As a child, I heard from my father about that cruel, tragic ending in Sevastopol, the area of the 35th coastal battery and Cape Chersonesos, at the final stage of the defense in early July 1942. He, a young lieutenant, an aircraft mechanic of the Black Sea Fleet Air Force, managed to survive in that “human meat grinder”. He returned and liberated his native Sevastopol from the Nazis in May 1944.
My father was not very fond of talking about the war, but I continued to collect materials about the last days of the defense, and fate presented me with an unexpected gift. Among the documents of the State Archives of Sevastopol were “Memoirs of a participant in the defense of Sevastopol I. A. Bazhanov about the evacuation of a group of Air Force workers from the besieged Sevastopol on July 2, 1942 , where he, as an eyewitness, describes a story with a seaplane, which almost completely coincided with my childhood memories.
Now you can more reliably, comparing facts from other sources, in detail to imagine how everything really happened. Bazhanov gives the names, and among them is the name of my father. “… Among the evacuees were: Major Pustylnikov, Art. technical lieutenant Stepanchenko, Art. Lieutenant Medvedev, Captain Polovinko, Captain Krutko, Captain Lyanev, Art. Lieutenant Fedorov and others. There were girls with us, medical workers: Nina Legenchenko, Fira Golberg, Riva Keifman, Dusya … "The commander of the crew of the amphibious aircraft GST (" Catalina ") - Captain Malakhov, co-pilot - Art. Lieutenant Kovalev. When boarding the plane, there were 32 people, "… for the GTS this is a big overload", but to stay meant to die, and Captain Malakhov decided to take everyone. After a dangerous flight and a forced landing on the water in the open sea, after repeated raids by enemy aircraft that dropped a total of 19 bombs on the helpless amphibious aircraft, they finally reached Novorossiysk - everyone was saved by the Shield minesweeper under the command of Lieutenant Commander Gerngross …
Thus, my childhood memories were unexpectedly documented. And yet, somewhere, in the depths of my soul, an aching feeling of bitterness and resentment for our fathers and grandfathers smoldered. I think that not only me, but also more than one generation of Sevastopol residents asked the question: "Was it really impossible to organize an evacuation, to avoid mass death and shameful captivity of tens of thousands of heroic defenders of our city?"
WAITING FOR RESCUE
In the last days of the defense, people pressed to the sea, soldiers and commanders, civilians, vainly awaited the "squadron" as the only hope for salvation. Desperate, many fought. They tried to escape on homemade rafts, boards, swam into the sea, drowned. From July 1 to July 10, boats, planes and submarines managed to take out to the Caucasus part of the wounded and, with the permission of the Headquarters, on the night of July 1, the command of the Sevastopol Defense Region (SOR), party activists and the city leadership. A total of 1726 people. Major General P. G. Novikov, his assistant for naval issues (evacuation organization) - Captain 3rd Rank Ilyichev. There were 78,230 soldiers and commanders left, not counting civilians. Most of them were injured. But the evacuation did not take place. They were all captured or died in arms.
Why did it happen? After all, the same commanders, Petrov, Oktyabrsky, planned and more than successfully carried out the evacuation of the defenders of Odessa from October 1 to October 15, 1941. It was taken out: 86 thousand servicemen with weapons, 5941 wounded, 570 guns, 938 vehicles, 34 tanks, 22 aircraft and 15 thousand.civilian population. Only on the last night, in ten hours, "under the noses" of the Germans, four divisions with heavy weapons (38 thousand people) were evacuated from their positions. After the defeat of the Crimean Front in May 1942, Oktyabrsky, having pulled together for the evacuation of three armies from the nearest bases all boats, minesweepers, tugs, barges, launches, took from Kerch to Taman from 15 to 20 May more than 130 thousand people (42 324 wounded, 14 thousand civilians), aircraft, Katyushas, guns, cars and 838 tons of cargo. In the face of fierce opposition from the Germans, using naval aviation from the Caucasian airfields for cover. The instructions of the Supreme Command Headquarters for the evacuation were fulfilled. The military follows orders. Evacuation is impossible without an order.
