Where the Iron Crosses Grow

Although Soviet scouts began probing the Chongar position during the night, the information about the Sal’kove blocking position was apparently not disseminated. Around 0900hrs, a column of 14–16 Soviet trucks approached Sal’kove and drove straight into the German engagement area. German 7.5cm Pak guns and 8.8cm flak guns tore the column to pieces, destroying every vehicle. Five hours passed before the 118th Rifle Division responded to this ambush, when it sent two dismounted rifle companies supported by mortars against the blocking position, but the result was a desultory exchange of fire for the rest of the afternoon.⁷ The Soviet advance down the Arabat Spit also stopped when they encountered Koch’s single battalion of grenadiers. By this point, Jaenecke was finally facing the reality that he was going to have to defend the Crimea, and he ordered Generalleutnant Friedrich Sixt to send a Kampfgruppe from his 50. Infanterie-Division to reinforce Gruppe Weber at Perekop. One-third of the division, organized as Gruppe Krieger, remained to defend Feodosiya. Belatedly, the Romanians were finally included in the picture, and the Romanian Mountain Corps dispatched Gruppe Balan (three mountain battalions, an artillery battalion, an antitank company, and a company of Skoda-built light tanks) to guard the Sivash coastline between Perekop and the Chongar Narrows. The situation had become a race to see who could get their forces into place fast enough.

On the morning of November 1, the lead elements of Vasil’ev’s 19th Tank Corps arrived within sight of Perekop. Lieutenant-Colonel Nikolai Lebdev’s 220th Tank Brigade was the vanguard, and he attacked immediately at 0620hrs, with 11 T-34s and 300–400 troops. Since the beginning of the war, Soviet tank commanders had often attacked aggressively and impulsively with poor results, but this time was different. Pickert’s 8.8cm flak guns were still back at Ishun and only light artillery and Pak guns had arrived at the Perekop position. Nor were any mines in place yet. Lebdev’s tank brigade smashed into the center of the enemy position at the Tatar Wall, panicking one of the Slovak battalions. Contrary to some sources, the Slovaks were not annihilated defending the Tatar Wall, but simply retreated, opening a large gap in the Axis front line. Since Gruppe Weber had not received authorization to destroy the road and rail bridges over the Tatar Ditch – which were still intact – Lebdev’s tankers raced across them and penetrated over a mile into the Axis position, being stopped only at the outskirts of Armyansk. Part of the 40th Cavalry Regiment from Kirichenko’s 4GCC also arrived to reinforce the breakthrough, but Soviet reinforcements were insufficient to exploit this tactical success, which gave the Germans a chance to recover.

Hauptmann Werner Streck was a 30-year-old reserve officer who had just returned from home leave in Germany after being wounded for the fourth time, and found himself placed in command of Feldersatz Bataillon 81 (FEB 81); this was a 1,500-man replacement unit divided in four companies and armed only with small arms and light machine guns. Streck’s battalion was holding the west end of the Tatar Wall and he moved quickly to seal off Lebdev’s breakthrough as best he could. A small counterattack even managed to capture a few prisoners at the Tatar Wall, who revealed important details about the Soviet forces en route to Perekop.⁸ Streck and a few other replacement battalions managed to patch together a new front around the Soviet breakthrough, while waiting for three battalions from the 50. Infanterie-Division to arrive.