Hitler Moves East, 1941-1943 (51 page)

At that moment, in the morning of 29th December, the disastrous news arrived at Manstein's headquarters like a bombshell: following preliminary landings at Kerch, strong Soviet invading forces had now also landed at Feodosiya, on the isthmus between the Crimea and the Kerch Peninsula. They had over-run the weak German covering lines and had taken the town. The only troops left to defend the area were the 46th Infantry Division and some weak Rumanian

units. Everything else was engaged in the fighting for Sevastopol.

"What's to be done now, Herr General?" the chief of operations of Eleventh Army asked his C-in-C. What, indeed, was to be done? Should they let matters ride at Kerch and Feodosia until after Sevastopol had fallen? Or should the battle for the fortress be suspended and the forces thus freed be switched to the threatened points in the rear of the front?

Manstein was not a man of precipitate decisions. He walked over to the school-house of the village of Sarabus, where since mid-November Eleventh Army had had its headquarters, in order to study the latest reports. He himself, as well as his chief of staff and the chief of operations, had their quarters in the old farmhouse next door, in rooms very modestly furnished. A bed, a table, a chair, a stool with a wash-bowl, and a coat-hanger—these were the entire furniture. Manstein disliked furniture being requisitioned in order, as he put it, "to create comfort which the troops have to do without."

Map 14.
The Soviets land on the Kerch Peninsula.

The map in the headquarters situation room revealed the mortal danger in which the Crimean Army had been for the past five hours. A few days earlier, at Christmas, units of the Soviet Fifty-first Army had made
a
surprise crossing of the Strait of Kerch, only three miles wide, and, following further successful landings on 26th December 1941, had established themselves to both sides of the town.

Lieutenant-General Count von Sponeck, commanding XLII Corps, had dispatched his 73rd and 170th Infantry Divisions to Sevastopol and was now left in the peninsula with only the 46th Infantry Division. But its three regiments had succeeded, by an immediate counter-attack in a temperature of 30 degrees below zero Centigrade, in sealing off the Soviet bridgeheads and, by drawing on their last reserves, in actually mopping some of them up. Manstein had heaved a sigh of relief and had allowed the offensive operations at Sevastopol to continue. But now, on 29th December, the Russians had been inside Feodosiya since 0230 hours.

Manstein considered the red arrows on the situation map. Unless some units were quickly thrown into the path of the Soviets they would be able to seal off the isthmus of Parpach, the 12-mile-wide passage from the Crimea to the Kerch Peninsula, cut off 46th Infantry Division, and strike at the rear of the German lines before Sevastopol. Once again the German High Command's cardinal sin against the laws of modern warfare was made patent: Eleventh Army lacked mobile motorized formations as operational reserves. There was only one solution: some forces had to be detached from the Sevastopol front and switched to Feodosiya.

Anxiously the chief of staff and the chief of operations stood next to Manstein in front of the map. Was the battle for

Sevastopol to be broken off at this moment? Surely that would be exactly what the Soviets hoped to achieve by their landings at Kerch?

Manstein and his staff officers weighed up the situation. Did it not look as if at Sevastopol, in the sector of 22nd Infantry Division, only one last effort was needed to break through, at least, to the vital harbour bay? If that came off a commanding position would have been gained and the attack on the town might then be suspended without any risk for a few weeks. Control over the Severnaya Bay would prevent the fortress from being reinforced from the sea. It would be firmly encircled, and the divisions thus freed could then be switched to Feodosiya and Kerch in order to throw the Soviet forces there back into the sea. Provided only that General Count Sporieck could hold out for another two or three days. Surely with all available reserves scraped together it should be possible to tie down the Russians at Feodosiya that long.

That, clearly, was the way to do it. Manstein therefore ordered: "In the northern sector before Sevastopol 22nd Infantry Division will take Fort Stalin and drive on as far as the harbour bay. From the east the attack on the fortress will be suspended; 170th Infantry Division will be withdrawn from the front at once and dispatched to Feodosiya."