Then, in the spring of 1942, the situation on the fronts was critical. The defeat at Rzhev and Vyazma, the defeat of our troops at Kharkov, the unhindered offensive of the Wehrmacht on Stalingrad and the North Caucasus. To realize the whole tragedy of the current situation, when the fate of our people “hung in the balance”, it is enough to thoughtfully read the order of the NGO No. 227, known as “Not a step back!”. It was necessary to gain time at any cost, to delay the advance of the Germans, to prevent the enemy from seizing Baku and Grozny (oil). Here, in Sevastopol, units of the Wehrmacht were "ground up", the fate of Stalingrad was decided, the foundations of the Great Breakthrough were laid in World War II.
EVACUATION AND DO NOT THINK
Now, when materials from our and German archives are available, one can compare losses in the last days of defense, ours in 1942 and German in 1944, as well as evacuation issues. It is clear that the issue of our evacuation was not even considered in advance. Moreover, in the directive of the Military Council of the North Caucasian Front of May 28, 1942 No. 00201 / op it was categorically said: “1. Warn the entire command, Red Army and Red Navy personnel that Sevastopol must be held at any cost. There will be no crossing to the Caucasian coast … 3. In the fight against alarmists and cowards, do not stop at the most decisive measures."
Even five days before the start of the third offensive (June 2-6), the Germans began massive air and fire training, conducting methodical, corrected artillery fire. These days, Luftwaffe aircraft made more sorties than in the entire previous seven-month period of defense (3,069 sorties), and dropped 2,264 tons of bombs on the city. And at dawn on June 7, 1942, the Germans launched an offensive along the entire front of the SOR, periodically changing the direction of the main attack, trying to mislead our command. Bloody battles ensued, often turning into hand-to-hand combat. They fought for every inch of land, for every bunker, for every trench. The lines of defense passed from hand to hand several times.
After five days of intense, exhausting fighting, the German offensive began to fizzle out. The Germans flew 1,070 sorties, dropped 1,000 tons of bombs, and lost 10,300 killed and wounded. In some units, losses were up to 60%. In one company by the evening there were only 8 soldiers and 1 officer. A critical situation developed with ammunition. According to V. von Richthofen himself, the commander of the 8th Luftwaffe Aviation Corps, he had only one and a half days of intensive bombardment left. The situation with aviation gasoline was no better. As Manstein, commander of the 11th Army of the Wehrmacht in Crimea, wrote, "the fate of the offensive these days seemed to hang in the balance."
On June 12, the command of the SOR received a welcoming telegram from the Supreme Commander-in-Chief I. V. Stalin: “… The selfless struggle of the Sevastopol people serves as an example of heroism for the entire Red Army and the Soviet people. I am confident that the glorious defenders of Sevastopol will honor their duty to the Motherland. It seemed that the preponderance of forces would be on our side.
Could the commander of the SOR F. S. Oktyabrsky raise the issue of planning the evacuation of troops? After the war, the commander-in-chief of the Navy N. G. Kuznetsov will write that until the last moment there was confidence that Sevastopol could be held. “… In such a grandiose battle that took place for Sevastopol, no one could have foreseen when a critical situation would arise. The order of the Headquarters, the entire course of the military situation of those days on the fronts demanded to fight in Sevastopol to the last opportunity, and not think about evacuation. Otherwise, Sevastopol would not have played its big role in the struggle for the Caucasus and, indirectly, for Stalingrad. Manstein's army would not have suffered such losses and would have been transferred earlier to a new important direction. When the Germans moved to the last lines of the Sevastopol residents at Cape Chersonesos and the entire water area began to be shot through, it became impossible to send transports or warships there …. And least of all, the local command should be blamed for lack of foresight, which was instructed to fight to the last possible … in an atmosphere of intense fighting, they could not engage in the development of an evacuation plan. All their attention was focused on repelling enemy attacks. " And further: "… no other authority should have taken care of the defenders of Sevastopol as the Main Naval Headquarters under the leadership of the People's Commissar … nothing exempts us, the naval leaders in Moscow, from responsibility."
