Where the Iron Crosses Grow

Manstein did not call off his offensive entirely until early on December 31, by which time Hansen’s LIV Armeekorps was completely exhausted. Hansen’s troops had suffered 7,732 casualties during the offensive, including 1,636 dead or missing, which represents about half the assault troops involved. Zuckertort’s gunners had fired 5,014 tons of ammunition during the offensive, equivalent to over 100,000 rounds, and had lost nine artillery pieces to Soviet counterbattery fire. Hansen’s infantry and Zuckertort’s firepower had certainly demolished the outer defensive line of Sevastopol, but had barely dented the main line of resistance. Indeed, it was only through imaginative small-unit tactics and excellent leadership that the Germans were able to make any significant progress at all. Wolff’s 22. Infanterie-Division had particularly distinguished itself as the most aggressively led unit in AOK 11. On the other hand, the sanguinary brawl over the Italian Heights cost Salmuth’s XXX Armeekorps 863 casualties and the Romanians 1,261 casualties, which was costly for a single position. Manstein had gambled on winning at Sevastopol, and failure to do so meant that most of his divisions were now reduced to combat ineffectiveness.

Petrov’s Coastal Army had also taken a horrendous beating, with at least 17,000 casualties suffered, including 6,000 captured, but help appeared to be on the way with the amphibious landings at Kerch and Feodosiya. Soviet material losses were also significant, and both Coastal Battery No. 30 and Coastal Battery No. 35 had fired so many 305mm rounds during the first and second German offensives that the barrels were worn out; until new barrels were installed, Sevastopol’s heaviest guns would remain silent.¹³

CHAPTER 5 Winter War, December 1941–March 1942

“Any weakling can take victories, but only the strong can endure setbacks.”

Adolf Hitler, Berlin, January 30, 1942

Only two days after the winter counteroffensive began at Moscow, the Stavka sent orders to General-Lieutenant Dmitri T. Kozlov, commander of the Transcaucasian Front, directing him to begin planning to send the bulk of his forces across the Kerch Straits to liberate the Crimea. Kozlov and his chief of staff, General-Major Fyodor I. Tolbukhin, were given just two weeks to plan and execute the first major amphibious operation ever conducted by the Red Army. Kozlov was directed to land as large a force as possible, first to establish a secure lodgment in the Kerch Peninsula and then, once sufficient forces were across, to begin advancing westward to link up with Petrov’s Coastal Army in Sevastopol and liberate the Crimea. It was a grand vision, based upon Stalin’s belief that the Wehrmacht was a spent force, and that the moment had arrived for the Red Army to strike a death blow against the invaders.

Tolbukhin was generally regarded as a capable staff officer, but he had sat out the bulk of the 1941 campaign in the backwater Transcaucasus Military District and was eager to show off his talent in his first operation of the war. He developed an overly complicated plan that he hoped would quickly compromise the German ability to hold the Kerch Peninsula by making many small landings at multiple points, rather than one large landing. In the first echelon of Tolbukhin’s landing plan, five different transport groups would land 7,500 troops from the 224th Rifle Division and 302nd Mountain Rifle Division from General-Lieutenant Vladimir N. Lvov’s 51st Army on separate beaches north and south of Kerch. Then, after the Germans had reacted to this landing, General-Major Aleksei N. Pervushin would begin landing elements of his 44th Army to their rear, at Feodosiya. Oktyabrsky was expected to provide a significant part of the Black Sea Fleet to support the landings and provide naval gunfire support, while Rear-Admiral Sergei G. Gorshkov’s Azov Flotilla would assist in bringing troops across the Kerch Straits. The VVS and VVS-ChF were expected to provide air support from bases in the Taman Peninsula. Despite the availability of troops and shipping, the Red Army had no experience with a complicated joint operation of this sort, and the short time provided for planning led to multiple failures of coordination. On top of this, the winter weather in the Black Sea at the end of December was predictably stormy, which greatly complicated the loading and unloading of troops. The constant siphoning of the best units and shipping to reinforce Petrov’s Coastal Army at Sevastopol further disrupted operational planning.