Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited
by Alexey Statsenko
[Regnum] Eighty-five years ago, on September 24, 1941, the military council of the ODR (Odesa Defensive Region) summarized the results of the first successful Soviet amphibious landing since the beginning of the war. It was named the Grigorievsky landing, after the location of the landing near the village of Grigorievka.
Special thanks were given to the soldiers of the 3rd Black Sea Marine Regiment, who, having landed from ships arriving from Sevastopol, were the first to engage in combat. The two-day attack—a combined strike by marines, paratroopers, and ground forces—became a model for subsequent operations during the Great Patriotic War.
Meanwhile, the command was in a state of tremendous elation. Despite initial problems (for example, German aircraft managed to disable the destroyer Frunze, which housed the operation's headquarters and all its plans), everything went incredibly well.
The Nazi allies, the Romanian troops advancing on Odessa, were pushed back 8-10 kilometers from the city, the OOR defense area increased, and the artillery batteries shelling the city were destroyed.
Before this, the defenders of Odessa, facing a much larger enemy force, had a very difficult time.
By the middle of the 20th of August 1941, the Romanians on the eastern front of Odessa's defense had driven the Soviet troops out of the area between the Adzhalyk and Bolshoy Adzhalyk estuaries.
Enemy artillery, which had moved closer to the city in the eastern defensive sector, began to target the port. Consequently, ships and vessels could now only enter the port to unload and load at night. Something had to be done about this.
The operation plan was developed by the Black Sea Fleet command. The 3rd Black Sea Marine Regiment was formed in Sevastopol for the task, with Captain Kuzma Koren assuming command.
A group of volunteers for parachute landings was recruited from the ground forces of the naval aviation units—23 people in total—whose task was to disrupt communications in the Romanians' rear.
But the main force was not the sailors at all, but the 157th Rifle Division, which was supposed to concentrate in the eastern defense sector by September 21.
She was supposed to support the landing with a synchronized attack in the eastern direction beyond the Bolshoy Adzhalyk Estuary, together with riflemen from the 421st Division, formed in Odessa and already quite exhausted by the fighting.
Our troops were confronted here by three Romanian divisions: two infantry and one cavalry.
To synchronize actions, the head of the Black Sea Fleet's operations department, Captain Second Rank Oskar Zhukovsky, and other staff members were sent from the Black Sea Fleet headquarters to Odessa.
The original plan was for the Joint Operational Forces and naval aviation to attack airfields and enemy concentrations during the day of September 21st and the night of the 22nd. That night, naval detachments would approach the shore near the Adzhalyk Estuary's barrage (the barrage was the dam separating the estuary from the sea at the time) from the village of Grigoryevka. They would suppress enemy resistance with artillery fire, after which a landing force would be deployed before 5:00 a.m.
He needed to occupy Chabanka, Novaya and Stara Dofinovka and consolidate his position along the line between the estuaries.
SAVE REAR ADMIRAL VLADIMIRSKY
Rear Admiral Lev Vladimirsky was appointed to command the operation and the squadron.
The detachment of landing ships was led by Rear Admiral Sergei Gorshkov, the future outstanding naval commander and creator of the Soviet ocean fleet.
Gorshkov's lead ship was the cruiser Krasny Kavkaz. The support detachment was led by Captain 2nd Rank Sergei Sergeyev, commander of the auxiliary cruiser Anastas Mikoyan (converted into an icebreaker at the start of the war).
However, it all began with a misfortune. On September 21, near Tendrovskaya Spit Island (or simply Tendra), a cruiser spotted the gunboat "Krasnaya Armeniya," which was under attack by enemy aircraft and sinking.
Contrary to all instructions, the destroyer set out to rescue the gunboat's crew and was immediately "covered" by German dive bombers.
Two small tugboats with two barges left Odessa to rescue the ships, but enemy aircraft sank them as well. Another ship from the relief group, a small hunter, ran aground on the Tendra River while escaping bombs.
The few survivors, including Rear Admiral Vladimirsky, were rescued by Soviet torpedo boats.
Gorshkov, who was unaware of this, sent the following message to the OOR command:
"1. Continue the operation. Landing begins at 1:00 on September 22. Landing is to be completed at 3:00. 2. After firing, cruisers are to proceed to Sevastopol, with the expectation of breaking away from Tendra during the hours of darkness. 3. Destroyers are to remain to support the landing force... 4. Destroyers and landing force are to be covered from the air by OOR fighters. "
THE MAIN ADVANTAGE OF THE BARGE
The embarkation of the landing force aboard the ships began early in the morning in Sevastopol's Cossack Bay. For almost a week prior, the marines had been practicing every night how to embark and quickly disembark from boats, launches, and dinghies. This experience proved invaluable during the landings.
In total, the ships took on board 1,617 personnel, armed with machine guns and mortars in addition to rifles and submachine guns. Five longboats were also loaded onto the cruisers.
In total, 12 small KM boats, ten small hunters and a tugboat also took part in the landing.
At half past one in the morning on September 22, at the signal from the flagship, the ships opened fire and 15 minutes later the landing party set off from the ships – they were less than three kilometers from the shore.