By June 20, the Germans had dropped over 15 thousand tons of aerial bombs on the city, having exhausted all their reserves. Instead of bombs, they began to drop rails, barrels, locomotive wheels from planes. The assault could have drowned. But the Germans received reinforcements (three infantry regiments and the 46th division from the Kerch Peninsula) and managed to bring up 6 thousand tons of bombs they had seized in the warehouses of the Crimean Front destroyed at the end of May. The superiority of forces was on the side of the enemy. On the night of June 28-29, the Nazis secretly crossed to the southern coast of the Sevastopol Bay with the forces of two divisions (22nd and 24th Infantry Divisions) and found themselves in the rear of our troops. The German offensive from the front did not diminish. The defense of the outer borders has lost all meaning. The Germans did not engage in street battles; artillery and aircraft operated. They dropped leaflets, small incendiary and heavy high-explosive bombs, methodically destroying the burning city. Later Manstein wrote: "On the whole, in World War II, the Germans never achieved such a massive use of artillery as in the attack on Sevastopol." On June 29 at 22 o'clock, the command of the SOR and the Primorsky Army switched to the 35th coastal battery (BB) - the reserve command post of the fleet. Our units began to withdraw there, with battles.
INSURANCE CIRCUMSTANCES
Was evacuation possible, in principle, under conditions of a blockade from the sea and from the air, under continuous shelling and bombing strikes, with complete air supremacy of enemy aviation?
The range of our aviation from the airfields of the Caucasus and Kuban did not allow us to use it for air cover. Over the next five days, 450-500 aircraft of the 8th Air Corps of General von Richthofen continuously, day and night, bombed the city. In the air were, replacing each other, at the same time 30-60 enemy aircraft. It was possible to load boats only at night, and summer nights are short, but the Germans bombed at night, using illuminating bombs. A huge mass of people (about 80 thousand people) have accumulated on a narrow strip - only 900-500 meters - of the unequipped coast, near the 35th BB and Cape Chersonesos. There were also civilians of the city - in the hope of a planned (according to rumors) evacuation. The Germans from the Konstantinovsky Ravelin, from the other side of the Sevastopol Bay, illuminated the runway of the Chersonesos airfield with a searchlight. Almost every bomb, every shell found its victim. The summer heat was unbearable. There was a persistent cadaveric smell in the air. Hordes of flies swarmed. There was practically no food. But most of all, people suffered from thirst. Many tried to drink sea water, they immediately vomited. They saved themselves by drinking their own urine (who had it), filtering it through rags. German artillery shot through the entire body of water, the approach of ships was impossible. The time for the evacuation was irrevocably lost. This was understood both at the General Headquarters and at the headquarters of the North Caucasian Front, but they did everything that was really possible in that difficult, critical situation.
The signalmen of the 35th BB received Budyonny's directive at 22:30. 30 June. "1. By order of the Headquarters to Oktyabrsky, Kulakov urgently leave for Novorossiysk to organize the removal of the wounded, troops, valuables from Sevastopol. 2. Major General Petrov remains the commander of the SOR. To help him, assign the commander of the landing base as an assistant with the naval headquarters. 3. Major General Petrov immediately develop a plan for the sequential withdrawal to the loading sites of the wounded and the units allocated for the transfer in the first place. The remnants of the troops to conduct a stubborn defense, on which the success of the export depends. 4. Everything that cannot be exported is subject to unconditional destruction. 5. The SOR Air Force operates to the limit of its ability, after which it flies over to the Caucasian airfields."
While the encryption was being processed and looking for General Petrov, he and his headquarters were already at sea, on the submarine Sch-209. Petrov tried to shoot himself. The surrounding did not give, took away the pistol. At the same time, the headquarters of the Black Sea Fleet in Novorossiysk (Rear Admiral Eliseev) received an order: “1. All the MO boats, submarines, patrol boats and high-speed minesweepers in service, should be sent to Sevastopol to take out the wounded, soldiers and documents. 2. Before the Oktyabrsky arrives in Novorossiysk, the organization is assigned to you. 3. On passing flights, bring in ammunition needed by the defenders to cover the export. Stop sending replenishment. 4. For the entire period of the operation to evacuate the Black Sea Fleet Air Force to maximize strikes against enemy airfields and the port of Yalta, from which the blockade forces operate."
July 1 at 23 hours 45 minutes at the 35th BB received a telegram from Novorossiysk: “… Keep the battery and Chersonesos. I will send ships. October . Then the signalmen destroyed ciphers, codes and equipment. Communication with the Caucasus was lost. Our units, finding themselves in a complete blockade, pressed by the Germans to the sea, occupying a perimeter defense, repelled attacks from their last strength at the cost of heavy losses. At 00 h. 35 min. On July 2, by order of the command, after firing the last shells and blank charges, the 1st tower of the 35th BB was blown up, at 1 h. 10 min. the 2nd tower was blown up. People were waiting for the arrival of ships as the last hope for salvation.
