Where the Iron Crosses Grow

By 1800hrs on June 29 it was apparent that Sevastopol’s defenses had been breached and that the city could no longer be held. Petrov and Oktyabrsky ordered most of the division and brigade commanders to report to Coastal Battery No. 35 – which left their units without senior leadership. Then they updated the Stavka on the day’s events. After some deliberation, at 0950hrs the next morning the Stavka authorized the evacuation of Sevastopol. Stalin personally ordered all senior military and political leaders to leave the city as soon as possible. Once word of the evacuation got out, Petrov later admitted that panic began to spread among the officers, and chaos took over. No more food or ammunition reached the frontline troops, so many began to abandon their positions. Some units began to sabotage equipment in order to prevent it from falling into enemy hands; at Cape Fiolent, air-defense troops pushed two RUS-2 radars off a cliff into the sea. On the Sapun Heights, Fretter-Pico’s XXX Armeekorps completed mopping-up operations and began to push toward Sevastopol’s outskirts with both the 28. leichte-Infanterie-Division and Sanders’ 170. Infanterie-Division. The 28. leichte-Infanterie-Division succeeded in capturing the English cemetery, which had been converted into a Soviet artillery position.⁸⁴ Realizing that he was about to be cut off, Novikov abandoned Balaklava and forced-marched his 109th Rifle Division toward Coastal Battery No. 35 on the Chersonese Peninsula. Novikov was able to form a tenuous perimeter near the battery, protecting the airstrip at Chersonese, which was the last link with Novorossiysk. Amazingly, a few Li-2 (license-built copies of the American DC-3) transports made it through to the airstrip, delivering 12 tons of ammunition and some food, but this was a drop in the ocean. The last 17 operational aircraft from 3 OAG, including six Yak-1 fighters and seven Il-2 Sturmoviks, flew out of the airstrip that afternoon to the Caucasus, leaving Sevastopol without any air defense. Meanwhile, Hansen’s LIV Armeekorps spent the day mopping up around Inkerman, but was pushing into the outskirts of Sevastopol by nightfall. Prisoners were now falling into Axis hands in large numbers, as Soviet resistance crumbled.

At 2000hrs on June 30, the Military Council of the Black Sea Fleet held its last meeting in Sevastopol in a casemate at Coastal Battery No. 35. Oktyabrsky, Petrov, and Morgunov voted to evacuate the city as soon as transport arrived. Senior military and political leaders, including Boris A. Borisov and his KOS, would be included, but the council decided that the Black Sea Fleet would be unable to evacuate any of the troops or the wounded. Oddly, no effort was made to use the 142nd NIB for its intended purpose of securing an evacuation site, and Oktyabrsky ruled out any large-scale evacuation as unfeasible. Petrov designated Novikov as the new commander of the Maritime Army, which was clearly being abandoned by its leadership. A group of Li-2 transports flew in from the Caucasus after midnight, but their appearance caused a mad scramble for the planes. A VVS Major put in charge of organizing the airlift was one of the first onboard, and groups of sailors appeared, using their fists to fight their way on to the aircraft. Oktyabrsky and General-Major Aleksei P. Ermilov, chief of rear services, managed to get on one transport, and all the aircraft flew out by 0130hrs on July 1. Once the aircraft left, Petrov and the rest of the senior leadership had to make their way through a crowd of nearly 10,000 soldiers, sailors, and civilians that had gathered around Battery No. 35. After more pushing and shoving – and one can imagine the faces of men watching their leaders abandon them – Petrov and his leadership cadre went through a tunnel in the battery to reach a jetty at the base of the cliff. There, small boats took them out to two submarines that had surfaced. The Shch-209 was the first to arrive and departed with 63 personnel at 0259hrs, followed by the L-23 at 0847hrs with 117 men. Altogether, about 200 senior leaders escaped Sevastopol, including Petrov, Morgunov, Kolomiets (25 RD), Kapitokhin (95 RD), Laskin (172 RD), Shvarev (388 RD), Zhidilov (7 NIB), and Potapov (79 NIB).⁸⁵