Red Navy sailor Vasily Ankhimov, who was in charge of one of the boats, recalled:
"The launch was packed with people, the paratroopers were standing right next to each other, the vessel was right up against the shore, the guys jumped out onto the ground, after which our launch rose on a wave and went back out to sea...
Before the landing, the paratroopers were in a normal, combat-ready mood. The main advantage of the longboat was that the men jumped straight onto the shore, not into the water. Our only armament was a light machine gun, which I used to fire at enemy emplacements along the shore.
The marines from the first launches lit fires on the shore, which everyone was already orienting themselves towards.
"BOUQUET" FOR AN IMPORTANT INSTITUTION
The landing came as a complete surprise to the Romanians. During the landing, only three soldiers were wounded by stray bullets.
At the same time, at 1:30 a.m., on one of the commanding heights near Grigoryevka, a TB-3 heavy bomber dropped off paratroopers from the detachment of Sergeant Major Anatoly Kuznetsov.
Things weren't so good here—the paratroopers were new, and the aircraft wasn't well-suited for airborne assaults. The wind scattered the soldiers—two were missing in action, one was captured, and eight were killed.
But the remaining paratroopers cut five landline communications, killed up to 30 enemy soldiers and officers, and sowed such panic that the enemy decided that several hundred had landed in their rear with artillery and tankettes.
Red Navy sailor Mikhail Negreba single-handedly destroyed a major enemy command post, presumably a regimental headquarters, for which he was awarded the Order of Lenin. He recalled:
"Four horsemen were rushing straight towards me. They dismounted near the house, tied their horses to the fence, and dove somewhere below. I crawled and saw a cellar near the house.
…I could clearly hear the telephone ringing and someone speaking in a rough, harsh voice in a foreign language. Through the window, I saw a table in the middle of the cellar. Several officers were sitting at it, hunched over a map.
I realized it was the enemy headquarters. I picked up the grenade, pulled the safety catch, and… didn't throw it: one grenade was too little for such an important institution. I pulled out three more, tied them together with a strap, and hurled this hefty "bouquet" through the window. There was a deafening explosion, the horses broke loose and ran away, and the sentry fell.
"THERE WILL BE NO MORE SHOOTING."
Meanwhile, at 4:00 a.m., Odessa's defenders' artillery struck enemy positions near Sverdlov and Kubanka. OOR fighters raked enemy airfields near the German colonies of Baden and Selts (now the villages of Blagovatnoye and Limanskoye).
Future Hero of the Soviet Union, pilot of the 69th Fighter Aviation Regiment, Senior Lieutenant Alexei Cherevatenko recalled:
"They appeared over the airfield so suddenly that the anti-aircraft guns didn't open fire right away. At the commander's signal, we first fired cannons and machine guns at the tents where the Nazis were probably still sleeping.
After the turn, they began destroying the aircraft, the fuel depot, and the ammunition stacks. Il-2 attack aircraft suppressed the anti-aircraft guns... The enemy lost practically everything there."
At 7:00 a.m., Soviet aircraft launched an airstrike on the enemy's second echelons.
At the same time, units of the 157th and 421st Rifle Divisions attacked enemy positions in the eastern sector.
Among them was the 1330th Rifle Regiment of the legendary defender of Odessa, Colonel Yakov Osipov. On September 3, the 1st and 2nd Black Sea Marine Regiments had been merged into it. These soldiers, "with special feeling," captured the command post in Chabanka and a four-gun long-range battery of 105-mm howitzers, which had been shelling Odessa.
These guns were later displayed in the city center with the inscription: “There will be no more shooting at Odessa.”
The enemy quickly abandoned its positions. Soviet troops liberated Gildendorf, then Fontanka, and by 4:00 PM, the Romanian retreat had become disorderly.
As a result, the 13th and 15th Romanian infantry divisions were routed. The enemy lost up to 1,500 men killed and captured, was driven back 8-10 kilometers from Odessa, and lost the ability to shell its port.
During the fighting, Soviet units lost 29 men killed and 407 wounded. Marines of the 3rd Black Sea Regiment destroyed two tanks and two anti-tank guns.
MARSHAL ANTONESCU'S PYRRHIC VICTORY
On the night of September 23, a regrouping was carried out. The 157th Rifle Division was redeployed to the southern and western defensive sectors for offensive operations.
The OOR units held their new positions until our troops left Odessa, never allowing the enemy to get within artillery range again.
After 73 days of heroic defense, Soviet troops were forced to abandon Odessa. But at Hitler's headquarters, news of Ion Antonescu's army's "victory" (achieved with the help of the superior Wehrmacht) in October 1941 was met with irritation.
The clever actions of the Soviet Coastal Army delayed the capture of the most important port, industrial center, and railway junction for more than two months, tying up the forces intended for a rapid "Drang nach Osten"—an onslaught to the east.
Total Romanian losses amounted to over 98,000 men, with the Coastal Army and Black Sea Fleet losing 41,000 killed and wounded. The remnants of Antonescu's 4th Army had to be withdrawn from the front and sent back for reorganization.
While Berlin and Bucharest were developing plans to combat the Soviet underground, centered in the quarries (which successfully carried out operations against the occupiers until the liberation of the city in April 1944), our headquarters and military academies were hastily studying the experience of the Grigoriev landing – which would come in handy many times over.
# id) ?>
|