Weather conditions also played a negative role. So, out of 12 aircraft of the Black Sea Fleet Air Force that took off from the Caucasus on the night of July 1 to 2, 10 ICBMs could not splash down. There was a big roll-off. The planes flew up to the airfield in full blackout mode, but there was no conditional signal for landing - the airfield attendant was seriously injured by another shell burst, and the planes turned back. At the last moment, the commander of the 12th air base, Major V. I. The dumper gave a searchlight for a second to the zenith, in the direction of the departing planes. The two managed to return and sit down in Kamyshovaya Bay by the light of the moon, almost blindly, under the noses of the Germans. The twin-engine transport aircraft "Chaika" (commander Captain Naumov) took 40 people, GST-9 "Katalina" (commander Captain Malakhov) - 32 people, of which 16 were wounded and paramedics headed by the chief medical officer of the 2nd rank Korneev, and servicemen of the 12th airbase Air Force Black Sea Fleet. My father was on this plane too.
In the area of Yalta and Foros, our ships fell into the combat zone of Italian torpedo boats (Mokkagata group). In the final it was the Italians on July 9 who carried out the cleaning of the casemates of the 35th BB and the capture of its last defenders. There is a version that they were helped from the inside by an Abwehr agent KG-15 (Sergei Tarov) who was among our fighters.
AGENTS SOWED PANIC
On July 4, Budyonny, at the direction of the Supreme Command Headquarters, sent a telegram to the Black Sea Fleet Military Council: “There are still many separate groups of fighters and commanders on the coast of the SOR who continue to resist the enemy. It is necessary to take all measures to evacuate them, sending small ships and sea planes. The motivation of the sailors and pilots of the impossibility of approaching the shore because of the waves is incorrect, you can pick up people without going to the shore, take them on board 500-1000 m from the shore."
But the Germans have already blocked all approaches to the coast from land, from the air and from the sea. The minesweepers No. 15 and No. 16 that left on July 2, patrol boats No. 015, No. 052, No. 078, submarines D-4 and Shch-215 did not reach Sevastopol. Attacked by planes and torpedo boats, having received damage, they were forced to return to the Caucasus. Two boats, SKA-014 and SKA-0105, in the area of Cape Sarych found our boat SKA-029, which fought off enemy aircraft for several hours. Of the 21 crew members of the boat, 12 were killed and 5 wounded, but the battle continued. The wounded were removed from the damaged SKA-209 and the boat was towed to Novorossiysk. And there were many such episodes.
All attempts to break into the mountains to the partisans were unsuccessful. Until July 12, our fighters, in groups and alone, half-dead from thirst and hunger, from wounds and fatigue, with practically bare hands, butts, knives, stones, fought with enemies, preferring to die in battle.
The situation was also aggravated by the active work of German agents. There was no continuous front line since June 29, when the Nazis at night, secretly crossed over to the southern side of the Sevastopol Bay and attacked our defenses from the rear. German agents dressed in civilian clothes or Red Army uniforms, fluently and immaculately fluent in Russian (former emigrants, Russified Germans, defectors), who underwent special training in the Brandenburg special purpose regiment, from the 6th company of the 2nd battalion of this regiment, together with the retreating units and the population withdrew to the area of the 35th BB and Cape Chersonesos. The Germans, knowing that during the days of the defense, the replenishment was mainly from the fighters mobilized in the Caucasus, additionally used a special Abwehr RDG "Tamara", formed from the number of Georgian emigrants who know Georgian and other languages of the Caucasus. Enemy agents, rubbing into confidence, sowed panic, defeatist sentiments, hostility to the command, urged to shoot in the backs of commanders and commissars, go over to the Germans, guaranteeing life and rations. They were identified by conversations, by well-fed faces, by clean linen and killed on the spot. But, apparently, not always. Until now, it is not clear who gave signals from different parts of the coast with a flashlight, Morse code, semaphore without a signature, introducing confusion, confusing the commanders of boats approaching the coast in conditions of complete blackout, in search of places for loading the wounded and remaining soldiers.
