| Yevpatoria assault | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of the Eastern Front of World War II | |||||||
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| Belligerents | |||||||
 Soviet Union |  Germany | ||||||
| Strength | |||||||
| 700 marines [1] 3 × 45-mm ATG [3] 2 × T-37A [3] Soviet partisans [1] | |||||||
The Yevpatoria assault was an amphibious assault during World War II by Soviet marine battalion on 5 January 1942 at Yevpatoria aiming at diverting part of German troops attacking Sevastopol and the Kerch peninsula. [2]
The assault was undertaken by a reinforced Marine battalion [4] (700 soldiers under the command of Cpt G. K. Businov and commissar A. S. Boyko). [1] [4]
They were carried to destination by a convoy of ships from the Black Sea Fleet under the command of Frigate captain N. V. Buslaev. [4]
The convoy left Sevastopol on 4 January 1942 at 11:30 pm and proceeded to the landings between 3 am and 6 am on the 5th. The assaillants were able to take control of the southern part of the city. Reinforcements sent by the opponent included an infantry regiment two battalions and batteries. A stormy weather prevented the soviet to get back up. They battled during 3 days against superior forces. Meanwhile, in the city occurred an uprising which participants along with local partisans joined the fight alongside the soviet troopers. Among 700 assaillants remained alive a mere hundred by the time the battle ended. The operation succeeded in distracting German forces from Sevastopol as well as allowing for troops on the Kerch peninsula more to prepare to withstand German assaults. [5]
The marines taken prisoners along with some 3000 civilians were shot later on the Red Hill part of the 10,400 people shot here during the war. [5]
A sculpture outside the city on the sealine recalls the move. It represents the soldiers emerging from a wave. Another monument stands at the angle between Demychev and Revolution streets. A street is named after the feat in Yevpatoria. [5]
The Russian Naval Infantry, often referred to as Russian Marines in the West, operate as the naval infantry of the Russian Navy. Established in 1705, they are capable of conducting amphibious operations as well as operating as more traditional light infantry.
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The Battle of the Caucasus is a name given to a series of Axis and Soviet operations in the Caucasus area on the Eastern Front of World War II. On 25 July 1942, German troops captured Rostov-on-Don, Russia, opening the Caucasus region of the southern Soviet Union, and the oil fields beyond at Maikop, Grozny, and ultimately Baku, to the Germans. Two days prior, Adolf Hitler issued a directive to launch such an operation into the Caucasus region, to be named Operation Edelweiß. German forces were compelled to withdraw from the area that winter as Operation Little Saturn threatened to cut them off.
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The Battle of the Kerch Peninsula, which commenced with the Soviet Kerch-Feodosia Landing Operation and ended with the German Operation Bustard Hunt, was a World War II battle between Erich von Manstein's German and Romanian 11th Army and the Soviet Crimean Front forces in the Kerch Peninsula, in the eastern part of the Crimean Peninsula. It began on 26 December 1941, with an amphibious landing operation by two Soviet armies intended to break the Siege of Sevastopol. Axis forces first contained the Soviet beachhead throughout the winter and interdicted its naval supply lines through aerial bombing. From January through April, the Crimean Front launched repeated offensives against the 11th Army, all of which failed with heavy losses. The Red Army lost 352,000 men in the attacks, while the Axis suffered 24,120 casualties. Superior German artillery firepower was largely responsible for the Soviet debacle.
Konstantin Nikolaevich Leselidze was a Colonel-General and Hero of the Soviet Union who distinguished himself at the North, Transcaucasus and Ukrainian front during World War II. He was also the elder brother of Viktor Nikolaevich Leselidze
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The Soviet partisans in Latvia were Soviet partisans who were deployed to Latvia and attempted to wage guerrilla warfare against the German armed forces during the German occupation of Latvia. Partisan activity was singularly unsuccessful in Latvia due to the general resistance of the population to the Soviet regime that the partisans represented.
The Separate Coastal Army, also translated to English as Independent Coastal Army, was an army-level unit in the Red Army that fought in World War II. It was established on July 18, 1941, by the order of the Southern Front from the forces of 9th Army’s Coastal Group and was stood up on July 20, 1941.
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The Crimean Front was one of the Red Army fronts of World War II, which existed from January-May 1942.
Aslan Farhad oglu Vazirov was an Azerbaijani Red Army colonel and Hero of the Soviet Union. Vazirov served in the Red Army's engineer troops during the interwar period. In 1941 and 1942 Vazirov served with the 18th Army's engineering troops. In that year he became commander of the 38th Separate Engineering Regiment. During the Battle of the Caucasus he led the 5th Mountain Mine-Engineer Brigade. In June 1943 he became commander of the 51st Engineer-Sapper Brigade. He commanded the 1st Guards Assault Engineer-Sapper Brigade from May 1944. Vazirov was awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union on 29 June 1945 for his leadership of the brigade during the Berlin Offensive.
