Where the Iron Crosses Grow

Once Kozlov’s main armies had been defeated, Manstein was able to dispatch five German and two Romanian infantry battalions from Fretter-Pico’s XXX Armeekorps to deal with the Soviet lodgment at Sudak. Fretter-Pico sent two Kampfgruppen against the Sudak lodgment, one from the east and one from the west, but by the time they arrived Selikhov’s regiment had had a week to entrench itself. The Germans quickly found that the Soviet position was a strong one, and settled down into a siege, using artillery and air attacks to grind down the Soviet regiment. In an arrant display of stupidity, Kozlov decided to reinforce failure, and on the night of January 24/25 the Black Sea Fleet landed Major Sergei I. Zabrodotsky’s 554th Mountain Rifle Regiment at Sudak. An additional 1,300 troops were landed the next night, bringing the total landed at Sudak to 4,264 men. However, the additional troops only extended the death throes of the Soviet lodgment, which the Germans began to crush in late January 1942. By January 28, XXX Armeekorps declared that the enemy forces at Sudak were eliminated and that 876 prisoners had been taken, but failed to mention that the prisoners were executed. About 2,000 Soviet troops died in battle at Sudak and a few hundred were evacuated by sea, but the vast majority simply disappeared into the mountains. Perhaps 350–500 joined local partisan groups, but others simply went into hiding. Fretter-Pico was forced to leave a Romanian mountain-infantry battalion around Sudak in mop-up operations until the summer, and they continued to discover small groups of survivors until June.

Manstein’s winter counteroffensive at Feodosiya was a unique German triumph that stood in stark contrast to Soviet successes on many other parts of the Eastern Front during the winter of 1941/42. In just a matter of days, he had managed to inflict a signal defeat on Soviet forces in the Kerch Peninsula that threw Kozlov’s forces onto the defensive. It was not a decisive victory, since Kozlov’s armies would soon be back for a rematch at the Parpach Narrows, but Manstein had gained time to build a better defensive front and had greatly leveled the playing field. Had his forces not recaptured Feodosiya, he would soon have had to contemplate evacuating the Crimea and falling back toward Perekop.

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On December 31, 1941, Hansen was forced to evacuate a good deal of territory captured during the December offensive in order to release the 132. and 170. Infanterie-Divisionen to participate in the counteroffensive to retake Feodosiya. With only the 22., 24., 50., and 72. Infanterie-Divisionen plus the Romanian 1st Mountain Brigade left in the siege lines around Sevastopol, Hansen could not afford to hold everything that had been seized. Consequently, LIV Armeekorps withdrew from the area around Mekenzievy Station and, once again, the Kamyschly Ravine became the front line. At the end of the year, Hansen’s LIV Armeekorps did begin receiving some replacement batallions, but rail traffic across the Dnepr was still so sporadic that some troops were required to walk from Perekop to Sevastopol. German logistics in the Crimea were still very primitive during the winter of 1941/42, meaning that Hansen’s troops were desperately short of food, fuel, ammunition, and winter clothing. There was no food for the 50,000 horses in AOK 11 at all, so they were evacuated to the logistics depot at Kherson, leaving most of Hansen’s division-level artillery immobile for the duration of the winter.¹⁸ The defenders also faced severe food shortages, and were not much better off than those in encircled Leningrad, which was also under siege.

Both sides settled into a routine of desultory trench warfare, with occasional raids. Most of the German troops were able to construct underground shelters, but a typical day on the front line was monotonous and dangerous. However, static warfare afforded an opportunity for German scouts to covertly tap Soviet field telephone lines at night, which led to an intelligence coup on January 21 when the Germans learned about an imminent Soviet sortie against the 24. Infanterie-Division. Forewarned about the timing of the enemy attack, German artillery shredded the Soviet infantry as soon as they left their trenches.¹⁹