsov, and the mosaic version (located above the entrance) was made by the artist V. K. Pavlov.
The further the events of the Second World War are from us, the fewer eyewitnesses of those events become, the stronger the need to understand what happened then - in those tragic “fateful forties”. For Crimea and its inhabitants, the Second World War and its consequences became fateful...
June 22, 1941 at 4 a.m. German troops attacked the borders of the USSR and bombed several settlements, including Sevastopol. This ended the almost two-year friendship of Stalin and Hitler, who shortly before had committed a predatory division of Eastern Europe. Treaties of non-aggression, friendship, mutual assistance, congratulatory telegrams exchanged between Hitler and Stalin - everything turned out to be a bluff and went to waste.
The seizure of Crimea was given an important place in the plans of the German command. The peninsula was an excellent springboard for basing aviation
The seizure of Crimea was given an important place in the plans of the German command. The peninsula was an excellent springboard for basing aviation. The capture of Crimea for Germany meant the opportunity to control the Black and Azov Seas, get closer to the oil-bearing regions of the Caucasus and exert constant political pressure on Romania, Turkey and Bulgaria.
Already from the first days of the war, mobilization into the Red Army began. By the beginning of July 1941, there were about 10 thousand volunteers in Crimea, and the mobilization of conscripts 1890-1904 and young people born in 1922-1923, announced on August 10, was also successful. In total, 93 thousand Crimeans were mobilized in the first months of the war. Four Crimean divisions were formed.
On August 20, 1941, according to the directive of the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command, the 51st was formed on the basis of the 9th Rifle Corps Separate Army(as a front) - for the defense of Crimea. The Black Sea Fleet was operationally subordinate to the army. After its formation, the army carried out the task of defending the Crimea - the Arabat Spit, the Chongar Isthmus, the Ishun positions, and the southern coast of Sivash. In the Crimean defensive operation from October 18 to November 16, 1941, in addition to the 51st Army, troops of the Primorsky Army and the Black Sea Fleet took part. Their total number was about 236 thousand.
Already in November 1941, Soviet troops were forced to retreat. Today it is obvious that this state of affairs was least of all due to the lack of personal courage of the soldiers. The main reason is the general unpreparedness of the USSR leadership for this war... A significant factor that bled the army dry was the repression of command personnel in the pre-war period.
According to a soldier of the 51st Army, 18 rifles were distributed to his battalion.
People thrown into the meat grinder of war found themselves face to face with an enemy armed to the teeth. According to the testimony of Abduraman Bariev, a soldier of the 51st Army, 18 rifles were distributed in his battalion, “the remaining 700 soldiers stood in front of the Germans with a shovel and a pick... Resistance was useless.”
But here is how deputy commander Pavel Batov subsequently assessed the defeat of the 51st Army: “We did not hold Crimea. However, the following must be said: this army, created hastily, poorly armed, held back one of the best armies Hitler's Wehrmacht. The Germans suffered heavy losses, and most importantly, time was gained for the evacuation of the Odessa group of troops to the Crimea, without which a long-term defense of Sevastopol would hardly have been possible.”
The losses of Soviet troops in the Crimean defensive operation amounted to 48,438 people. In November 1941, the Germans entered Crimea...
The defeat of the 51st Army was fatal for Crimean Tatars. Despite the multinational composition, its defeat later became one of official occasions to the deportation of the Crimean Tatar people
The defeat of the 51st Army was fatal for the Crimean Tatars. Despite its multinational composition, its defeat later became one of the official reasons for the deportation of the Crimean Tatar people. The draft decree on eviction, prepared by People's Commissar of Internal Affairs Lavrentiy Beria, stated: “All those drafted into the Red Army amounted to 90 thousand people, including 20 thousand Crimean Tatars... 20 thousand Crimean Tatars deserted in 1941 from the 51st Army under its retreat from Crimea." For every sane person, the absurdity of this statement is obvious - 20 thousand conscripts and 20 thousand deserters, especially considering what task was called upon to perform this document- to justify the legality of the deportation of the Crimean Tatars from the territory of the peninsula... But even today the absurd argument about 20 thousand conscripts and the same number deserted is being revived by defenders of the action of eviction of the Crimean Tatars as an irrefutable fact - with tenacity worthy best use. Moreover, if we remember that in 1941 the retreat of Soviet troops on the Soviet-German front was of a total nature, sometimes taking the form of a stampede.
