Taganrog during World War II
The Soviet city of Taganrog, now part of the Rostov Oblast of the Russian Federation, had an eventful history during World War II, from 1941 to 1945. In July 1941 the municipal Communist Party Committee ordered the creation of the 44th Home Guards detachment from communists working at the city's factories to defend Taganrog; the detachment was under command of NKVD lieutenant Pyotr Gerasimov. In the summer months of 1941, the "Taganrog Instrumental Factory named after J. Stalin" began production of artillery shells. In the spring of 1941, the State Aviation Factory no.31 began producing the brand-new fighters LAGG-3 increasing the number of planes assembled to at least 6 airplanes per day following the opening of the Eastern Front. The "Taganrog factory named after Molotov" produced spare parts for tanks. On 30–31 August 1941, the city of Taganrog was bombed by Luftwaffe planes. On 15 September 1941, the Rostov Oblast Communist Party Committee gave instructions for the organization of defense and underground resistance in case of occupation.
A municipal defense committee was established in Taganrog, which controlled the evacuation of the population and military equipment from defense factories. The defense was held by 31st Rifle Division under command of Mikhail Ozimin and the 44th Home Guards detachment. On June 27, 1941 the State Communist Party Committee and Sovnarkom ordered the evacuation of industrial enterprises, agricultural resources and cultural values from the areas in the proximity of the front-line. On October 4, 1941 the first train from Taganrog, carrying the dismantled equipment of the Instrumental Factory named after J. Stalin, left for Novosibirsk. On October 9, 1941 the State Aviation Factory no.31 started preparations for evacuation to relocate the production of LAGG-3 to Tbilissi. On October 10, 1941 the Kransny Kotelshik factory started the evacuation of its equipment for Zlatoust of Chelyabinsk Oblast. On October 15, 1941 the Taganrog Metallurgical Pipe Factory finished its evacuation for Kamensk-Uralsky in Ural.
"The factory named after Molotov" was evacuated to Petropavlovsk. The Evacuation Hospital no.2097 located in Taganrog was evacuated on October 9 for Makhachkala. By October 15, 1941 around 70–75% of equipment and products of Taganrog factories, as well as most workers were evacuated from the city. On October 17, 1941, the armored divisions SS Division Wiking and 1st SS Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler of 1st Panzer Group arrived on the outskirts of Taganrog and several tanks made a breakthrough to the seaport and opened fire at gunboats "Krenkel" and "Rostov-Don" and the last transport ship evacuating women and children. According to Sovinformburo, the Germans lost around 35,000 soldiers and officers during the fight for Taganrog. According to German sources, on the way from Mariupol to Taganrog, the German army lost 138 dead and 479 wounded. During the takeover of Taganrog, I./LSSAH captured 510 war prisoners, 29 artillery pieces, 8 antitank guns, 29 heavy machine-guns. The gunboat "Krenkel" was damaged and sunk in the haven of the Taganrog seaport.
During the occupation, the local government system was replaced by Bürgermeisteramt or "New Russian local government" and the city was divided into 4 police sectors controlled by "Ortskommendatur" and by SS-Sturmbannführer Dr. Kurt Christmann of Einsatzkommando Sonderkommando 10a. Sicherheitsdienst headquarters were stationed at the Chekhov Gymnasium. In the summer-fall campaign of 1942 the headquarters of the VIII. Fliegerkorps of the Luftwaffe was stationed in Taganrog. Since November, 1942 Ju 52 and Ju 88 aircraft were flying supplies to German troops encircled in Stalingrad; the promised tonnage figure was never reached, instead of the minimum required 300 tons of supplies per day, a maximum of 100 tons per day was reached. Taganrog was paid considerable attention by German intelligence services, it was due not only to strategic objects, such as seaport, train stations or developed industry, but to the fact that the city was located on the Azov Sea with hospitals and a spa center that could provide comfortable staying conditions for personnel.
