Where the Iron Crosses Grow

On June 6, Dora continued to waste its limited ammunition against a variety of mundane targets. Zuckertort wasted “Dora’s” ammunition on too many secondary targets, instead of concentrating it against a single target. Furthermore, Dora was a very fragile weapons system and suffered from technical defects after a few rounds. Dora fired 25 of its 48 rounds before the actual assault on Sevastopol began, and it appears that the biggest gun ever built achieved virtually nothing, aside from making some very large craters. In contrast to the complete inaccuracy of Dora, Manstein relied upon Oberst Friedrich-Franz Rittner’s Flak-Regiment 18 for precision fire against the numerous Soviet bunkers. Rittner had four mixed flak battalions with a total of 48 8.8cm flak guns and deployed single guns in forward areas as bunker busters. It turned out that many of the Soviet bunkers hastily built during the winter of 1941/42 could not withstand direct hits from rounds larger than 7.5cm, and the high-velocity rounds from 8.8cm flak guns proved adept at cracking them open. Rittner’s flak gunners would fire a total of 181,787 rounds during Störfang and inflicted far more damage upon Petrov’s defenses than Dora.

By the end of the fifth day of the bombardment, Zuckertort’s artillery had fired 42,595 rounds of ammunition at Sevastopol, equivalent to 2,449 tons of munitions. Rather than the popularly depicted super-heavy weapons like Dora and Karl, it was the ubiquitous 10cm s.K 18 cannon, 15cm s.FH 37 howitzer, and 21cm Mörser that were the predominant weapons used in this phase. During these five days, Fliegerkorps VIII dropped over 2,264 tons of bombs on Sevastopol, including 14 2,500kg, five 1,800kg, three 1,700kg, and seven 1,400kg heavy bombs.¹⁶ How successful was five days of sustained air and artillery attacks upon Petrov’s defenses? Many frontline bunkers were destroyed or damaged, but the trench works and underground shelters were more resistant to artillery fire, as well as the railroad tunnel on the south side of Mekenzievy Mountain. Soviet personnel losses were relatively light. For example, the 514th Regiment defending on Haccius Ridge suffered only 12 dead and 20 wounded during June 2–6, less than 3 percent losses, despite being the target of daily heavy-artillery fire and Luftwaffe attacks.¹⁷ Given the level of effort put into the German artillery preparation, AOK 11’s infantry realized little actual benefit. Despite five days of pounding, the Soviet infantrymen waited in their bunkers and dugouts, filled with grim determination to hold the line. Political officers spent the time haranguing the troops about fulfilling their duty to the Motherland, and the penalty of failure.

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Even before Zuckertort’s artillery opened fire on June 2, Petrov and Oktyabrsky knew that a German assault upon Sevastopol was imminent after the destruction of Kozlov’s Crimean Front, and they began pleading for reinforcements from the North Caucasus Military District. Kozlov had repeatedly short-changed Sevastopol for replacements and supplies during the spring of 1942, but now the Military Council of the Black Sea Fleet requested 15,000 replacements, 50 brand-new Yak-1 fighters, more fuel for 3 OAG to maintain a high sortie rate, and triple the amount of ammunition allocated to the SOR. Amazingly, Petrov requested 10,000 rifles and 1,500 light machine guns, indicating that many of his troops were poorly armed. In addition, Petrov wanted to evacuate as many of the remaining civilians and naval-base personnel as possible in order to reduce the need for food, so that naval convoys could concentrate on bringing in replacements and ammunition. On May 25, the evacuation of civilians began in earnest. Thus far, the Luftwaffe units based in the Crimea had enjoyed only limited success, and against stationary naval targets in Sevastopol’s harbors and slow-moving and unescorted merchant ships in coastal waters. Soviet convoys to Sevastopol had successfully delivered 35,000 reinforcements and evacuated 9,000 wounded from January to May, without excessive losses.