The siege of Perekop, also known as the Perekop-Chongar Operation, was the final battle of the Southern Front in the Russian Civil War from 7 to 17 November 1920. The White movement's stronghold on the Crimean Peninsula was protected by the Chongar fortification system along the strategic Isthmus of Perekop and the Syvash, from which the Crimean Corps under General Yakov Slashchov repelled several Red Army invasion attempts in early 1920. The Southern Front of the Red Army and the Revolutionary Insurgent Army of Ukraine, under the joint command of Mikhail Frunze, launched an offensive on Crimea with an invasion force four-times larger than the defenders, the White Russian Army under the command of General Pyotr Wrangel. Despite suffering heavy losses, the Reds broke through the fortifications, and the Whites were forced into retreat southwards. Following their defeat at the siege of Perekop, the Whites evacuated from the Crimea, dissolving the Army of Wrangel and ending the Southern Front in Bolshevik victory.
The 390th Rifle Division was an infantry division of the Soviet Union's Red Army during World War II. It was formed twice, first in August 1941, and after its destruction in 1942, re-formed in 1944.
The 345th Rifle Division began forming in September, 1941, as a standard Red Army rifle division, at Makhachkala on the Caspian Sea. Its first formation served exclusively in the southernmost parts of the Soviet-German front, specifically in the Caucasus and Crimea. It arrived at Sevastopol in December, and fought stubbornly in defense of the fortress-port until mid-July, 1942, when the city capitulated and the division was destroyed. In March, 1945, a new 345th was formed in the Far East, and a few months later took part in the Soviet invasion of Manchuria in August, but as it was in a reserve formation it saw little, if any, actual combat.
The 386th Rifle Division was raised in 1941 as an infantry division of the Red Army, and served twice during the Great Patriotic War in that role. The division followed a very similar combat path to that of the 388th Rifle Division in both of its formations. It was first formed on August 19 in the Transcaucasus Military District. In late December it was shipped from the Black Sea ports to Sevastopol, which was under siege by the German 11th Army. The division arrived just as the second Axis assault on the fortress was ending and did not see any heavy fighting until the final offensive, Operation Störfang, began on June 2, 1942. On June 18 it came under attack from the Romanian Mountain Corps and put up a stiff fight but rapidly lost strength and cohesion before falling back towards the port in the last days of the month; it was officially disbanded just days before the final Axis victory. In the buildup to the Soviet invasion of Manchuria a new 386th was formed in the Far Eastern Front in late 1944. The new division fought with enough distinction that it was awarded the Order of the Red Banner, and continued to serve briefly into the postwar period.
The 388th Rifle Division was raised in 1941 as an infantry division of the Red Army, and served twice during World War II in that role. The division followed a very similar combat path to that of the 386th Rifle Division in both of its formations. It was first formed on August 19, in the Transcaucasus Military District. From December 7 to 13, it was shipped from the Black Sea ports to Sevastopol, which was under siege by the German 11th Army.
The 414th Rifle Division was twice formed as an infantry division of the Red Army; very briefly in the winter of 1941/42, then from the spring of 1942 until after the end of the Great Patriotic War. It was officially considered a Georgian National division, having nearly all its personnel of that nationality in its second formation. After its second formation it remained in service in the Caucasus near the borders of Turkey and Iran in the 44th Army until the summer of 1942, when it was redeployed to help counter the German drive toward Grozny. As German Army Group A retreated from the Caucasus in January 1943 the division was reassigned to the 37th Army in North Caucasus Front, and during the fighting in the Taman Peninsula during the summer it served in both the 58th and 18th Armies, earning a battle honor in the process. It entered the Crimea during the Kerch–Eltigen Operation in November, and was awarded the Order of the Red Banner following the offensive that liberated that region in April and May 1944, fighting in the 11th Guards Rifle Corps of the Separate Coastal Army. After the Crimea was cleared the Coastal Army remained as a garrison and the 414th stayed there for the duration of the war. Postwar, it was relocated to Tbilisi, being renumbered as the 74th Rifle Division in 1955 and disbanded the following year.
The 63rd Mountain Rifle Division was formed as a specialized infantry division of the Red Army in July 1936, based on the 2nd Georgian Mountain Division. When the German invasion of the Soviet Union began it was in the Transcaucasus Military District and was soon assigned to the 47th Army for the invasion of Iran. Following this it was moved to the western Caucasus region where it joined the 44th Army of Crimean Front for amphibious operations against the Axis forces in the Crimea. In late December 1941 it landed at Feodosia as part of 9th Rifle Corps. Along with the remainder of the Corps the 63rd Mountain hindered but failed to block the retreat of Axis forces from Kerch, where the 51st Army had also made landings. After a German counteroffensive retook Feodosia in mid-January 1942 the division fell back to the Parpach Isthmus where it took part in trench warfare near the Black Sea coast into the spring, gradually losing strength. On May 8 it was caught up in the opening stage of Operation "Bustard Hunt" (Trappenjagd) and in a few hours was overwhelmed and largely destroyed by German air and artillery bombardment in support of infantry and armor attacks. Less than a week later it was stricken from the Red Army's order of battle and was never rebuilt.
The 224th Rifle Division was an infantry division of the Red Army, originally formed as one of the first reserve rifle divisions following the German invasion of the USSR. A large part of this first formation took part in amphibious landings near Kerch in late December 1941 but it was encircled and destroyed during the Battle of the Kerch Peninsula in May 1942.