Where the Iron Crosses Grow

Petrov and Oktyabrsky were aware of the possibility of enemy landings, but did not expect them in Sevastopol. Instead, they were worried about an effort to outflank the defenses at Balaklava, and Manstein fed this fear by ordering Mimbelli’s MAS boats to demonstrate off Cape Fiolent on the night of June 27/28. Italian naval activity near Balaklava was duly reported to Petrov and Oktyabrsky, who then alerted Morgunov’s coastal defenses in that area. However, the southern shore of Severnaya Bay was guarded only by the survivors of Potapov’s 79th Naval Infantry Brigade and the 2nd Perekop Naval Infantry Regiment, which together numbered no more than 600–800 troops. At 0200hrs on the night of June 28/29, German pioneers began to lay a smoke screen on the north side of Severnaya Bay to conceal the activity of the assault boats being brought to the water’s edge and the troop loading. Overhead, German aircraft noisily attacked the area around Inkerman to further distract the defenders. On the northern side of the bay, 380 troops from Kampfgruppe Buhse (Choltitz had been wounded in the arm and Buhse temporarily took over the assault elements of IR 16, while Choltitz remained on the north side of the bay) loaded into the assault boats and started across.⁷⁹ No artillery preparation was made, in order to avoid alerting the Soviets on the southern side of the bay. It must have been a very tense and weird experience as the first wave of German troops made their way across the bay, threading their way through half-sunken ships and wreckage in the water, and expecting enemy flares and automatic-weapons fire at any moment. Yet Potapov’s sailors – who were spread very thinly along the coast, were not terribly alert and did not detect the crossing until it was too late. Around 0220hrs the first German assault troops landed on the southern side of Severnaya Bay and quickly scrambled up the heights above the beach. One of Potapov’s positions overlooked the landing site, but the troops – exhausted after weeks of combat – were apparently asleep, and the Germans stealthily approached and then eliminated the outpost before it could raise an alarm. The assault boats then turned around and went back for the second wave, which consisted of Kampfgruppe Schitting (IR 65), and then a third wave consisting of Kampfgruppe Hitzfeld. It was not until 0300hrs, by which point over 700 German troops were on the south side of Severnaya Bay, that Potapov became aware of the landings, when several of his outposts began firing red flares. The Soviet naval infantrymen began firing at boats in the water as well as troops on the shore, but the Germans had already seized a viable beachhead. Once Potapov’s men were driven off the high ground overlooking the beaches, they could no longer bring direct fire upon the crossing sites. Soviet artillery fire damaged a quarter of the assault boats, but the crossing had cost the German pioneers only two boats destroyed, four men killed, and 29 wounded. In a major coup, the German assault troops succeeding in capturing Sevastopol’s power plant, which brought an end to electrical power in the city. The next morning, the wounded Choltitz crossed the bay at 1000hrs in order to lead his regiment in the final fight for Sevastopol.⁸⁰