Hitler Moves East, 1941-1943 (80 page)

The Soviet front in the isthmus had a curious shape: in its southern part it ran dead straight to the north, but in its northern part there was a big bulge to the west. This had originally been formed after the Soviets had dislodged the Rumanian 18th Division in the whiter, and German battalions had only just been able to seal off the Soviet penetration.

The obvious move would have been to strike at the flank of this bulge. But just because it was the obvious solution— and because the Russians expected it and had concentrated two Armies as well as nearly all their reserves in this sector

—Manstein resisted the temptation. The fact that he chose a different plan again showed him to be one of the outstanding strategists of the Second World War.

Naturally, Manstein did everything to confirm enemy reconnaissance in the belief that he was going to strike in the north. Dummy artillery emplacements were built, troop movements were staged in the northern and central sectors of the front, radio signals intended for the enemy's monitoring service were sent out, and dummy reconnaissance actions were carried out.

But Manstein meanwhile was preparing to attack at the other end, in the southern sector of the line. The
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Army Corps under Lieutenant-General Maximilian Fretter-Pico was to punch a hole with its three infantry divisions—the 50th, the 28th Light, and the 132nd—into the line of the Soviet Forty-fourth Army. After that the 22nd Panzer Division under Major-General Wilhelm von Apell, as well as a motorized brigade under Colonel von Groddeck, was to sweep through this breach deep into the Soviet hinterland in order subsequently to turn to the north, enveloping the Soviet forces, and then break through farther to the east.

It was a bold plan—five infantry divisions and one Panzer division against three Armies. Stuka formations of VIII Air Corps under Colonel-General Freiherr von Richthofen and units of Major-General Pickert's 9th Flak Division were available to support the infantry. Heavy Army artillery was brought over from Sevastopol for a concentrated bombardment.

To deal with the main obstacle, the anti-tank ditch, Man-stein had thought up a particularly cunning move.

There was a great deal of strange activity on the beach east of Feodosiya during the night of 7th/8th May. Assault craft were being pushed into the water, and sappers and infantrymen of the Bavarian 132nd Infantry Division were getting in. But the engines remained silent. Boat after boat glided noiselessly away from the shore, propelled only by paddling. Soon the mysterious flotilla had been swallowed up by the night—four assault companies bobbing about on the Black Sea. Towards 0200 hours they were drifting along the coast to the east.

At 0315, like some primordial thunder-clap, the German artillery opened fire. Heavy mortars thundered, rocket batteries whined, AA guns hammered. Fire, smoke, and morning haze veiled the southern sector of the Parpach Isthmus. Stukas roared overhead and plummeted down. Their bombs tore into strongpoints and wire obstacles.

At 0325 hours pairs of white signals went up everywhere: the infantry was attacking. Right in front went the sappers. Theirs was the worst job—removing the mines and cutting the wire, always under enemy fire.

The Russians were putting up a barrage from all weapons. The Soviet machine-gunners behind the firing-slits of their pillboxes merely had to squeeze the trigger. They did not have to take aim. Their guns were emplaced for cross-fire, covering between them the entire forefield. All they had to do was shoot.

Soviet naval guns opened up. Mortars plopped. Shells, bombs, and bullets swept over the narrow neck of land across which the Germans must attack. Surely there was no other approach.

The moment the German artillery bombardment began the assault boats off the coast started up their engines. The Russians could not possibly hear the engine noise now.

Swift as arrows the boats streaked to the coast—towards the precise spot where the Soviet anti-tank ditch ran into the sea, wide as a barngate and filled with water.

The assault boats simply sailed into the ditch. The men leapt out and immediately started firing their machine-guns from their hips. The Soviets in their infantry dug-outs along the edge of the ditch were mown down before they even realized what was happening.

But there a built-in Russian flame-thrower opened up. The first German wave pressed themselves to the ground. They were pinned down.

A Messerschmidt fighter was coming in at low level from the sea. It roared along the trench, its guns blazing, and forced the Soviets to take cover.

