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.
On 8 May 1942, the Axis attacked in a major counteroffensive codenamed Trappenjagd which concluded by around 19 May 1942 with the defeat of the Soviet defending forces. Manstein used a large concentration of airpower, heavily armed infantry divisions, concentrated artillery bombardments and amphibious assaults to break through the Soviet front in its southern portion in 210 minutes, swing north with the 22nd Panzer Division to encircle the Soviet 51st Army on 10 May and annihilate it on 11 May. The remnants of the 44th and 47th armies were pursued to Kerch, where the last pockets of organized Soviet resistance were defeated by 19 May. The decisive element in the German victory was the campaign of airstrikes against the Crimean Front by Wolfram von Richthofen's 800 aircraft VIII. Fliegerkorps, which flew an average of 1,500 sorties per day in support of Trappenjagd and constantly attacked Soviet field positions, armored units, troop columns, medical evacuation ships, airfields, and supply lines. German bombers used up to 6,000 canisters of SD-2 anti-personnel cluster munitions to kill masses of fleeing Soviet infantrymen.
Manstein's outnumbered 11th Army suffered 7,588 casualties, while the Crimean Front lost 176,566 men, 258 tanks, 1,133 artillery pieces and 315 aircraft in three armies comprising twenty-one divisions. Total Soviet casualties during the five-month-long battle amounted to 570,000 men, while Axis losses were 38,000. Trappenjagd was one of the battles immediately preceding the German summer offensive (Case Blue). Its successful conclusion allowed the Axis to concentrate their forces on Sevastopol, which was conquered within six weeks. The Kerch Peninsula was used as a launching pad by German forces to cross the Kerch Strait on 2 September 1942 during Operation Blücher II, a part of the German drive to capture the Caucasus oilfields.
Prelude
On 8 December 1941, Stavka, the Soviet supreme command, ordered General-Lieutenant Dmitry Kozlov's Transcaucasian Front to begin planning for a major operation to cross the Kerch Strait and link up with the Soviet Separate Coastal Army holed up in Sevastopol, thereby liberating Crimea from the Germans. The ambitious operation, the first major amphibious operation in Soviet history, was founded upon Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin's belief in the German 's imminent collapse. The plan was drawn up by the Transcaucasian Front's chief of staff General-Major Fyodor Tolbukhin.
Tolbukhin's plan was too complicated for the Red Army's and Soviet Navy's abilities. It was based on multiple small landings at separate locations at separate times instead of one large, simultaneous landing. Five transport groups from Rear-Admiral Sergey Gorshkov's Azov Flotilla would land 7,500 soldiers from the 224th Rifle Division and 302nd Mountain Rifle Division of the 51st Army on eight isolated beaches north and south of Kerch. After the Germans were distracted by this, the 44th Army would land at Feodosiya in the German rear. Naval gunfire support would be provided by the Black Sea Fleet. The Soviet Air Forces, would contribute air cover from the Taman Peninsula. The Soviets had the men and troop transports on hand but were compelled to use fishing trawlers for the actual landings due to the lack of landing craft, had little experience with large-scale joint operations and were impeded by the stormy winter weather.
A German Messerschmitt Bf 110 reconnaissance aircraft noted the buildup of Soviet naval forces and reported it to Lieutenant General Hans Graf von Sponeck's XXXXII Army Corps headquarters. Sponeck issued a general alert for enemy amphibious landings in the Kerch Peninsula. The mass of Sponeck's units had been transferred for the assault on Sevastopol and he had only the 46th Infantry Division under Lieutenant General who had assumed his command on 17 December, two coastal artillery battalions equipped with obsolete World War I artillery pieces, a combat engineer regiment and a Luftwaffe anti-aircraft battalion. The 46th Infantry Division, mostly up to strength, was woefully overextended holding down the entire Kerch Peninsula against potential Soviet landings. Sponeck's only backup was the Romanian near Alushta.
On the evening of 25 December 1941, the Soviet 224th Rifle Division and 83rd Naval Infantry Brigade were packed into small craft on the Taman Peninsula and began to pass the Kerch Strait.
Battle Kerch landing, 26 December – 28 December
Group 2 disembarked at Cape Khroni to the northeast of Kerch. It consisted of the gunboat Don, the transports Krasny Flot and Pyenay, a tugboat, two motor barges that carried three T-26 light tanks and a few artillery pieces, and 16 fishing trawlers. Whaleboats were substituted for landing craft, resulting in tediously slow landings and the drowning of men and equipment. 697 men from the 2nd Battalion of the 160th Rifle Regiment landed at Cape Khroni by 0630 hours on 26 December and many drowned in the waves or were incapacitated by hypothermia. Another rifle battalion landed at Khroni later that day with a platoon of T-26 tanks and light artillery pieces.