From December 25, 1941 to January 2, 1942, the largest landing operation was carried out, which ended with the capture of an important bridgehead. Soviet troops captured the Kerch Peninsula. At the same time, the population of the newly liberated areas of Crimea became acquainted with another type of repression - “purges”, the implementation of which was sanctioned by the country’s highest military-political leadership. In accordance with “comrade Stalin’s demand to organize a merciless fight against all disorganizers of the rear, deserters and alarmists,” in the territory of Crimea, “temporarily occupied by the enemy, the communists and especially the investigative agencies” were assigned “special tasks” - to cleanse themselves “of all rubbish, dangling under our feet." This “trash” included communists and senior officials who were not evacuated from the territory of the peninsula, deserters of the 51st Army, and former prisoners of war. All of them were considered potential enemies, traitors to the homeland and had to be checked “with exceptional care.”
The success of the Kerch-Feodosia landing operation inspired the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command and the command of the Transcaucasian Front. It was decided to carry out a full-scale operation to liberate Crimea. On January 2, 1942, the Headquarters approved the plan for such an operation and allowed the transfer of another army to the Crimea. However, the new forces that crossed here could not be provided with support from rear structures. Supply by sea was slow. On January 18, under enemy attacks, the 44th Army left Feodosia and moved to the Ak-Monai Isthmus.
The command was unable to establish regular supplies for the troops. Due to the onset of mud, the roads became impassable. With great difficulty, food for the troops was transported by sea from Taman Peninsula. General base proposed to Stalin to evacuate troops from Crimea, whose situation, due to irregular supplies through the Kerch Strait and completely exhausted local resources, had become unbearable. But Stalin demanded an offensive. Only on April 13 were they allowed to go on the defensive.
When headquarters finally allowed the troops to evacuate, it was too late. On airplanes and submarines Only the leadership managed to escape, and the bulk of the soldiers were given over to the enemy
On May 8, 1942, unexpectedly for the troops of the Crimean Front, the formations of the 11th German Army went on the offensive. The control of the troops of the Crimean Front was completely disrupted. After 12 days the front ceased to exist. The major defeat of Soviet troops on the Kerch Peninsula put the defenders of Sevastopol in a hopeless position. The garrison of the besieged city held out steadfastly against the German 11th Army until the end of June 1942. Headquarters finally allowed the troops to be evacuated, but it was too late. Only the leadership managed to escape on planes and submarines, and the bulk of the soldiers were given over to be torn to pieces by the enemy.
During heroic defense About 156 thousand of its defenders died in Sevastopol. On July 2, 1942, when the outcome was a foregone conclusion, the editorial of the newspaper of the occupation authorities “Voice of Crimea” reported with pathos: “Sevastopol fell... The number of prisoners and trophies is immeasurable. The remnants of the defeated Sevastopol army fled to the Chersonesos Peninsula. Cramped in a narrow space, they are heading towards death.”
“It was the strongest fortress in the world” was the title of an article by war correspondent Werner Kolte in the newspaper Der Kamf dated July 3, 1941, a translation of which was published here.
The Soviet army suffered one of the worst crushing defeats at the first stage of the war.
Crimea appeared before the German army in all its pristine glory.
“In the valleys cutting through the mountains to the north were rich orchards and picturesque Tatar villages. During flowering, the orchards were wonderful, and in the spring the most beautiful flowers bloomed in the forest, which I have never seen anywhere else. Former capital Tatar khans Bakhchisarai, picturesquely located near a small mountain river, still retained its oriental flavor. Khan's Palace is a pearl of Tatar architecture. The southern coast of Crimea, often compared to the Riviera, perhaps surpasses it in beauty. The bizarre shapes of the mountains and steep cliffs falling into the sea make it one of the most beautiful corners of Europe. In the Yalta area, not far from which it is located royal palace Livadia, the mountains are covered with the most wonderful forest you can imagine. Wherever there was a little space between the mountains, the fertile land was covered with grape and fruit plantations... We were delighted by the paradise lying before our eyes,” wrote the commander of the 11th German Army, Erich von Manstein, with delight.
The Crimean peninsula was cut off from Mainland and occupied by German troops.
(To be continued)
Gulnara Bekirova, Crimean historian, member of the Ukrainian PEN Club