The men of the German assault-boat commando leapt to their feet and burst into the trench. The first Russians raised their hands. There was utter confusion.

On the left of 132nd Infantry Division, along both sides of the Feodosiya-Kerch road, the 49th Jäger Regiment of the Silesian 28th Light Infantry Division was meanwhile working its way through the minefields. Captain Grève was leading the spearhead of 1st Battalion south of the road. He was racing through the enemy fire, along the narrow cleared lanes through the minefield.

The division had been assigned some self-propelled guns from Assault Gun Battalion 190. Lieutenant Buff, in charge of three of these steel fortresses, was advancing alongside the 1st Battalion, providing fire cover for Greve's men.

By 0430 hours the Jägers had reached the anti-tank ditch. Panting, the captain was lying by the edge. Sergeant Scheidt with his machine-gun was firing right and left. Sappers came running up with an assault ladder. Grève was the first to slide down into the ditch.

Major Kutzner, the commander of the 2nd Battalion, was severely wounded by the "Tartar Hill." There the Soviets had emplaced the anti-tank guns of an entire anti-tank regiment. The situation was saved by Second Lieutenant Fürnschuss with his self-propelled guns of Assault Gun Battalion 190. His 7-5-cm. long-barrel cannon shot up the Russian antitank guns.

First Lieutenant Reissner was charging at the head of his 7th Company. He ran through heavy enemy artillery-fire and flung himself down. He leapt to his feet again and ran on. There was the anti-tank ditch. Its edge had been smashed by gunfire. Reissner let himself roll down. A burst from a machine pistol cut him down. Though wounded, he continued to wave his Jägers on against the Soviet infantry dugout.

The 50th Infantry Division, on the left flank of the penetration area, was advancing through minefields and wire obstacles. Well-camouflaged machine-gun positions, which had survived the artillery barrage, caught them in enfilading and cross fire. The 1st Bataillon, 123rd Infantry Regiment, suffered heavy casualties and was halted.

Lieutenant-Colonel von Viebahn, the regimental commander, was obliged to tackle the Soviet machine-gun posts by an attack at right angles to the front. By nightfall the 3rd Battalion eventually succeeded in penetrating as far as the anti-tank ditch.

Second Lieutenant Reimann with his 9th Company and parts of 10th Company, likewise put under his command, rolled up the Soviet positions along the ditch from the regiment's right wing as far as Lake Parpach; in furious hand-to- hand fighting he silenced all the machine-gun emplacements and strongpoints built into the anti-tank ditch and finally blasted the walls of the ditch to enable German armour to cross. The key obstacle of the Soviet defences had thus been taken along the whole front of the attack.

The companies of Colonel von Groddeck's Motorized Brigade—composed of Rumanian and German units, such as the Reconnaissance Detachment of 22nd Infantry Division— had managed, on the very afternoon of the first day of the attack, to reach the seashore in the sector of 132nd Infantry Division at the spot where earlier that day the assault boats had seized the anti-tank ditch, to clear the obstacle by quickly built crossings and to strike at the rear of the Soviet positions.

The spearheads of 22nd Panzer Division meanwhile were still waiting for their order to attack. But not until mid- morning of 9th May had the bridgeheads in the sector of the 28th Light and 50th Infantry Divisions been sufficiently enlarged to allow the rest of the units to be brought forward.

The Panzer companies and armoured cars deployed rapidly, burst into the Soviets' second and third lines of defence, broke all resistance, reached the road bend to Arma-Eli, and crashed right into the assembly area of a Soviet armoured brigade.

As if the move had been rehearsed, six steel giants of Assault Gun Battalion 190 under Captain Peitz arrived on the scene at exactly the same moment. Before the Soviets could take up position they were smashed by the German tanks and assault guns.

