Where the Iron Crosses Grow

Another inspirational leader in the Soviet defense at Sevastopol was General-Major Nikolay A. Ostryakov, the VVS-ChF commander, who even flew his own Yak-1 fighter on patrols over the city. His 3rd Special Aviation Group (3 OAG) had coalesced into an elite aviation group, with some of the best Soviet naval fighter pilots available. Unfortunately, the Luftwaffe also became aware of Ostryakov’s role in the defense and made efforts to target him. On April 24, General-Major Fedor G. Korobkov, the deputy commander of Soviet naval aviation, arrived in Sevastopol on an inspection trip for the Stavka, and Ostryakov took him to see the main VVS-ChF facility in Kruglaya Bay, west of the city. Thirty minutes after the generals and their staffs entered a hangar to look at ongoing maintenance activities, six Ju-88 bombers zoomed in from the sea and headed straight for the airbase. Before anyone could react, the Ju-88s dropped their bomb loads on the facility, and one 500kg bomb entered through the hangar roof, killing the two Soviet generals and their staffs. Soviet sources make no mention of how such a catastrophe could occur, but it is unlikely that it was a serendipitous event. Soviet communications security was often lax and it is likely that Luftwaffe radio intercept units noted the arrival of a senior figure like Korobkov and gleaned details of his itinerary in order to plan an air strike – this was essentially the same method that the Americans used to target Japanese Admiral Isoruku Yamamoto in 1943. In any case, the death of Ostryakov was a major blow to the VVS-ChF.

In late February 1942, Bätcher’s 1./KG 100 was joined by Major Horst Beyling’s II./KG 26, which had been trained as a torpedo squadron. Beyling brought 34 He-111H-6 bombers to Saki airfield on the coast near Yevpatoriya, with more than half outfitted to deliver two aerial torpedoes. Beyling’s torpedo bombers damaged a Soviet freighter in the Kerch Straits on the night of March 1/2, and Bätcher’s low-level bombers damaged the Soviet tanker Valerian Kuybyshev at Kerch on March 3; the tanker was delivering a critical load of fuel to sustain the offensive by Kozlov’s Crimean Front. Increasingly, Soviet ships bound for Sevastopol or Kerch came under air attack and suffered damage. In retaliation, the VVS-ChF mounted raids on the German air bases in the Crimea and managed to destroy five of Bätcher’s He-111s on the ground. Nevertheless, one of Beyling’s He-111H-6 bombers torpedoed and sank the transport Vasiliy Chapaev on March 23. The III./KG 51, a Ju-88 bomber unit based at Nikolayev, was brought in to raid the Soviet Caucasian ports of Novorossiysk and Tuapse. At midday on March 24, Hauptmann Werner Baumbach led nine Ju-88s from KG 51 over the Black Sea and caught the port of Tuapse completely by surprise. There was no flak or fighter opposition, enabling the German bombers to inflict considerable damage on ships and facilities.²⁴ In response, the VVS-Crimean Front hastily tried to establish air cover over the ports and the Kerch Strait, but inter-service coordination was not a Soviet strong suit and most of the Soviet fighters were too short-ranged to operate effectively over the Black Sea. In March, the three German bomber units sank five small Soviet freighters totaling 10,338 GRT, which might not seem like much, but the Soviet merchant marine in the Black Sea was beginning to run out of ships and could not replace them. It was also apparent that the Caucasian ports were no longer safe, which boded poorly for Sevastopol’s lifelines.