Where the Iron Crosses Grow

The battle of Kerch–Eltigen was shaped by the struggle for air supremacy over the beaches and the Kerch Straits in November and December 1943. Although Fliegerkorps I only had a single fighter unit at any one time in the Crimea during this period, it was the cream of the Luftwaffe’s fighter arm. The Germans began the battle with I./JG 52, but Hauptmann Gerhard Barkhorn’s II./JG 52 took their place on November 13, and his unit remained in the Crimea until April 1944. Barkhorn was already one of the top Luftwaffe aces, with 177 victories claimed by the end of October 1943. Although his Gruppe of 40 Bf-109G fighters was outnumbered by more than 10-1 by the fighters from the VVS-ChF and the 4th and 8th Air Armies, Barkhorn’s pilots ripped into the Soviet air units operating over the Kerch Peninsula. In November and December 1943, Barkhorn personally claimed 51 enemy aircraft shot down and II./JG 52 inflicted over 200 losses on the VVS in exchange for 17 Bf-109s lost. Due to the ferocious resistance put up by Barkhorn’s fighters, the VVS failed to deliver adequate air support to either beachhead.

Once a lodgment in the Crimea was created, the 56th Army was redesignated the Coastal Army and Petrov took personal command. On November 10, Petrov made a major attack against the center of the German perimeter west of Baksy and pushed it back 2 miles. Gareis’s had a hodgepodge of company-size detachments from eight different battalions, but no complete units, so his defensive line had little integrity. The first ten T-34 tanks were brought across the Kerch Strait on barges on November 10/11, but Petrov had only limited armor support for some time. He continued to push westward, and by November 12 the Coastal Army was on the outskirts of Kerch. Major Erich Bärenfänger’s Grenadier-Regiment 123, which had been detached to AOK 6, was now flown back into Bagerovo airfield by Ju-52 transports to reinforce Gareis’s flagging line. Bärenfänger’s regiment was reduced to a battalion-size Kampfgruppe after the heavy fighting at Mariupol, but this consisted of first-class veterans. When Petrov brought his armor into play on November 13–14, they ran straight into Bärenfänger’s grenadiers. With his usual preference for close combat, Bärenfänger participated in knocking out a T-34 with Teller mines and 3kg demolition charges, and his battalion knocked out a total of nine tanks in one day. Bärenfänger was wounded again but remained with his troops, and his battalion was responsible for knocking out 24 enemy tanks between November 14 and November 20.[15] The Red Army also had heroes. Mladshiy Serzhant Tatiana I. Kostyrin, a 19-year-old female sniper in the 691st Rifle Regiment, had gained a reputation as a lethal killer during the fighting against Bärenfänger’s battalion on the outskirts of Kerch. On November 22 Kostyrin led a local counterattack near the Adzhimushkay Quarry when her commander became a casualty, and she charged the German positions. She was killed in the action, but the Soviets claim that her bravery helped to achieve a favorable tactical outcome and she was posthumously awarded the Hero of the Soviet Union. Around the same time, German pioneers apparently tested a new weapon system known as the Taifun-Gerät, which was similar in effect to a fuel-air explosive and which was used against Soviet underground tunnels near the Adzhimushkay Quarry. Although not very effective, the Soviets regarded it as a chemical weapon.

Although Petrov was eventually able to replace his armor losses, he had to suspend his efforts to take Kerch until reinforcements arrived. Just as his forces were preparing to renew the offensive, the weather and the Kriegsmarine saved Allmendinger’s V Armeekorps from being overwhelmed. Six R-Boats of Kapitänleutnant Helmut Klassmann’s 3. Räumbootsflotille and five S-Boats from Korvettenkapitän Hermann Büchting’s 1. Schnellbootsflottille proved a major thorn in the operations of Gorshkov’s Azov Flotilla and gradually sank or damaged a considerable number of vessels crossing the Kerch Straits. Armed MFPs, equipped with 2cm or 3.7cm flak, also proved effective in the blockade mission, although 11 out of 31 committed were sunk, mostly by mines or air attacks. In skirmish after skirmish, the German R- and S-Boats picked off Soviet shipping, which seriously impeded the Coastal Army’s build-up, and doomed the Eltigen beachhead.