LIBERATION OF SEVASTOPOL
How did the situation develop for the Germans on May 8-12, 1944? The command of the 17th Army in advance, since November 1943, developed options for a possible evacuation of troops, by sea and by air. In accordance with the evacuation plans: "Ruterboot" (rowing boat), "Glaterboot" (glider) and "Adler" (eagle) - in the bays of Streletskaya, Krugla (Omega), Kamysheva, Kazachya and in the area of Cape Chersonesos, 56 berths were equipped … There was a sufficient number of motorboats, BDB and boats. In the ports of Romania, about 190 Romanian and German transports, civil and military, were at the ready. There was their German practicality, organization and vaunted German order. It was clearly scheduled - when, where, from which berth, which military unit and on which motorboat, barge or boat should be loaded. Large ships had to wait on the high seas, out of the reach of our artillery. But Hitler demanded "not to retreat, to hold every trench, every crater, every trench" and allowed the evacuation only on May 9, when our units had already taken Sapun Gora and entered the city.
The time for evacuation was lost. The result is the same "human meat grinder". Only ours fought to the last, practically with bare hands, without food and without water, for almost two weeks, and the Germans, having weapons and ammunition in abundance, surrendered as soon as it became clear that the evacuation was failing. Only the SS, covering the evacuation to m. Chersonesos, about 750 people, fiercely resisted, tried to go to sea on rafts and inflatable boats and were destroyed.
It becomes obvious that without reliable, effective air cover, it was practically impossible to organize evacuation in those specific conditions of active fire resistance, blocking from the air and sea. In 1944, the Germans lost their Crimean airfields, just like ours in 1941. Panic, chaos and complete confusion reigned under the blows of our troops. According to the testimony of the former chief of staff of the German Navy on the Black Sea G. Konradi, “on the night of May 11, panic began on the berths. The seats on the ships were taken with a fight. The ships were forced to roll off without finishing loading, as otherwise they could sink. " The command of the 17th Army was evacuated in the first place, leaving their troops behind. Nevertheless, the army filed a lawsuit against the German Navy, accusing them of the tragedy of the 17th Army. The fleet, however, referred to "large losses of conveyances due to torpedo attacks, shelling and air strikes of the enemy."
As a result, only on land, in the area of the 35th BB and Cape Chersonesos, the Germans lost more than 20 thousand people killed, and 24 361 people were taken prisoner. About 8100 Germans were killed at sea. The number of missing persons has not been precisely determined. Of the five generals of the 17th Army, only two survived, two surrendered, and the body of another was found among the dead.
It should be borne in mind that the Germans left a minimum number of troops to defend the fortress. In total, on May 3, there were about 64,700 Germans and Romanians. Most of the troops of the 17th Army, "unnecessary directly for the battle" - rear, Romanian units, prisoners of war, "hivi" and the civilian population (as a cover), were evacuated earlier, in the period from April 8 to May 5, 1944, as only our troops broke through the German defenses on the Crimean Isthmus. During the period of evacuation of the German-Romanian troops from the Crimea, the ships and aircraft of the Black Sea Fleet sunk: 69 transports, 56 BDB, 2 MO, 2 gunboats, 3 TRSC, 27 patrol boats and 32 ships of other types. A total of 191 ships. Losses - more than 42 thousand Romanian and German soldiers and officers.
With complete air supremacy of German aviation in July 1942, the same fate awaited the ships of the Black Sea Fleet. No wonder the Germans called the plan of the third assault on Sevastopol "Sturgeon fishing". Enemy air raids tragically killed the Armenia ambulance transporting hospital personnel and wounded, more than 6 thousand people, Svaneti, Abkhazia, Georgia sanitary transports, Vasily Chapaev motor ship, Mikhail Gromov tanker, cruiser "Chervona Ukraine", destroyers "Svobodny", "Capable", "Impeccable", "Merciless", leaders "Tashkent" and "Kharkov". And this is by no means a complete list of losses only from air strikes. Subsequently, the Headquarters banned the use of large ships without reliable air cover.
