Where the Iron Crosses Grow

Amazingly, Manstein was able to concentrate all his remaining infantry, supported by the artillery and a few assault guns, against the Mekenzievy Mountain station sector on the morning of December 28. Four battalions of the 132. Infanterie-Division managed to push Potapov’s 79th NIB back over a mile, and capture the Mekenzievy Mountain rail station. On their right, Choltitz’s IR 16 found a weak spot in the Soviet main line of resistance, held by the 241st Rifle Regiment, which was defending the approaches to Fort Stalin with only a few hundred riflemen. Choltitz’s troops punched through the weak Soviet unit and actually got within sight of the fort before halting. Haccius’s IR 65 also managed to flank Guz’s 345th Rifle Division and reach the approaches to Lieutenant Aleksandr’s Battery 30 (which the Germans had dubbed “Maxim Gorky I”). A group from the 345th Rifle Division was surrounded by the German advance and its commander, Major Maslov, opted to surrender. He later helped the Germans to recruit Soviet prisoners as volunteer labor or Hilfswilliger – which earned him a Soviet death sentence in absentia. It was an incredible day, where it seemed that Hansen’s troops might actually break Petrov’s defenses, but it was not to be.

During the night of December 28/29, another five-ship convoy arrived in Sevastopol bearing Colonel Nikolai F. Skutel’nik’s 386th Rifle Division – the third fresh division to augment Petrov’s army in December. Formed in Tbilisi just two weeks prior, Skutel’nik’s division was composed primarily of less-than-enthusiastic Georgians, Armenians, and Azerbaijanis, but it nonetheless added another 10,000 troops to the defense. It certainly must have brought great chagrin to Manstein that the Luftwaffe had been completely unable to interdict Petrov’s naval supply lines, and that the besieged defenders actually enjoyed better logistical support than the attackers.

Although Manstein ordered the offensive to continue on December 29, by 1000hrs he had received further word from Sponeck about Soviet landings at Feodosiya, which caused him to order XXX Armeekorps to cease its supporting attacks and immediately send the 170. Infanterie-Division to reinforce Sponeck’s XXXXII Armeekorps. Salmuth’s corps had spent the last week in a sanguinary and indecisive struggle over the Italian Heights, which only produced heavy casualties on both sides. Since his troops appeared on the verge of breaching Petrov’s main line of resistance, Manstein allowed Hansen to continue his part of the offensive, although only a few battalions were still capable of attacking.

Atop a 65-yard-high hill one mile south of the Mekenzievy Mountain station stood Lieutenant Nikolai A. Vorobyev’s 365th Antiaircraft Battery, which the Germans had dubbed “Fort Stalin.” It was not a fort intended to stop a serious ground assault but, rather, the position consisted of four 76mm antiaircraft guns in pits, protected by three small concrete machinegun bunkers. Barbed wire and a few antipersonnel mines provided a perimeter defense. Vorobyev was situated inside a concrete-and-steel command bunker, while most of his crews hunkered in underground bunkers. Choltitz led two battalions of his IR 16 toward the position, anticipating that its capture would open the way to Severnaya Bay. Vorobyev ordered his gunners to fire directly at Choltitz’s troops, but the Germans responded by calling in artillery fire that knocked out three of the 76mm guns. Using smoke and short rushes, the German infantry managed to approach the battery position. Assisted by sappers, about 30 of Choltitz’s infantrymen managed to penetrate the Soviet barbed-wire obstacles and penetrate into “Fort Stalin.” However, at that point another barrage of artillery fire landed atop the hill and inflicted heavy casualties on the German Stossgruppe, including its leader. Vorobyev later claimed that he cleverly used a captured German flare gun to call in German artillery fire on their own troops, but he appears to have spent the action entirely in his bunker. It is more likely that Vorobyev was either the unintended beneficiary of accidental German friendly fire or fortuitous Soviet naval gunfire, which was pounding any movement spotted on the hillsides. In any case, Choltitz’s attack failed and Hansen’s corps had reached its high-water mark. Efforts by Haccius’s IR 65 to capture Coastal Battery No. 30 also failed. Vorobyev was quickly awarded the Hero of the Soviet Union for “stopping the German offensive,” although he was later stripped of his awards for raping a minor after the war.