Now began a race against time. Would the calculations come right? On 29th December 1941, at 1000 hours, a coded signal was received at Army headquarters from Count Spo-neck's Corps. Its contents were alarming: "Corps command evacuating Kerch Peninsula. 46th Infantry Division begun to move off in direction of Parpach Isthmus."

Manstein was staggered. Some days before, at Christmas, when the Soviet 244th Rifle Division had made its landings on both sides of Kerch, Count Sponeck had suggested the evacuation of the peninsula. Manstein had firmly rejected the idea and had expressly ordered that these crucial approaches to the Crimea must be defended. Now the General commanding XLII Corps was acting without authority against this strict order.

Manstein ordered a signal to be sent back: "Withdrawal must be stopped at once."

But the signal no longer got through. Corps headquarters did not reply any more. Count Sponeck had already had his wireless station dismantled. It was the first instance of a commanding general's disobedience since the beginning of the campaign in the East. It was a symptomatic case, involving fundamental principles. Lieutenant-General Hans Count von Sponeck, the scion of a Düsseldorf family of regular officers, born in 1888, formerly an officer in the Imperial Guards, was a man of great personal courage and an excellent commander in the field. While commanding the famous 22nd Airborne Division, which in 1940 captured the "fortress of Holland" with a bold stroke, he had earned for himself the Knights Cross in the Western campaign. Subsequently, as the commander of 22nd Infantry Division, into which the Airborne Division had been converted, he also distinguished himself by outstanding gallantry during the crossing of the Dnieper.

The significance of the affair lay in the fact that Count Sponeck was the first commanding general on the Eastern Front who, when the attack of two Soviet Armies against a single German division faced him with the alternatives of hanging on and being wiped out or withdrawing, refused to choose the former alternative. He reacted to the Soviet threat not in accordance with Hitlerite principles of leadership, but according to the principles of his Prussian General Staff upbringing. This demanded of a commanding officer that he should judge each situation accurately and dispassionately, react to it flexibly, and not allow his troops to be slaughtered unless there was some compelling and inescapable reason for it. Sponeck saw no such reason.

What were the considerations which induced the Count to disregard superior orders?

Although we have no notes left by him personally, his chief of operations and his deputy chief of staff, Major Einbeck, have laid down in a memorandum the arguments of the Corps command. An instructive report is also extant from Lieutenant-Colonel von Ahlfen, the chief of staff of 617th Engineers Regiment.

This is the picture that emerges from these reports: On 28th December 1941 Lieutenant-General Himer's 46th Infantry Division, by rallying all its reserves, succeeded in smashing the Soviet bridgehead north of Kerch. The Soviets, and above all the Caucasians, had accomplished incredible feats. In spite of its being 20 degrees below zero Centigrade they had waded to the steep coast up to their necks in water, and had gained a foothold there. Without any supplies

they had held out for two days. Their wounded had frozen rigid into ice-covered lumps of flesh. Frozen to death. The landings south of Kerch were likewise sealed off. But at that moment Soviet naval units attacked at Feodosiya, 60 miles behind Kerch. A heavy cruiser, two destroyers, and landing-craft entered the harbour under cover of darkness.

Of Army Coastal Artillery Battalion 147, detailed to defend Feodosiya, only four 10-5-cm. guns and the headquarters personnel had so far got to their destination. In addition, only one German and one Czech-manufactured field howitzer were in the port. The Soviet warships trained their searchlights on to the defender's gun emplacements and shelled them to smithereens with their heavy naval guns. Then the Russians disembarked.

