Where the Iron Crosses Grow

Initially, the two battalions of IR 213 that had broken through to Coastal Battery No. 30 focused on mopping up the outlying enemy infantry positions around Bastion I. Gradually, the Soviet troops fell back into the underground complex, ceding the surface to the Germans by mid-afternoon on June 17. The Germans requested an airstrike to neutralize any remaining resistance nests, and at 1530hrs 27 Ju-87 Stukas attacked the battery; one bomb scored a direct hit on the eastern turret and disabled it. Once the surface of the battery was secure, Hitzfeld’s infantrymen turned to 1./Pionier-Bataillon 173 to reduce the trapped Soviet troops inside the battery. Initial attempts with flamethrowers and satchel charges proved ineffective against the thick concrete hide of the Bastion, and the pioneers settled in for a long siege. One group focused on breaking into Aleksandr’s command post in Bastion I, while another group worked to attack the turrets themselves. Inside the battery, Aleksandr and his men could do little, since all four exits were covered by enemy machine-gun teams.⁶⁸ Furthermore, a large proportion of his men were either wounded or had no close-combat experience. By the end of June 17, Hansen had achieved another dramatic success and virtually demolished the Soviet forces in Sector IV. His corps had suffered another 836 casualties, but the battle on the north side of Severnaya Bay had been decided.

The Germans knew that a Soviet naval convoy had recently brought the fresh 138th Naval Infantry Brigade into Sevastopol, and Hansen moved quickly to mop up resistance on the north side of Severnaya Bay before Petrov could introduce these reinforcements. His first order of business was to eliminate Coastal Battery No. 12 (Battery Schishkovka) and the remnants of Kapitokhin’s 95th Division, which were dug in around the battery. It consisted of four 152mm coastal guns mounted on-line in open-air pedestal mounts, but by the time German troops approached all four were inoperative. Instead, the strength of the position lay in its reinforced concrete casemates and underground shelters, which had been reinforced with trenches, earthworks, and belts of barbed wire. The combined force of naval gunners and infantrymen was armed with five heavy and 18 light machine guns. Lindemann’s 132. Infanterie-Division planned a deliberate assault against the battery with IR 436 and two pioneer companies. The German after-action report describes the assault in vivid detail: