Strana 29
#7478
BOXART STORY
By autumn 1941, Nazi Germany’s leaders
realised that the invasion of the USSR was not
following Operation Barbarossa’s original plan.
They had intended to capture Leningrad, Moscow
and Ukraine and advance towards the Caucasus by
year’s end, ultimately occupying Soviet territory
as far as the Arkhangelsk–Astrakhan line.
Despite heavy initial losses, Soviet forces
often resisted tenaciously. As late as August 1941,
Army Group South, supported by Axis satellite
forces, was still trying to cross the Dnieper east
of Kherson, while Odessa and Kyiv remained
unconquered. This slowed the advance towards
Crimea and the Donbas and delayed the later
drive on Stalingrad. Kyiv fell in late September
and Odessa in mid-October.
In the south, Soviet commanders aimed to
defend Crimea - an unsinkable aircraft carrier
containing the Sevastopol naval base - for as long
as possible, while delaying the enemy’s advance
towards Taganrog so its industrial plants could
be evacuated and emptied of their machines and
material to be relocated further to the east.
The German 11th Army and Romanian 3rd Army
advanced along these two axes, supported from
the air by IV Fliegerkorps. Its principal fighter
units were II. and III./JG 77; I.(J)/LG 2, later
redesignated I./JG 77, was also under JG 77
command. Its other forces included five bomber
Kampfgruppen, mainly from KG 27 “Boelcke,” and
several smaller air units.
In early September, the Germans consolidated
positions on the Dnieper’s southern bank near
Beryslav and advanced south despite fierce
Soviet counterattacks. In mid-September,
11th Army commander Generaloberst Eugen Ritter
von Schobert was killed when his Storch made
an emergency landing in an enemy minefield.
Erich von Manstein succeeded him, and on
24 September 1941 his formations attacked the
Soviet defensive line on the Perekop Isthmus in
northern Crimea.
The fighter units II./JG 3 and III./JG 52 also
briefly took part in the fighting over Crimea, as
did additional bomber formations, including
the Stukas of St.G 77. German bomber crews
succeeded in sinking the light cruiser Chervona
Ukraina at Sevastopol. However, the properly
marked hospital ship Armenia also fell victim
to them during evacuation mission. More than
5,000 passengers, including many civilians, were
killed in the disaster, making it the third-deadliest
maritime disaster in human history. Only eight
people survived the sinking.
Soviet air units of the VVS Southern Front and
the Black Sea Fleet’s VVS opposed the German
aerial onslaught. They were gradually reinforced
by units including veterans of the fighting against
Japan. Consequently, besides the older I-15, I-153
and I-16 aircraft, the Germans over Crimea and
along the Sea of Azov mostly encountered modern
types, particularly the MiG-3, Yak-1, LaGG-3 and
Il-2.
On some days, Soviet airmen achieved
air superiority in the region, causing serious
difficulties for Axis ground forces. Soviet air
raids sometimes continued uninterrupted for
30 minutes without a single German aircraft able
to help. Some smaller German airfields were
protected by only a handful of anti-aircraft guns.
German fighter pilots experienced considerable
difficulty against the heavily armoured Ilyushin Il-2
Shturmovik ground-attack aircraft. The problem
was so serious that Oberst Werner Mölders, then
coordinating fighter and ground-attack units in
Crimea, personally sought a solution. Despite
being strictly prohibited from flying combat
missions, Mölders joined operational sorties to
demonstrate how to attack the aircraft effectively.
His method involved firing into the cockpit from
the rear hemisphere at an angle of approximately
30 degrees. Flying with III./JG 77 on 8 November
1941, he achieved one such kill, although it is not
included among his officially claimed victories.
At the time, III. Gruppe was commanded by
Oberleutnant Kurt Ubben, since September 1941,
until then, he had served as commander of its
8. Staffel. His new command aircraft is depicted
on the box art in combat at the beginning of
November. Before the invasion of the USSR,
III./JG 77 had been credited with 41 victories
during the campaigns in the west and the Balkans.
Interestingly, it had originally been intended to
operate as the fighter unit aboard the aircraft
carrier Graf Zeppelin. By the end of 1941, this
Jagdgruppe had been credited with more than
540 victories. Apart from Sevastopol and the
Kerch bridgehead, the whole of Crimea was
then in German hands. Nevertheless, the Soviet
airmen who had resisted the enemy invasion of
Crimea made a significant contribution to slowing
the enemy advance and enabled Sevastopol’s
defenders to strengthen their defensive
preparations. Neither Sevastopol nor Kerch fell
into enemy hands until the middle of 1942.
Illustration: Piotr Forkasiewicz
Against the Defenders of Crimea
Text: Jan Bobek
INFO Eduard
29
August 2026