The Battle for the Crimea (23 April – 5 June)
As the armored vehicles of the Sixth SS Panzer Army arrived at the coast and signaled the success of their mission, four panzer and two motorized divisions struck west. The Red Army had yet been able to construct new defenses to face the penetration across the river, rather their positions faced north. The armored strike was swift, crashing through the flank of unprepared Soviet formations. Around 14,000 prisoners were taken in the process, two whole divisions.
With the next series of towns secure, six mobile divisions leapfrogged ahead and attacked the next set. The Red Army had by now rapidly prepared defensive positions. The Soviets held on just long enough to allow the majority of their force to retreat west. Once the next set of towns was taken, the process repeated: Six divisions – four armored and two mobile infantry – attacked, seized the next series of towns and were then replaced by fresh formations. The Red Army did their best to conduct a fighting retreat and very few men were left behind.
The bloodbath of Chaplynka
At Chaplynka the Soviets made their final stand and attempted to halt the advance on the Crimea. Along a fifty mile front of farmland, 150,000 Soviet soldiers rapidly dug-in facing east to meet our onslaught. It was a brave gesture and their resistance did slow the advance down. The same tactics that had been used over the previous week were used again: six divisions attacked, rapidly penetrating into the Soviet defensive line. Instead of forcing the Red Army to withdraw further west, it forced the various Soviet units into the small villages and other areas that had been fortified and dominated the road network. What followed was a bloodbath. Concentrated artillery and tank fire leveled the small villages, as panzergrenadiers went house to house clearing out the defenders all to open up the roads for the continued advance. On 7 May, Soviet resistance ended and two days later the lead tanks entered the Crimea.
The "Kherson" redoubt
The Red Army troopers who had escaped the previous battle either fled onto the peninsula, or into the farmland south of Kherson. The latter had rapidly been turned into a redoubt. A small force was left to mask this area from the east, while the main panzer force drove into the Crimea with the goal of seizing Kerch and halting any possible escape. As the panzers drove south, the infantry of Twelfth and Fourteenth armies crossed the Dnieper to launch an assault on the "Kherson
redoubt. To further trouble the Red Army, and to improve our position south of the Dnieper, Ninth Army launched a massive attack to take Tokmak and Melitopol thus endangering the southern flank of the city of Zaporizhzhya.
Ninth Army infantry prepare to attack.
For nine days, artillery fire poured into the Soviet redoubt while the infantry assembled for the assault. Then, once the infantry had assembled, they advanced into the Red Army position. Token resistance was offered and on the 20th, officers from the redoubt offered its surrender along with over 65,000 men.
In the meantime, the panzers rolled out across the Crimea and a panzergrenadier division attempted to rapidly take the major city of Sevastopol. The Red Army had marshaled a large force to garrison the city, and it sortied out to upset our own plans. Likewise, on the other side of the peninsula, a force had gathered to defend the road to Kerch. While the main objective had been to seize Kerch to stop the Red Army escaping with too many men, this was now no longer possible. Rather, a major effort was made to reach the southern coast to isolate Sevastopol from Kerch and any reinforcements. The intention had then been to focus on Kerch; however the Sevastopol garrison was unusually aggressive for Soviet soldiers. They launched numerous attacks and attempted to liberate as much territory as possible. This dictated a change of plan and an assault on the city by the numerous panzergrenadiers that had surrounded her. A prolonged battle ensured: one that the Soviets had no hope of winning. Heavy and determined resistance was offered, however the Soviets had not prepared for a siege of the city. After ten days, on the 24th, and running out of ammunition, the Red Army garrison – close to 60,000 men – surrendered.
Panzergrenadiers during the battle of Kerch, surrounded by knocked out Soviet tanks.
The following day, the Red Army started evacuating from Kerch. The majority of the panzer divisions moved north to marshaling areas and rail stations to transfer to the area around Kiev. Infantry moved up to relieve the panzer and panzergrenadier divisions at Kerch, and then they too started the process of transferring to Kiev. The infantry then continued to the battle to drive the Soviets from the Crimea. While the outcome of the battle was clear, it still took until 5 June for the fighting to be wrapped up. Due to how the Red Army had conducted the campaign on the peninsula, they were able to withdraw most of their forces from Kerch.
During planning it was envisioned that around 30 divisions (over 200,000) would be destroyed as a result of the operation. With the fall of the Crimea, the total number of prisoners taken since the start of the operation had reached nearly 140,000 men, not including the unknown number of Red Army soldiers who had went ‘missing’ as a result of the rapid advance our panzers had made. In addition, sources suggested that the Red Army had lost close to 160,000 casualties as a result of the fighting. The operation was therefore achieving its goals, although thus far at the high price of 86,000 men (close to the one third of the expected casualties to be sustained during the year).