Where the Iron Crosses Grow

The only major German success in the opening days of the first offensive was a series of Luftwaffe raids on Sevastopol harbor that caught the fleet’s Naval Gunfire Support Group at anchor. One idiosyncrasy of Soviet naval gunfire tactics was that their warships preferred to fire from along quayside in the harbor, which made it easier to communicate with forward observers by telephone. It also meant that the Germans knew where to find the source of naval gunfire. The light cruisers Krasny Krym and Chervona Ukraina had fired 500 rounds of 130mm ammunition at German positions around Sevastopol during November 8–11, provoking several small-scale Luftwaffe retaliatory raids, but these were frustrated by Ostryakov’s VVS-ChF combat air patrols, which normally deployed two to four fighters over Sevastopol during daylight hours. After recurrent requests from Hansen to do something about the Soviet naval gunfire, Fliegerkorps IV finally assembled all its available aircraft for a major strike on the port of Sevastopol on the morning of November 12. Although the captain of the cruiser Krasny Krym prudently left the harbor before dawn, the Chervona Ukraina was still alongside the Count’s Quay in Severnaya (South) Bay, leisurely firing her 130mm guns at distant German troop concentrations. Around 0900hrs an air-raid alarm was sounded, but there was little time to react before three Ju-87 Stukas from II./StG 77 pounced on Chervona Ukraina from high altitude and hit her with two 250kg bombs, one of which detonated her torpedo tubes. With over 140 of her crew killed or wounded, flames spread across the crippled cruiser as she settled in the harbor. Although her 130mm guns were later recovered, the cruiser itself was finished. Before the VVS-ChF combat air patrol could react, a group of nine He-111 bombers from I./KG 27 and 11 Ju-88s from KG 51 swept over the harbor at low level and dropped their bombs among the dockyard area. The brand-new Type 7U destroyer Sovershennyi, already damaged by German air-delivered mines, was struck and would never sail again. The Type 7 destroyer Bezposhchadny was also hit and seriously damaged, but was towed to Poti for repairs. Although one of Ostryakov’s MiG-3 fighters shot down a retreating He-111, Fliegerkorps IV had scored a major victory over the Black Sea Fleet. Yet in spite of this victory, Fliegerkorps IV was too overextended to interdict all naval traffic in and out of Sevastopol, and consequently on November 17 the elderly freighter Kursk arrived from Novorossiysk with the first load of ammunition for Petrov’s troops.

Oddly, the initial German offensive against Sevastopol achieved its only success in the sector that Manstein had regarded as merely a supporting attack: Sector I along the coast near Balaklava. On the morning of November 11, the 72. Infanterie-Division was strung out from the Baydar Gate to Yalta, with two battalions from IR 266 conducting an unsupported advance upon Balaklava. The only Soviet forces barring the way into Balaklava were the remnants of the 40th and 42nd Cavalry Divisions. After forcing their way through Lieutenant Terletskiy’s improvised roadblock at the Baydar Gate, IR 266 steadily pushed the Soviet cavalry back toward Balaklava and did not encounter any Soviet infantry until November 13. A mile southeast of the town of Kamary, Colonel Mikhail G. Shemruk had deployed part of his 383rd Rifle Regiment on an imposing ridgeline that dominated the coastal road leading to Balaklava. Once Shemruk’s infantry were spotted, IR 266 halted its advance and waited for two more battalions from IR 105 and II./IR 124, as well as a few assault guns, to arrive. On November 13, the five German battalions assaulted the ridgeline held by Shemruk’s regiment and the few remaining cavalry. Shemruk’s troops fought hard for the ridgeline, but Shemruk himself was eventually killed, and the Germans overran the ridge and advanced to the high ground overlooking Kamary. Oberstleutnant Friedrich-Wilhelm Müller’s IR 105 occupied Hill 386.6, just 1½ miles from Balaklava harbor.