Battle of Sevastopol
From Freepedia
| Battle of Sevastopol | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Image:Eastern Front 1941-12 to 1942-05.png The Eastern Front at the time of the siege of Sevastopol'. (click to enlarge) | |||
| Conflict: World War II | |||
| Date: October 30, 1941-July 4, 1942 | |||
| Place: Crimean Peninsula | |||
| Outcome: German victory | |||
| Combatants | |||
| Germany | Soviet Union | ||
| Commanders | |||
| Erich von Manstein | Filipp Oktyabrskiy, Ivan Petrov | ||
| Strength | |||
| 350,000+ | 106,000 | ||
| Casualties | |||
| around 50,000 (24,111 7 June to 4 July 1942) | 90,000 to 95,000 POWs, 6,000 to 11,000 KIA | ||
| |||
Image:The defence of Sevastopol.jpg The Battle of Sevastopol (commonly known as оборона Севастополя in Russian) was fought from October 30, 1941 to July 4, 1942 between Germans and USSR to capture the main Soviet naval base on the Black Sea during World War II.
Forces
The German 11th Army was besiging Sevastopol; commanded by Erich von Manstein, it consisted of seven German infantry divisions in two corps, and one Romanian rifle corps, plus various supporting elements including 150 tanks, several hundred aircraft, and one of the heaviest concentrations of artillery fielded by the Wehrmacht.
The defence of Sevastopol have been provided mainly by the Black Sea Fleet and the Maritime Army. The city garrison numbered one brigade, three regiments and 19 battalions of marine corps (ca. 23,000 men, ~150 field and coast guns and 82 aircrafts) was commanded by B. A. Borisov. 82 pillboxes with naval guns, 220 machine-gun earth-and-timber emplacements and pillboxes, 33 km of the tank ditches, 56 km of the wire entanglements and 9,600 mines have been launched to improve the defence.
Battle
At the first attempt of the German assault two infantry divisions and one motorized brigade tried to burst into the city from the north, north-east and east. On November 7 four soldiers of marine corps have been noted by injuring ten German tanks.
On November 11 60,000 Axis soldiers launched another attack, but after ten days were forced to stop. The Germans moved in their largest artillery piece, the 31-and-a-half inch gun Schwerer Gustav. The Wehrmacht began a five-day artillery barrage of the city, including toxic gas to get the Russians out of their holes and bunkers. This was one of the few uses of chemical weaponry during the war. On December 17 six German infantry divisions and two Romanian brigades with 1,275 guns and mortars, over 150 tanks and 300 aircrafts launched the second attack. However by January 4, 1942 almost every Axis unit was stopped again by Soviet counter-attacks.
On May 21 the Germans launched bombing and bombardment of the city, which was . On June 7, 942 XXX Panzer Corps and the Rumanian Third Army launched their assault on the secondary defensive line.
Final Days
As the German 11 Army closed in, the Soviet Staff ordered important generals and admirals onto submarines to escape the city. Actually the city fell after the defeat at the Inkerman Heights on June 29. The Cruiser "Chervona Ukraina" ("Red Ukraine"), four torpedo-boat destroyers, four cargo ships and submarines "С-32" и "Щ-214" have been lost. The soldiers manning the bunkers fought on even after their installations had been ripped apart by artillery fire. Toxic smoke forced the troops out into the open, where fire from tanks and the artillery cut them down. Even with this impressive support, the Germans still took twenty-seven days to finish seizing the city proper. On 4 July, Sevastopol was secured, but Russian troops still held out in the caves around the peninsula until the ninth of July. However, this had been a great waste of time for the Germans: the assault on Stalingrad, Operation "Blau", was just beginning, and the Sixth Army (under Friedrich Paulus) would be on its own.