For' infantry engagements the German forces available consisted of the sapper platoon of an assault boat detachment and a Panzerjäger platoon with two 3-7-cm. anti-tank guns. Luckily the Engineers Battalion 46, en route to the west, had taken up quarters in Feodosiya for the night. Count Sponeck put Lieutenant-Colonel von Ahlfen in charge of repulsing the Soviet landing. The lieutenant-colonel mobilized every single man he could find—paymasters, workshop mechanics, the personnel of food stores and field post-offices, a road construction company, and the men of a signals unit. From this motley crew the first covering line was organized outside the town.

At 0730 hours a signal arrived at Count Sponeck's headquarters at Keneges: "Soviets are also landing north-east of Feodosiya on the open coast." An entire division was disembarking.

A few minutes later telephone connections with Army and with Feodosiya were cut—just after Count Sponeck had received the information that Manstein was sending 170th Infantry Division from Sevastopol and two Rumanian brigades from Yayla Mountains to Feodosiya.

What were the Soviet intentions? Their tactical aim, clearly, was to cut the narrow neck of land between the Crimea and the Kerch Peninsula, and to annihilate the trapped 46th Infantry Division. But their strategic objective, undoubtedly, was to strike swiftly into the Crimea from their foothold at Feodosiya, to occupy the traffic junctions behind the Sevastopol front, and to cut off Eleventh Army from its supplies.

That the Russians were in fact pursuing this strategic objective, and not just making local raids on the coast, was proved by the fact that their invading forces comprised two Armies—the Fifty-first under General Lvov at Kerch and the Forty-fourth under General Pervushin at Feodosiya. The Forty-fourth Army had already disembarked some 23,000 men of 63rd and 157th Rifle Divisions.

General Count Sponeck asked himself: Was 46th Infantry Division strong enough to throw the enemy forces back into the sea at Kerch and at the same time hold the Parpach Isthmus against the new landings at Feodosiya? His answer was No.

Major Einbeck records: "Corps command could only regain the initiative by immediately switching the focus of operations to the Feodosiya area. That was the place where the danger of a drive against Dzhankoy or Simferopol, now threatening Eleventh Army, might be averted. This decision involved surrendering the Kerch Peninsula as far as the Parpach line."

Count Sponeck believed that, in view of the responsibility he had for his 10,000 men, there was no time to be lost. Because of his clearer, local grasp of the situation he felt justified in acting against the order of his Army commander. He realized that he was risking his neck. He knew the iron law of military discipline. But he was also aware of a military commander's moral duty to put a meaningful order above a formal one. He did not evade the tragic dilemma which must arise whenever a man's duty to obey clashes with his personal assessment of operational necessity.

At 0800 hours on 29th December Count Sponeck ordered 46th Infantry Division to disengage itself from the enemy at Kerch, to proceed to the Parpach Isthmus by forced marches, and "to attack the enemy at Feodosiya and throw him into the sea." He sent a signal to Army informing it of his move, and then ordered his wireless station to be dismantled.

So much for Count Sponeck's strategic and tactical considerations. They made sense, they were sober and courageous. There was not a trace of cowardice, indecision, or guilty conscience.

In a temperature of 40 degrees below zero Centigrade, in an icy blizzard, the battalions of 46th Infantry Division, the anti-aircraft units, the sappers, and the gunners moved off. The distance they had to move was 75 miles. Only occasionally was a fifteen-minute halt called to issue hot coffee to the troops. They marched for forty-six hours. Many were frost-bitten in their fingertips, toes, and noses. Most of the horses were not shod for the winter and were emaciated. They collapsed exhausted. Guns were abandoned on the icy roads.

While the regiments of 46th Infantry Division were thus withdrawing under appalling hardships but nevertheless in good order, Manstein set into motion his plan of first taking Fort Stalin at Sevastopol and then coming to Count Sponeck's aid. The companies of 16th Infantry Regiment were getting ready for the final assault. The ramparts of the fort rose steep and sinister above the tangle of barbed-wire obstacles and trenches. Noiselessly the German assault detachment had cut their way through the wire. A red flare swished upward. German artillery began to fire smoke- shells in order to unsight the Russians.