As planned, 22nd Panzer Division now turned northward, behind the front of the two Soviet Armies which were still engaged with the Franconian-Sudeten 46th Infantry Division and the Rumanian brigades. Everything went according to Manstein's plan. But then abruptly the pattern changed. In the late afternoon of 9th May heavy spring rain began to fall. Within a few hours the tracks and the clay soil had turned into a bottomless morass. Jeeps and lorries were completely bogged down, and only tracked vehicles were able to make any progress. It was now Manstein's will against the forces of nature.

The armoured fighting vehicles of 22nd Panzer Division continued to struggle forward until late at night, and then took up position for all-round defence. Thus, when a clear day dawned on the following morning, 10th May, they were already deep in the flank and rear of the Soviet Fifty-first Army. A Soviet relief attack with strong armoured forces was repulsed. Wind sprang up and soon dried the soil. The division moved on towards the north. On llth May it was at Ak-Monay by the sea, and thus in the rear of the Soviet Forty-seventh Army. Ten Russian divisions were in the bag.

The remainder fled eastward. With this bold stroke the 22nd Panzer Division had wiped out a blot on its escutcheon— a blot dating back to 20th March 1942. On that day the newly organized Division, dispatched to the Crimea by the High Command of the Army without a single divisional exercise or even a test of co-operation between its formations, had been employed by Eleventh Army for a counter-attack on the Parpach front.

In the morning mist the formations had encountered Soviet forces preparing for an attack; they had got confused and had been shot up by the enemy. Field-Marshal von Manstein later admitted that it had been a mistake to send such an inexperienced division into a major operation. But what use was this admission by the Commander-in-Chief? Among the front-line formations of Eleventh Army the 22nd Panzer Division had been looked down upon since 20th March. Among the High Command of the Army it had likewise been in bad odour since that day. All the gallantry displayed by the division during the later part of the winter had been of no avail: the stigma of 20th March continued, unjustly, to stick to them.

Meanwhile Colonel von Groddeck and his fast brigade were boldly chasing eastward and preventing the Russians from establishing a line farther back. Wherever Soviet regiments tried to dig in von Groddeck struck. And then he raced on.

When the brigade had driven 30 miles deep into the hinterland and quite unexpectedly arrived at the "Tartar Ditch"— far behind the headquarters of Lieutenant-General D. T. Kozlov, the Commander-in-Chief Soviet Army Group Crimean Front—the Soviet command lost its nerve. Troops and headquarters disintegrated. Along the roads vast columns of fleeing formations were moving in the direction of Kerch, towards the eastern coasts of the peninsula.

From there they hoped to save themselves across the straits to the mainland.

Desperately, Soviet tactical reserves attempted to halt the German spearheads, to enable as many formations as possible of the vast numbers accumulating on the beaches of the Kerch Peninsula to be ferried across to the mainland in motor-boats and light craft. They were hoping to repeat the feat accomplished by the British at Dunkirk almost exactly two years before.

But Manstein had no intention of having his victory diminished by any Soviet Dunkirk. He sent his armoured and motorized units, as well as Major-General Sander's North German 170th Infantry Division with 213th Infantry Regiment, to pursue and overtake the retreating Russians. But Colonel von Groddeck was no longer of the party. He had been severely wounded, and died of his wounds shortly afterwards. On 16th May Kerch was reached. The Soviet High Command did not succeed in pulling off a Dunkirk. Stalin was unable to save his Armies. The assault guns of
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Army Corps, of Assault Gun Battalions 190, 197, and 249, soon put an end to the enemy's improvised naval transports.

The prize of the victory was 170,000 prisoners, 1133 guns, and 258 tanks. Three Soviet Armies had been defeated by half a dozen German divisions in eight days.

Early in the morning of 17th May Manstein and Colonel-General Freiherr von Richthofen were standing on a slight hill near Kerch. Before them lay the sea, the Kerch Strait, and beyond, barely 12 miles away, under a brilliant sun was the shore of the Tarnan Peninsula, the approaches to Asia, the gate to the Caucasus. With his victory Manstein had burst open the back-door to Stalin's fabulous oilfields.