Where the Iron Crosses Grow

Although his fleet’s mission was primarily defensive, Oktyabrsky was inclined from the beginning to use his surface warships and submarines to strike at Romania. In the first 24 hours of the war, he dispatched four Shchuka-class submarines to attack Romanian shipping, but this was only a preliminary step. On the evening of June 25, Oktyabrsky sent the flotilla leaders Moskva and Kharkov to bombard the Romanian port of Constanta, with the heavy cruiser Voroshilov and two destroyers as a covering force. The two Soviet flotilla leaders approached the Romanian coast and opened fire at 0358hrs on June 26. Although their 130mm shells managed to set some oil-storage tanks alight and damage a rail yard, the Soviet destroyers were unaware that the Germans had installed two 28cm coastal-defense batteries to protect Constanta. Battery Tirpitz engaged the two Soviet flotilla leaders, which caused them to break off the action and turn away eastward – straight into a Romanian minefield. The Moskva, moving at 30 knots, hit one or more mines and broke in two, sinking within five minutes; 268 sailors were killed and 69 survivors were picked up by the Romanians. The cruiser Voroshilov was also damaged by a mine. Retreating eastward, the Kharkov was badly damaged by the German coastal battery and had to be towed. Fortunately for the Soviet flotilla, the Luftwaffe was busy with a raid by the VVS-ChF and did not appear in force to sink the damaged Soviet warships. The result of the raid on Constanta, aside from the damage suffered by the Black Sea Fleet, was to cause Oktyabrsky to be much more cautious in his use of surface warships.

Oktyabrsky continued to send the VVS-ChF to attack targets in Romania with small-scale raids, which also began to bomb facilities further inland. On July 13, six DB-3F bombers attacked the Ploesti oil refinery – a critical source of fuel for the Wehrmacht – and managed to damage a refinery and set 9,000 tons of oil on fire. However, enemy fighters shot down four of the six bombers, and in response the VVS-ChF shifted primarily to night raids to reduce losses. On August 13, Soviet naval bombers damaged the King Carol Bridge over the Danube, which disrupted the Ploesti–Constanta pipeline. Nevertheless, Ploesti was 340 miles from the VVS-ChF air bases in the Crimea, and aircraft like the DB-3F were tactical, not strategic, bombers; at best, each bomber could carry only six 100kg bombs to targets in Romania. While the VVS-ChF raids on Romania did not inflict substantial damage on the Axis war effort, they did help to create the impression that Soviet air bases in the Crimea were a threat.

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The original plan for Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union, issued in Führer Directive 21 on December 18, 1940, did not even mention the Crimea or the Black Sea Fleet. Hitler intended that Barbarossa would result in the rapid destruction of the best part of the Red Army, followed by the occupation of most of the western Soviet Union, which would satisfy his lust for natural resources and Lebensraum (living space). The priority of the German operational effort was weighted on the Leningrad and Moscow axes, and the only specified objectives for Generalfeldmarschall Gerd von Rundstedt’s Heeresgruppe Süd was to “destroy all Russian forces west of the Dnepr in Ukraine,” and “the early capture of the Donets Basin, important for war industry.”⁴ The occupation of the Crimea and the elimination of the Black Sea Fleet were only implied tasks at the outset of the German invasion, to be accomplished during mop-up operations. After the issuing of Führer Directive 21, Hitler and the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW) focused much of their attention and planning efforts on the Balkans, the Mediterranean, and collaboration with Axis partners, rather than further fleshing out operational details of Operation Barbarossa. Indeed, it remained a rather vague plan right up to the moment of execution, and this would force the Wehrmacht to constantly shift resources as Hitler changed his strategic priorities.