Where the Iron Crosses Grow

Heeresgruppe A wanted the Kriegsmarine to support its advance into the Caucasus by conducting amphibious attacks across the Kerch Strait to seize the Taman Peninsula, but Wurmbach lacked the resources to pull this off according to the army’s schedule. Unrealistically, Heeresgruppe A wanted five divisions from AOK 11 to be sent across the strait in August, but Wurmbach’s Kriegsmarine forces did not have the ability to mount amphibious operations of such scale. However, the Kriegsmarine had invested heavily in developing amphibious craft for the aborted Operation Sealion in 1940, and that investment was about to bear fruit in a different area than intended. In 1940, the Kriegsmarine had developed the Marinefährprahm (MFP) and Siebel ferries, both motorized barges built from bridging pontoons and aircraft engines, to carry troops across the English Channel. Both were modular designs that were easier to disassemble and transport by rail than standard vessels, and large numbers were transferred via the Danube to the Black Sea. By early September 1942, Kapitänleutnant Max Giele’s 1. Landungs-Flotille had arrived in the Crimea with 24 MFPs; since each MFP could carry either two medium tanks or 200 troops, that meant that the Kriegsmarine had gained the ability to mount a brigade-size amphibious landing in the Black Sea. On September 1, 1942, the Kriegsmarine began Operation Blucher II, with the 24 MFPs transporting part of the 46. Infanterie-Division across the strait to land on the Taman Peninsula, escorted by four S-Boats. The operation was a great success, and the growth of Kriegsmarine capabilities significantly assisted army operations in the Caucacus. Nor were Gorshkov’s light forces able to significantly interfere with German amphibious operations. Soviet motor torpedo boat (MTB) raids against German convoys found that their torpedoes passed harmlessly under the shallow-draft MFPs, and the Soviet MTBs were armed only with one or two machine guns. Giele soon began to mount 2cm or 8.8cm flak guns on some of his MFPs to repel Soviet MTB raids, and 10.5cm howitzers on others to provide naval gunfire support to the army. More and more amphibious craft were transferred to the Black Sea command, until by mid-1943 there were four landing flotillas with the ability to move nearly a division – this would become very useful in time.

Yet the Kriegsmarine wanted to be more than a mere adjunct to Heeresgruppe A, and kept pouring resources into the Black Sea area even after the Crimea was occupied and Novorossiysk had fallen. At great effort, the Kriegsmarine had begun transporting six disassembled Type IIB U-Boats by barge to the Black Sea in April 1942, and they were re-assembled at Constanta in Romania. The first U-Boat, U-9, became operational on October 28, 1942, followed by U-19 in November, but the other four would not be ready until mid-1943. Although large surface warships could not be transported to the Black Sea, the Kriegsmarine sought to resurrect damaged Soviet warships that had fallen into its hands. The Kriegsmarine picked over the remains of the abandoned shipyards at Nikolayev and considered trying to launch the hull of the partially complete 59,000-ton battleship Sovyetskiy Ukraina, but this was eventually rejected as too difficult a task. Instead, the materials from two incomplete Soviet destroyers were plundered to build complete two incomplete troopships acquired from Hungary, which were named the Totila and the Teja. At Sevastopol, the Kriegsmarine put great effort into trying to salvage the wrecked cruiser Chervona Ukraina, which they thought could be restored to operational condition. However, none of these salvage efforts produced useful warships before the Crimea was liberated in 1944. In its quest for a true flagship for the Kriegsmarine in the Black Sea, German diplomats approached neutral Turkey about selling the obsolescent battelecruiser Goeben/Yavuz back to Germany, but this was ignored.