Where the Iron Crosses Grow

While the Germans had won the race to block the three traditional entrances into the Crimea, they were too late to protect the coastline along the Sivash. Lieutenant-Colonel Polikarp E. Kuznetsov, chief of intelligence of Generalmajor Konstantin P. Neverov’s 10th Rifle Corps, had been tasked by General-Lieutenant Kreizer to find useable fords across the Sivash. Due to wind and tidal conditions, the Sivash was very unpredictable. Gathering up 30 volunteers, Kuznetsov began reconnoitering the coastline, and had the good fortune to find a local fisherman who identified a crossing site from the mainland to Cape Dzhangar. Kuznetsov sent three scouts across the 1½-mile-wide stretch of muddy water, which was ankle deep, and they confirmed the fisherman’s information. The next morning (November 1), Kuznetsov led his small detachment across the Sivash at 1000hrs. It was slow going, and it took the men nearly two hours to cross the muck, but they made it to the opposite shore and Kuznetsov lit a signal fire to alert Neverov’s 10th Rifle Corps to begin crossing. Major P. F. Kaymakova was the first to cross with a battalion of the 1168th Rifle Regiment and the rest of the 346th Rifle Division soon crossed as well, followed by the 216th and 257th Rifle Divisions. Nesterov’s troops could not use rubber boats because the water was too shallow and the soldiers had to cross the Sivash on foot, with linked arms to avoid becoming stuck in the mud. A few heavy weapons were brought across on shallow-draft pontoons, including some 45mm antitank guns, but the troops were mostly limited to what they could carry. There were no Axis troops within 3 miles of the crossing site, and even though it began in broad daylight, the enemy was ignorant of the Soviet crossing of the Sivash for hours.⁹

As Nesterov’s 10th Rifle Corps crossed the Sivash, Kuznetsov pushed on ahead and captured a German officer in his staff car, who had been sent to select positions for the Romanian Gruppe Balan, en route to guard the Sivash coast. By the time that the Romanians began to arrive, Nesterov’s corps had already seized a large bridgehead on the southern side of the Sivash. Two ad hoc German formations, Gruppe Grote and Gruppe Beetz, were detached to reinforce the Romanian blocking force and to seal off the Soviet bridgehead at Cape Dzhangar. Since Nesterov’s troops had no tanks and a small number of mortars, they had only a limited ability to attack until pontoon bridges could be built across the Sivash. The handful of Romanian mountain-infantry battalions, along with a sprinkling of German replacement troops, was able to build a screen around Nesterov’s beachhead for the moment. It would take Nesterov more than two weeks to organize and supply his forces, by which point the German 336. Infanterie-Division had reinforced the Romanians. Colonel Petr G. Panchevsky’s 12th Assault Engineer Brigade was brought up to build a pontoon bridge across the Sivash, but the task proved exceedingly difficult and the bridge was not completed until December 9, 1943.

More Soviet units began to arrive in front of Perekop on November 2, including Colonel Peter S. Arkhipov’s 79th Tank Brigade and the rest of General-Major Boris S. Millerov’s 10th Guards Cavalry Division. The Soviets mounted another attack at 1400hrs against the center of the Tatar Wall with 30 tanks and 2,000 troops; they succeeded in getting both troops and tanks across the ditch. German flak guns knocked out four tanks and inflicted “bloody losses” on the attackers, but the Soviets succeeded in pushing a large salient into the center of the German defenses.¹⁰ The next day, Millerov sent another 1,000 dismounted cavalrymen across the Tatar Wall, along with more tanks. However, by November 3, Pickert had brought up several 8.8cm flak batteries to reinforce the defense and Gruppe Konrad had arrived with seven StuG IIIs from 2./Sturmgeschütz-Abteilung and additional infantry. Luftflotte 4 was able to commit Stukas for ground-support missions at Perekop, despite intense Soviet air opposition, which enabled Gruppe Weber to stabilize their defense at Perekop by November 4. German flak and antitank troops claimed to have knocked out about 80 Soviet tanks at Perekop between November 1 and November 4, although Pickert’s flak gunners had suffered considerable losses, including five 8.8cm and four 2cm guns. When Stalin found out that the Soviet breakthrough at Perekop was not exploited in a timely manner, he had General-Lieutenant Nikolai Kirichenko relieved of command of the 4th Guards Cavalry Corps for failing to move up his troops quickly enough. Oddly, Vasil’ev, commander of the 19th Tank Corps, was awarded the Hero of the Soviet Union for the breakthrough at Perekop, although he had been slow to get the rest of his corps into the fight.