Kerch-Eltigen operation
The Kerch-Eltigen Operation was an amphibious landing operation undertaken by the Red Army in November 1943 during World War II . The aim of the operation was to recapture the Crimean peninsula .
background
After the German and Romanian troops had been severely harassed by the armies of the Soviet North Caucasus Front in the Kuban bridgehead , the Brunhild company began to withdraw from the Taman peninsula to Kerch in early September 1943 . The Soviet high command wanted this success to be followed by two amphibious landings on the east coast of Crimea, which were intended as a prelude to the recapture of the entire Crimean peninsula. The southern diversion landing was to take place near the small town of Eltigen , the main northern attack at Jenikal , near the city of Kerch.
The Defense Forces of the Axis Powers
In the Battle of the Dnieper , the 4th Ukrainian Front cut off the German 17th Army in the Crimea from the rest of the German army. Nevertheless, the German troops in the Crimea could still be supplied with supplies by sea. The 17th Army was subordinate to the 5th Army Corps in the north, the XXXXIX. Mountain Corps that controlled the Isthmus of Perekop between mainland Ukraine and Crimea, as well as Romanian units; including the Vânători de Munte , the Romanian mountain corps, which were set up in the southern and south-eastern areas of the Crimea. In addition, the Wehrmacht had anti-aircraft cannon formations and 45 assault guns to reinforce their defense. The commander of the Axis Powers was the German general of the pioneers Erwin Jaenecke .
The Soviet attack
The Red Army entrusted the landing of the Soviet 18th Army under the command of Colonel General K. N. Leselidze , with Leonid Brezhnev as a member of the Military Council , the 56th Army, the Black Sea Fleet and the Azov Flotilla . The Commander-in-Chief of the 56th Army was Lieutenant General Melnik , General Ivan Petrov was Commander-in-Chief of the Soviet Forces , and Vice-Admiral L.A. Vladimirsky was Commander of Naval Operations . Despite bad weather and rough seas, which delayed the landings, the Red Army succeeded on November 1st in landing the 318th Rifle Division of the 18th Army under Colonel W. F. Gladkow and the 386th Marine Infantry Battalion near Eltigen. The landing was remarkable for the fact that all available watercraft were used and the command structure was lost due to the darkness and bad weather. Fighting their way ashore, the Soviet troops succeeded in driving back the Romanian defenders and building a small bridgehead .
Two days later, more than 4,400 soldiers of the Soviet 56th Army landed at GanISCHE (parts of the 2nd and 55th Guards Rifle Divisions and the 32nd Rifle Division) and, supported by massive artillery fire from positions on the Taman Peninsula, formed a strong bridgehead which the German 5th Army Corps and the Romanian 3rd Mountain Division could not push in. By November 11th, 27,700 Red Army soldiers had landed in this bridgehead.
The victory of the Axis powers at Eltigen
Although the Red Army succeeded in strengthening the bridgehead at Eltigen by landing the 117th Guards Rifle Regiment, they could not advance further than two kilometers inland. The situation was made worse by the fact that the Germans succeeded in building a sea blockade of the bridgehead by the boats of the 3rd clearing boat flotilla . The German 3rd clearing boat flotilla was originally stationed on the Baltic Sea. Attempts by the Soviet side to supply the bridgehead at night led to night close combat at sea, but could not secure supplies. The Luftwaffe stopped supplying the bridgehead from the air .
On November 20, 1943, the High Command of the North Caucasus Front was renamed Independent Coastal Army , which took control of the units in the Kerch bridgehead. Axis forces besieged the bridgehead for five weeks before counter-attacking on December 4, 1943. Romanian mobile troops of the 6th Division carried out diversionary attacks from the south, while Romanian mountain troops attacked from the west with the support of German assault guns. On December 7th the bridgehead collapsed; the Romanian troops took 1,570 prisoners and counted 1,200 Soviet soldiers who had fallen, with 886 casualties. The Romanians also captured 25 anti-tank guns and 38 tanks.
Battles on Mithridates Hill
During the collapse of the bridgehead near Eltigen, around 820 Soviet soldiers managed to break out of the bridgehead to the north and to reach the other bridgehead at Ganikal, to occupy the Mithridates Hill in the center of the city of Kerch directly at the harbor and to take the German artillery positions there. This attack threatened the collapse of the German front around the bridgehead at Ganuellen, which is why General Jaenecke reacted to the new situation and ordered the Romanian 3rd Mountain Division to carry out a counterattack against the Soviet troops. On December 11th, the Romanian military retook Mithridates Hill and defeated the retreating Red Army troops. An unknown number of Soviet soldiers were evacuated from the Azov flotilla under the command of Rear Admiral Sergei Gorshkov to Opasnaya in the Ganikal bridgehead.
Follow up
In view of strong German reinforcements, the Red Army limited itself to fortifying the bridgehead at Ganikal. By December 4, the Red Army had landed 75,000 soldiers, 582 artillery pieces, 187 mortars, 128 tanks, 764 trucks and over 10,000 tons of ammunition and other material there. The Red Army advanced about nine kilometers inland and into the outskirts of Kerch. Although the Axis powers initially succeeded in defending Crimea against the Soviet landing, the landing at Kerch put the Red Army in a favorable position to take the entire Crimean peninsula, which it succeeded in the Battle of Crimea until May 1944.
literature
- Klaus Schönherr u. a .: The German Reich and the Second World War , Volume 8, Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-421-06235-2 .
- Andrej Antonovič Grečko among others: History of the Second World War Volume 7, Military Publishing House of the GDR, Berlin 1979.
- Charles B. Atwater, Jr .: Soviet Amphibious Operations in the Black Sea, 1941-1943 , Diss. For Castleton State College, 1995.
- Mark Axworthy et al .: Third Axis Fourth Ally , Arms and Armor Press, London 1995, ISBN 1-85409-267-7 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Schönherr, pp. 468-469.
- ↑ On November 20, 1943, the High Command of the North Caucasus Front was renamed Independent Coastal Army , which took control of the units in the Kerch bridgehead. Grechko, p. 285.
- ↑ Axworthy, p. 130.
- ↑ Grechko, p. 282.
- ↑ Axworthy, p. 131.
- ^ According to the official Soviet representation (Map 103) 1500 soldiers.
- ↑ Grechko, p. 284.