I sincerely doubt the Germans were patrolling Oslo with “Tommy guns”. MP 38s or 40s, bu Tommy Guns? Taken from the Norwegians or Brits? Don’t think so.
It was 24th September 1941. Mercilessly the southern sun beat down on the featureless steppe before Perekop and lay heavily over the saline marshes of the Sivash. The Soviet 156th Rifle Division was holding its deeply staggered defenses. The central approach to the Crimea was covered by 276th Rifle Division. This division belonged to the Soviet Fifty-first Army, commanded by Colonel-General F. I. Kuznetsov.
His order was: "Not an inch of soil to be surrendered!"
But a general's order is valid only as long as his troops are alive. After a three days' battle the 46th and 73rd Infantry Divisions burst through the neck of land. They overcame the Tartar Ditch, took the strongly fortified village of Armyansk, and thus gained open ground again for deployment.
Colonel-General Kuznetsov threw his 40th and 42nd Cavalry Divisions as well as units of 271st and 106th Rifle Divisions into his last defenses along the isthmus of Ishun. The curtain was about to rise on the last act of Manstein's plan.
It was now up to the " Leibstandarte " and the Mountain Corps to complete the breakthrough and to storm the peninsula.
Victory was within reach. But for the time being the Soviet High Command was able to foil the daring plan of attack. Farther north, in the Nogay Steppe, along the anti-tank ditch before Timoshevka, there was much cautious whispering and coming and going during the night of 23rd/24th September. The regiments of 1st and 4th Mountain Divisions were being relieved for their employment in the Crimea. Rumanian mountain troops of the 1st, 2nd, and 4th Mountain Brigades were taking over the sector. Their headquarters staffs were being briefed. One German battalion after another handed over its positions to the Rumanians and moved off to the south.
"Hurry up, men; we are off to the sunny Crimea," the NCOs were urging on the companies of 91st Mountain Regiment. The men were marching at a fast pace. By the following morning they had covered 24 miles.
Of Regimental Group 13 only one battalion of infantry and one of artillery were left in their old positions. The headquarters section of 4th Mountain Division intended to move off to the Crimea with them.
"Everything ready?" Lieutenant-Colonel Schaefer, the chief of operations of 4th Mountain Division, asked Major Eder, commanding the 2nd Battalion, 94th Mountain Artillery Regiment.
"Everything ready to move off, Herr Oberstleutnant," the gunner officer replied.
"What on earth is going on over there?" Schaefer suddenly asked in surprise.
A little distance away Rumanian infantry were hurriedly pulling out of the line.
"Eder, you run across to the Rumanian Brigade HQ and ask what's happening!" Eder did not have to ask many questions.
The Rumanians were busy packing.
They were flinging their belongings up into their lorries and getting away as fast as they could. "Russian break-through," they assured him.
As though in confirmation, rifle-fire broke out near by. Alarm! The Russians are here! The Soviets evidently had got wind of the relief by Rumanian formations. With newly brought up forces of their Ninth and Eighteenth Army they attacked the covering lines of the Eleventh Army just as it was regrouping. Some units of the Rumanian Third Army retreated at once. The Russians pressed on, put the entire 4th Brigade to flight, and tore a nine-mile gap in the front.
Faced with this situation, Manstein was compelled to recall his Mountain Corps again and employ it at the penetration point.
To complete the disaster, the Soviets also achieved a breakthrough on the southern wing, at General von Salmuth's XXX Corps. A break-through in the sector of the Rumanian 5th Cavalry Brigade was sealed off by the combat group von Choltitz with units of 22nd Infantry Division, and the front propped up again. After that followed a penetration on the Corps' northern wing. The Rumanian 6th Cavalry Brigade retired. In order to clear up this new crisis the 170th Infantry Division, placed under the Mountain Corps, had to be stopped and the " Leibstandarte," which was already en route for thé Crimea, turned about and employed against the penetration.
Manstein's plan to break into the Crimea by surprise and take Sevastopol by a coup had failed.
Instead, the Eleventh Army was now in danger of being cut off from the Crimea in the Nogay Steppe, and of being encircled and possibly destroyed in the narrow strip of land between the Dnieper line and the Black Sea.
But in large-scale operations with their changing fortunes crises frequently turn into lucky chances.
The two Soviet Armies which were putting such pressure on Manstein's divisions had neglected their flank and rear cover. That was to prove their doom—and that doom was Kleist.
The 1st Panzer Group under Colonel-General von Kleist had discharged its task in the gigantic battles of encirclement at Kiev by the end of September and was then available for new operations. At Dnepropetrovsk General von Mackensen's III Panzer Corps had established and held a bridgehead over the Dnieper and Samro. From this bridgehead and from Zaporozhye Kleist broke through the Soviet defenses on the Dnieper, turned to the south in the direction of the Sea of Azov, and struck at the rear of the two Soviet Armies.
Before the Soviet High Command even realized what was happening its Armies, which had only just been on the point of annihilating Manstein's divisions, were themselves in the trap. Hunters became hunted, and offensive presently turned into flight. The battle of encirclement on the Sea of Azov raged across the Nogay Steppe, in the Chernigovka area, from 5th to 10th October.
The outcome was disastrous for the Soviets. The bulk of their Eighteenth Army was smashed between Mariupol and Berdyansk. The Army's Commander-in-Chief, Lieutenant-General Smirnov, was killed in action on 6th October 1941 and was found dead on the battlefield. More than 65,000 prisoners trudged off to the west. Two hundred and twelve tanks and 672 guns fell into German hands. It was a victory. But far too often during these past three weeks had the fate of Eleventh Army been balanced on a knife's edge. No doubt the German High Command took this bitter experience at the southern end of the Eastern Front as a warning that reliable victories could not be won with dissipated forces and inadequately coordinated operations.
At long last, therefore, Manstein received the sensible instruction to storm only the Crimea with his Eleventh Army. The capture of Rostov was assigned to Kleist's Panzer Group, to which Eleventh Army was ordered to hand over first the XLIX Mountain Corps and presently also the SS Brigade " Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler." But the decision came three weeks too late.
If this order, which at last made allowance for the actual strength of Eleventh Army, had been issued three weeks earlier the Crimea would have fallen, and Sevastopol would very probably have been taken with a surprise coup by fast formations, as envisaged in Manstein's bold plan. Three weeks are a long time in war. And turning time to good profit was one of the outstanding skills of the Soviet High Command. As it was, Manstein and his Army were now faced with a protracted and costly battle.
Tomorrow: In the Suburbs of Leningrad