At , 290 troops got ashore in six hours but a few vessels foundered on the rocky beach. At Cape Tarhan only 18 soldiers got to the beach out of Group 3's landing force of 1,000 men due to a lack of whaleboats. West of Cape Khroni at Bulganak Bay the Azov flotilla landed 1,452 men, three T-26 tanks, two 76mm howitzers and two 45mm anti-tank guns. Two more landings at Kazantip Point and Yenikale were aborted due to stormy weather. By noon, the Red Army had 3,000 lightly armed men ashore north of Kerch in five separate beachheads. German resistance was minimal at first, but by 1050 hours He 111 medium bombers and Ju 87 Stuka dive bombers began attacking the Soviet landing forces. The cargo ship Voroshilov at Cape Tarhan was bombed and sunk with 450 troops aboard. One vessel with 100 men from Group 2 was bombed and sank off Cape Zyuk. Lacking radios, the lightly-armed and half-frozen Soviet formations north of Kerch moved only one kilometer inland before stopping and digging in for German counterattacks. The Soviet regimental commanders, with little to no communications link to headquarters, decided to wait for planned reinforcements that were delayed for three days due to the unfavorable winter weather and never arrived to help them.
The 302nd Mountain Rifle Division landed at Kamysh Burun south of Kerch and ran into extremely effective German resistance. Two German battalions from Colonel Ernst Maisel's 42nd Infantry Regiment held perfect defensive positions on high ground that dominated the sand beaches. The landing at 0500 hours was stopped by an onslaught of German MG 34 machine gun, mortar and light-artillery fire that prevented the whaleboats and fishing trawlers from advancing to the shore. The 2nd Battalion of the 42nd Infantry Regiment devastated a Soviet landing at . A Soviet naval infantry company landed at but was annihilated by a counterattack from Major Karl Kraft's 1st Battalion/42nd Infantry. The second wave landed at 0700 hours and was also thrown back. Soviet troops seized the docks at Kamysh Burun, allowing the third wave to land there and create a foothold by afternoon. The Luftwaffe sank several ships offshore and only 2,175 troops out of the 5,200-strong Kamysh Burun landing force got ashore.
Lieutenant General Kurt Himer was aware of the Soviet landings by 0610 hours but was uncertain where the Soviet point of main effort was due to the disunited nature of the Soviet forces. He ordered Colonel Friedrich Schmidt's 72nd Infantry Regiment to destroy the Soviet force at Cape Khroni but lacked the troops to deal with the Bulganak Bay and Cape Zyuk formations. Himer improvised by ordering a headquarters company, 3rd Battalion/97th Infantry Regiment and an artillery battery of 10.5 cm howitzers to tackle the Cape Zyuk landing. By midnight, infantry regiment (IR) 97 had its 1st and 3rd Battalions and two artillery batteries in position for a counterattack the next day. At 1350 hours on 26 December, IR 72 reported that a captured Soviet officer from Cape Khroni had revealed the extent of the Soviet plan – to land 25,000 troops at Kerch. Himer acted decisively and decided to bring up 2nd Battalion/IR 97 from Feodosia as well to crush the Cape Zyuk force with IR 97's full strength. IR 42 would contain the Kamysh Burun landings until the northern Soviet forces were destroyed. A mixed alarm unit consisting of infantry, artillery and combat engineers would deal with the Bulganak Bay landing. Army Corps commander Lieutenant General Sponeck requested permission to use the Romanian 8th Cavalry Brigade to reinforce Himer.
The counterattack against Zyuk was launched only at 1300 hours on 27 December due to the muddy roads. The beachhead was flat and devoid of flora, offering no cover for either side. The Soviet 2nd Battalion/83rd Naval Infantry Brigade spotted the German deployment and launched an immediate attack with three T-26 tanks and several infantry companies. A 3.7 cm Pak 36 anti-tank gun fired 42 rounds and knocked out all three Soviet tanks. Several German bombers showed up to support the German infantry and helped drive the Soviet naval infantry back to its beachhead but the Germans delayed their main attack until the next day. At dawn, the two deployed infantry battalions of IR 97 attacked the Soviet position, supported by two 10.5 cm howitzers. A combat engineer company blocked the Soviet escape route to the east. The Soviet defensive position was hopelessly exposed. Six He 111 bombers and a few Stukas bombed the Soviet troops. The Soviet defenses were smashed and by 1200 hours the Germans reached the beach. A number of Soviet troops fought on while waist-deep in the water. Their resistance fell apart by evening; 458 were captured and approximately 300 were killed. Infantry Regiment 97 lost only 40 men killed or wounded in two days of destroying the Soviet beachhead at Cape Zyuk. The Soviet beachhead at Cape Khroni was also destroyed by IR 72 on 28 December, with only 12 men swimming to safety. Himer's division took 1,700 prisoners and only the 1,000-strong Soviet force at Bulganak Bay remained, along with the Kamysh Burun beachhead as well as isolated pockets of Soviet resistance inland.
Feodosia landing, 29 December – 2 January