ABOUT ADMIRAL OCTOBER
In "independent" Ukraine, it was customary to blame our Soviet military leadership for everything - the Supreme Command Headquarters, the commander of the IDF and Admiral F. S. Oktyabrsky. It was argued that "the fighters were deceived", the command "fled in a cowardly and shameful manner", abandoning their units, and the warships, "rusty iron, smelling of needy goods", regretted, leaving them to settle in the ports of the Caucasus. The virus of hatred for the Soviet past was being introduced into the public consciousness. The real culprit of the death of the Primorsky army - E. von Manstein was replaced by the imaginary one - Admiral F. S. Oktyabrsky. Such printed publications were sold even on the territory of the 35th Coastal Battery museum complex.
Of course, from the point of view of civil morality, it was useless for our command to leave its troops. But war has its own laws, cruel, ruthless, proceeding from military expediency, to achieve the main ultimate goal - Victory. "War is like war." It takes 30-35 years to train a division commander, and a few months to train a fighter. In battle, a fighter covers his commander with his chest. This is what the Charter says (Chapter 1, Art. 1 of the UVS of the USSR Armed Forces). And this is normal in war. So it was under Suvorov, and under Kutuzov, and under Ushakov. So it was during the Great Patriotic War.
War forces you to think differently. Let us suppose that Petrov, Oktyabrsky, the Military Councils of the Primorsky Army and the SOR, the headquarters and directorates of the army and navy, would have remained to fight with units "to the last opportunity". The entire high command died heroically or would have been captured. This was beneficial only to our enemies. Oktyabrsky was not only the commander of the SOR, but also the commander of the Black Sea Fleet, and this is, in fact, the fleet itself, warships and ships. This is a large and complex fleet. Five to seven naval bases, almost as many as in the Baltic and Northern Fleet combined, naval aviation (Black Sea Fleet Air Force). Ship repair enterprises, medical and sanitary services (treatment of the wounded), ammunition depots (shells, bombs, mines, torpedoes, cartridges), technical management of the fleet, MIS, hydrography, etc. October 1941. The story did not end with the loss of Sevastopol. There were still years of bloody, merciless war ahead, in which anyone, both the admiral and the private, could die. But each has its own destiny …
Philip Sergeevich commanded the Black Sea Fleet at a very difficult time - from 1939 to 1948. Stalin “removed” him and appointed him again. He was the 1st Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the USSR Navy, the head of the ChVVMU im. P. S. Nakhimov, inspector-adviser of the USSR Ministry of Defense, deputy of the USSR Armed Forces. Despite a serious illness, he could not imagine himself outside the fleet, remained in the ranks to the end. At the request of the veterans, only in 1958 he became a Hero of the Soviet Union. A warship, a training detachment of the Navy, streets in Sevastopol, in Chisinau and in the city of Staritsa, Tver region, bear his name. He is an honorary citizen of the hero city of Sevastopol.
Through thoughtlessness or because of a vain desire to promote themselves, individual historians continue to open the “blank spots” of the dark pages”of our“terrible”past, snatching out individual facts, without taking into account the root causes and real events of that time, and young people take all this at face value. Reproaching the admiral for betrayal (abandoned the soldiers, cowardly fled), for dishonesty, these so-called "critics" who did not smell the powder to answer with dignity.
Veterans, with rare exceptions, did not at all consider themselves "abandoned, betrayed, deceived." The sergeant major of the 1st article Smirnov, who was captured at Cape Chersonesos, wrote after the war: "… they did not betray us, but they could not save us." The question was more technical: why didn't you manage to evacuate everyone? One historian "from infantry", "expert" in naval traditions, accused the admiral of breaking the tradition, "did not leave the ship last."
The entire way of naval life, combat and daily organization, the duties of officials, the rules of service for more than 300 years are determined not by traditions, but by the ship's charter and other statutory documents, starting with the five-volume "Marine Charter" of Peter I. This is that basis, that matrix from which naval traditions originated, and not vice versa. The ship's charter also contains the duties of the ship's commander during an accident (Article 166). The last item is highlighted: "The commander leaves the ship last." But before that it is clearly stated that "the commander decides to leave the ship by personnel." The commander on the ship is both "king" and "god". He is given the right to independently, single-handedly make a decision. And the means of salvation are at his fingertips, on the ship. He does not need to convene the Military Council, ask for permission from the Headquarters, or "launch the mechanism" of headquarters planning. And all this takes time - time that was not.
