Almost a hundred years ago, by a resolution of the Military Council, a four-gun battery was built on the western coast of the Balaklava Bay at Cape Kurona to protect Sevastopol. This southernmost outpost of the city's defensive line was able to reach cruisers and battleships at a distance of up to 20 kilometers.
However, the battery did not actually fulfill its main task of fighting the enemy at sea. In the fall of 1941, all four guns were turned towards the coast and for 6 months they worked almost continuously on the Wehrmacht units advancing on Sevastopol.
The Germans could not take this battery, no matter how much they tried. The defenders of the battery completely ceased their resistance on June 30, 1942, retreating along with the rest of the Red Army units defending Sevastopol.
The battery was destroyed only in 2002. They cut out and removed all the metal, leaving the concrete openings that were by no means the Wehrmacht troops gaping. This was done by our conscientious citizens.
(19 photos total)
1. In this report I will tell you about the heroic history of the battery during the Great Patriotic War and show what is left of it today.
2. The construction of the battery began in 1913-1914, by order of the Military Council dated April 14, 1912, southwest of the Balaklava Bay. The work was supervised by Colonel Petrov. By the time of the coming of Soviet power, the battery was 75% ready. In Soviet times, she was completed and armed with 152 mm guns taken from decommissioned ships. The battery was originally numbered differently - it was called battery # 10.
3. View of the battery from the Mytilino cliff. It is perfectly visible how successful the choice of its location was - the shelling sector made an impressive angle, it is located almost on the cliff itself, having a spacious approach on only one side, which can be called a minus. It was the location of the battery that largely predetermined its inaccessibility during the defense of Sevastopol in 1941-1942.
4. The battery, located on the mountain to the right of the exit from the Balaklava Bay, was installed on a concrete base and had ammunition cellars and a parapet, covering the personnel and guns from enemy fire from the sea.
5. The parapet section is a casemated room in which personnel were housed, auxiliary rooms, etc. Now teenagers love to frolic and spend the night here.
6. Above I indicated that the battery was four-gun. This refers to its pre-war history - before and during the war there really were four 152-mm guns, located hardly
7. Even before the war, the battery was renamed the 19th, and its first commander was G. Alexander, later the commander of the legendary 30th battery. During the war, the commander of the 19th was Captain M. S. Drapushko, the military commissar - senior political instructor N. A. Kazakov. It is by the name of Drapushko that this battery is often called in addition to its number. Initially, the battery had 130 degrees of fire, with a rate of fire of up to 10 rounds per minute. The layout of the battery is standard, except that its right-flank casemate is located higher up the slope and the underwater gallery has a bend and an additional ladder.
8. To the right of the rock we see two more gun positions - they are of post-war construction. Although this statement is ambiguous. According to some reports and recollections, two naval guns in 1942 were installed behind the rock on temporary foundations. This is indirectly confirmed by the fact that 6-inch shells are visible on the casemates of Fort "Yuzhny", captured by German troops in November 1941, and if you draw the director of firing the battery's guns, then Fort "Yuzhny" does not fall into this sector (130 degrees). In addition, traces of the blown up structure are clearly visible in German photographs of 1942. However, it was not possible to establish what kind of weapons they were. Founding of one of the later gun positions
9. Modern gun positions have casemated service rooms at their base. They were intended for servicing the gun, as well as loading / unloading it during the battle.
10. Under-gun casemates of "main positions"
11. The battery was equipped with several observation posts and a rangefinder. One of them is located a little lower along the slope and it is not very easy to descend to it, especially in wet weather.
12. Railings and thorns turned out to be unnecessary for metalworkers
13. Entrance to the main battery casemates. There are many rooms, inside it is incredibly damp, cold and a lot of mold. Everything that is possible has been cut out. But because of the particular dampness, homeless people do not live here, which means that there is no modern dirt either.
14. Decayed door hinges
15. Entrance to one of the casemates. There is still some light here, allowing you to take pictures
16. It's getting cooler with every meter. Complete darkness begins behind the door to the right.
17. The photo has been taken since the eleventh time. The camera refuses to focus point-blank, so there is only manual focus.
18. Everything, here it is already pitch darkness. I didn't think to take the flashlight, so I illuminate it with the flash of my 50, manually focus in the intervals of light and shoot at random with the flash. Something worked out
19. Diesel generator room. I almost killed myself on a pipe sticking out of the ceiling
20. Staircase upstairs. There is light
21. Finally got out. There, behind these walls, I walked 10 minutes ago
22. There, in the casemates, in one place far above, a point of light flashed. Apparently this gap was its source.
23. Radiotransparent hood of the gun aiming locator. It appeared along with the B-13 guns when rebuilding the battery after the war.
24. Its walls are made of a material similar to fiberglass. Apparently she appeared here at the very end of the battery's life. By the way, after the war, the battery was restored and served to protect the naval base of the Black Sea Fleet. And in 1999 it was prepared for cancellation. What happened next is typical of our time.
25. Fire control cabin
26. Remains of metal torn out with meat at the gun site
At the end of the report I would like to return to the heroic history of the battery during the Great Patriotic War.
In the fall of 1941, the defense of Sevastopol began. November 6 thundered the first volleys of the nineteenth battery, commanded by Captain M. S. Drapushko. The positions of the German troops near the village of Shuli (Ternovka), where the second regiment of the Red Army marines, held the defenses, were the first to be hit by the shells of the battery guns.
On November 13, the Nazis occupied the heights dominating over Balaklava, up to Mount Spilia and the Genoese fortress. The six-inch guns of the battery were a thousand meters away from the German positions. The coastal defense command made full use of the battery's ability to strike at the enemy's rear. The captured Germans told with horror about the nightmare in Alsou, where two battalions of the Wehrmacht were destroyed by battery fire. To combat the battery, heavy guns and mortars were specially brought up. Attack aircraft rained down on her a hail of aerial bombs. The duel lasted until November 21.
Each gun has a crew of 12 people. On the hands from the cellars served pood charges, 52-kilogram shells. High rate of fire is an advantage of naval guns over field ones. But live people provided the shooting mode. They worked to the limit and even beyond their strength.
The battery guns did not have armored caps, nor did they have anti-aircraft cover. Captain Drapushko's unit suffered losses in personnel. Camouflage nets were burning, paint was bubbling on the red-hot barrels. Sometimes up to 300 shells, hundreds of mines fell on the battery per day. The Germans were sure: "Centaur-1", as they called the 19th battery, had been destroyed. But the soldiers of the "Centaur" at night under a tarpaulin by candlelight repaired the twisted guns and, with the first rays of the sun, again opened fire on the enemy.
Major General IE Petrov, commander of the Primorsky Army, wrote in December 1941: "… The heroic battery of Drapushko, which took the main blow of the enemy in this direction, stopped the German offensive, defended an important area …"
Major General P. A. Morgunov gave the command: do not spare the shells! At a critical moment, blow up the battery and leave!
Under enemy fire, without heavy equipment, the batteries, saving the guns, dragged many kilometers of sea 152-mm guns, and the battery again spoke from a new position at the 7th kilometer of the Balaklava highway.
On December 17, the second assault on the city began. At the new position, the battery fired sniper fire. The order of the commander of the fleet on 23 February 1942 says:
The third assault began on June 7, 1942. On June 16, an aerial bomb hitting the command post ended the life of the battery commander Mark Semenovich Drapushko.
And on June 30, firing the last shells, detonating the last guns, the batteries retreated to Cape Chersonesus with the Red Army leaving the destroyed, flaming Sevastopol. (based on materials from Underground Sevastopol)
