Where the Iron Crosses Grow

In the Sivash lodgment, the Soviet 10th Rifle Corps also made several large breakout attempts, beginning with a night attack on February 4, but made no progress. Fortunately for the Germans, it was a relatively mild winter in the Crimea, and the Sivash did not freeze over – if it had, AOK 17’s fragile defenses would have been outflanked and overwhelmed. Another Soviet breakout attempt, in the middle of a snowstorm on March 28, also failed. Gruppe Konrad sealed off the lodgment with the Romanian 10th Infantry Division on the eastern side and the 336. Infanterie-Division on the western side. Although the Soviet 10th Rifle Corps outnumbered the Axis forces encircling it, the Soviet formation lacked the heavy weapons to achieve a breakout. As part of a reorganization Tolbukhin assigned General-Lieutenant Georgy F. Zakharov’s 2nd Guards Army to take over all the forces in the Perekop sector, allowing Kreizer’s 51st Army to focus exclusively on the Sivash sector.

Whether or not AOK 17 could hold the Crimea depended far more upon the Kriesgmarine and the Luftwaffe than Jaenecke’s worn-out divisions. The Kriegsmarine and Royal Romanian Navy had opened a regular convoy route from Constanta to Sevastopol in August 1942, but the bulk of supplies to the Crimea had come via rail. Once the Crimea was isolated, bulk supplies now had to come by sea, while personnel would come by Luftwaffe air transport. Generalmajor Fritz Morzik, who had run both the Demyansk and Stalingrad airflifts, was picked to command the air-transport operation to the Crimea. Morzik was an energetic and talented aviation leader, and by 1943 the Luftwaffe had built up a very robust air-transport capability on the Eastern Front. Seven air-transport groups with 268 aircraft were subordinated to Morzik, who established regular runs from Odessa and Uman to the Crimea. Unlike the Stalingrad airlift, the winter weather was milder over the Crimea and, aside from fog, did not seriously disrupt operations. Nor did the VVS initially make much effort to intercept Morzik’s transports, even though they were flying in daylight. Typically, transport planes could fly one-way to the Crimea in 2½hrs. The main purpose of the airlift was to fly in replacements for AOK 17 and fly out wounded. In addition, they also flew in high-priority cargo, such as replacement parts for the StuG III assault guns and trucks. The Germans still had over 9,000 vehicles in the Crimea, and they managed to keep 80 percent of them operational.¹⁷ Although complete statistics are not available, the Ju-52s of just one group – III./TG 2 – flew in 30,838 troops to the Crimea in the period November 5, 1943 to February 2, 1944, and flew out 17,140 wounded personnel, while losing only two Ju-52s to enemy action.¹⁸ Morzik’s air-transport fleet also included Major Günther Mauss’s I./TG 5, equipped with 19 Me 323 Gigant transports; the Me-323 was capable of carrying a 10-ton load, such as an 8.8cm flak gun or up to 130 troops. Indeed, Morzik’s air-transport fleet was not severely stressed during the first several months of the airlift, and its capacity exceeded demand.

Heavy equipment and bulk fuel had to come by sea. Since Hitler intended to replace AOK 17’s material losses, in mid-November 1943 the Kriegsmarine and Royal Romanian Navy organized a large naval convoy from Constanta to Sevastopol designated “Wotan.” One vessel, the German steamer Santa Fe (4,627 tons), carried 12 StuG III assault guns intended for Sturmgeschütz-Abteilung 191 in the Crimea. Yet, despite the presence of a strong escort, including a Romanian destroyer, a minesweeper, and three German R-Boats, the Santa Fe was struck by a torpedo (probably from the Soviet submarine D-4) off the west coast of the Crimea on November 23. After catching fire, the vessel exploded and broke in two, taking her vital cargo with her. The Soviets sent more submarines to patrol off the Crimea, but aside from the Santa Fe, they achieved only occasional successes. In response, the Germans stepped up their anti-submarine efforts by deploying more sub-hunters to Sevastopol; the submarine D-4 was depth-charged and sunk less than two weeks after sinking the Santa Fe. Yet aside from occassional large convoys, the Germans tended to rely upon their shallow-draft MFPs for the bulk of their logistical pipeline to the Crimea since these craft could operate in coastal waters too shallow for enemy submarines. Turkey turned a blind eye as German and Italian merchantmen passed through the Dardanelles to increase Axis merchant shipping in the Black Sea.