Where the Iron Crosses Grow

The remnants of the Coastal Army died a slow death in the Chersonese Peninsula, clustered around the airstrip and the lighthouse. One of those lost in this final stand was Lieutenant-Colonel Sergei R. Gusarov, commander of 3 NIR, whose orders had resulted in the death of many Soviet wounded at Inkerman just four days before. When German troops finally broke into the Chersonese, the last Soviet survivors huddled beneath the cliffs, while the Germans tossed hand grenades at them. Another Soviet group, formed around Lieutenant-Colonel Gerasimos A. Rubtsov’s 456th Rifle Regiment (NKVD), made a last stand around Coastal Battery No. 18, but were finally eliminated. By the evening of July 4, all Soviet organized resistance in the Crimea was finished. The next day, Manstein presided over an Axis victory parade at Livadiya to commemorate the conquest of the Crimea. Major Nikulshin and 11 of his naval infantrymen managed to escape the Chersonese in a small boat, and rowed across the Black Sea to internment in Turkey.

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The fall of Sevastopol released AOK 11 for reassignment to other fronts – the only occasion in the Russo-German War where a complete German army became available, which was a unique opportunity – but AOK 11 was in no condition to accomplish any follow-on missions. The 33-day battle of Sevastopol had cost AOK 11 a total of 35,866 German casualties, including 5,786 dead or missing, or about 18 percent of its starting strength. All four infantry divisions in Hansen’s LIV Armeekorps had suffered at least 30 percent casualties and their infantry battalions were almost all reduced to combat-ineffective status. Losses among officers and NCOs were particularly severe, with over 200 officers killed and 570 wounded – it would take months to replace these small-unit leaders. In Choltitz’s IR 16 – one of the best regiments in AOK 11 – there were only 347 troops still fit for duty from an original strength of 3,000 men in June 1941. Oberleutnant Erich Bärenfänger’s III./IR 123 was reduced to only 169 troops after the battle, and I./IR 121, which suffered over 70 percent casualties, was reduced to a battle strength of just 70 men.⁸⁷ Unable to replace these of losses, most of the German infantry divisions were forced to eliminate one battalion from each regiment and transfer the survivors to the two remaining battalions, which made for less-capable divisions. Indeed, the divisions that Hitler received back from the Crimea were not the same ones that he had sent there in September 1941.

Even among the troops who were not wounded, the effects of a month of sustained, close-quarter fighting in terrain strewn with corpses, rotting in the hot Crimean sun, was catastrophic. Many, such as Bärenfänger, came down with the “Wolhynian Fever” or “Trench Fever,” which laid them up for one or two months.⁸⁸ Among the few soldiers still on their feet, they were granted local leave to enjoy the beaches at Yalta – no longer under regular nightly bombardment from Soviet destroyers – and to swill captured Crimean wine. A few, such as Gottlob Bidermann, were granted furloughs to return to Germany.⁸⁹ As was customary after a big, costly battle, the surviving victorious troops went on a week-long binge to forget their experiences. Manstein excused himself from the Crimea, first to collect his Generalfeldmarschall’s baton from a grateful Führer, then to go on holiday in Romania.

Hitler hoped that once AOK 11 had rested and received replacements it could be employed either to reinforce the advance into the Caucasus by Heeresgruppe A or to reinforce Heeresgruppe Nord for Operation Georg to capture Leningrad. Yet it took far longer to rehabilitate these divisions than expected, and none were ready to redeploy until late August. Then, inexplicably, AOK 11’s component formations were split up: the 24., and 28. leichte, 132., and 170. Infanterie-Divisionen were sent with Manstein to Leningrad, but Georg was cancelled and they were used to block a Soviet offensive that sought to open a corridor to the besieged city. The 72. Infanterie-Division was diverted to reinforce AOK 9 at Rzhev and the 46. and 50. Infanterie-Divisionen were kept in the Crimea unril October 1942, then sent to the Caucasus just as the advance there was sputtering out. Amazingly, Wolff’s 22. Infanterie-Division was sent to garrison Crete – a complete waste of a fine infantry unit, but probably also an indication that heavy losses had made the unit unsuited for further offensive use. Thus, instead of being used en masse to achieve some operationally significant task, AOK 11 was broken up and its veteran divisions scattered. Yet, if instead AOK 11 had been compltely rebuilt and kept together, it would have provided Hitler and the OKH with a very powerful strategic reserve – this could have been a real game-changer when the crisis at Stalingrad developed in November 1942.