The following special services were stationed in Taganrog in 1941–1943: SS Einsatzkommande Sonderkommando 10a Sicherheitsdienst SD-6 Sicherheitsdienst SD-10 Sicherheitsdienst SD-4b headed by Eckhardt Geheime Feldpolizei GFP-626 Geheime Feldpolizei GFP-721 headed by Brandt Abwehr Abwehrgruppe 101 and 103 Abwehr Abwehrgruppe 201 Abwehr "Nachrichtenbeobachter" group Abwehr "Marine Einsatzkommando des Schwartzes Meeres" May–July 1942) Abwehr Abwehrnebenstelle "Ukraine" Abwehr Abwehrausland Wally The SS Einsatzgruppe Sonderkommando 10a performed systematic genocide of Taganrog citizens from the first days of occupation. The large groups of citizens were taken from Vladimirskaya Plaza in Taganrog to Petrushino village, where they were shot to death in the Gully of Petrushino; the massacres in Taganrog started with the Final Solution of the Jewish question. On October 22, 1941 the Ortskommendant issued an order for all Jewish people to wear a Star of David sign and to register themselves at the Ortskommendatur
Alexei Senyavin
Alexei Naumovich Senyavin was an admiral of the Imperial Russian Navy, son of Naum Senyavin. Senyavin began his career in the navy in 1734 as a warrant officer. Serving in the Dnieper Flotilla, he took part in the Russo-Turkish War of 1735-1739. In 1739, Alexei Senyavin was transferred to the Baltic Fleet. At the height of the Seven Years' War, Senyavin commanded a battleship during the blockade of Kolberg. Alexei Senyavin retired from the navy in 1762 as 1st rank. Senyavin’s career in the navy coincided with the reign of Catherine the Great. In 1766, he was called out for service yet again and promoted to the rank of rear admiral two years later. Due to Russia's ongoing preparations for the war against the Turks, the empress entrusted Alexei Senyavin with the construction of different ships at the dockyards along the Don River, which would be able to reach the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea. Thus, Senyavin was made responsible for re-establishing the Don Military Flotilla, supposed to interoperate with the Russian ground forces along the Crimean coastline.
Senyavin had to come up with a certain type of ships, which could navigate in shallow waters and meet combat requirements, at the same time. Alexei Senyavin managed to build a flotilla by 1771 and sent it to Taganrog to assist the Russian troops in occupying the Crimea. In 1773, he was put in charge of this flotilla and succeeded in fighting off the Turks at sea blocking their access to the Sea of Azov by capturing Yenikale and Kerch. In 1774, Senyavin rebuffed the attack of the Turkish fleet in the Strait of Kerch, making it retire with losses. Owing in large part to the actions of the Don Military Flotilla under Senyavin's command, Russia signed a favourable Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca with Turkey, regaining Azov and Taganrog and gaining Kerch and Yenikale. Thus, Catherine II made Peter the Great's dream a reality – Russia got its first direct access to the Black Sea. For his excellent service and achievements, Alexei Senyavin was first promoted to the rank of vice admiral and admiral, he was awarded the Order of St. Anna and Order of St. Alexander Nevsky.
In 1788, Alexei Senyavin retired from the navy due to his illness. Upon his recovery in 1794, he was asked to join the Admiralty Board; this article includes content derived from the Russian Biographical Dictionary, 1896–1918
Anapa
Anapa is a town in Krasnodar Krai, located on the northern coast of the Black Sea near the Sea of Azov. Population: 58,990 ; the area around Anapa was settled in antiquity. It was a major seaport for the Natkhuay tribe of the Adyghe people and the capital of Sindica; the colony of Gorgippia was built on the site of Sinda in the 6th century BCE by Pontic Greeks, who named it after a king of the Cimmerian Bosporus. In the 2nd and 3rd centuries BCE, Gorgippia flourished as part of the Bosporan Kingdom, as did its guild of shipowners, which controlled maritime trade in the eastern part of the Black Sea. A fine statue of Neokles was unearthed by Russian archaeologists and is now on exhibit at the Russian Museum. Gorgippia was inhabited until the 3rd century CE; these tribes, of Circassian or Adyghe origin, gave Anapa its modern name. The Black Sea littoral was overrun by successive waves of Asiatic nomads, including the Sarmatians, Huns, Gokturks, Khazars and Tatars; the settlement was renamed Mapa by the Genoese at the turn of the 14th century.
Genoese domination lasted until the arrival of an Ottoman fleet in 1475. The Turks built a fort against the Russian Cossacks; the fortress was attacked by the Russian Empire and was all but destroyed during its last siege in 1829. The town was passed to Russia after the Treaty of Adrianople. See Russian conquest of the Caucasus#Black Sea Coast, it was included in Black Sea Okrug of Kuban Oblast and was granted town status in 1846. It was occupied by Ottomans between 1853-1856 during the Crimean War, it became part of Black Sea Governorate in 1896. Elizabeth Pilenko named as a saint in the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, was the mayor during the Russian Revolution, it became part of Kuban-Black Sea Oblast in 1920. During World War II, it was occupied and demolished by Nazi Germany with the help of Romanian troops between August 30, 1942 and September 22, 1943. Within the framework of administrative divisions, Anapa serves as the administrative center of Anapsky District though it is not a part of it; as an administrative division, it is, together with three rural localities, incorporated separately as the Town of Anapa—an administrative unit with the status equal to that of the districts.
As a municipal division, the territories of the Town of Anapa and of Anapsky District are incorporated as Anapa Urban Okrug. The town boasts a number of sanatoria and hotels. Anapa and several other cities along the Russian coast of the Black Sea have enjoyed a substantial increase in popularity since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, which left traditional Soviet resort cities in Abkhazia on the other side of the national border. Anapa is served by the Anapa Airport. Anapa, like the other Black Sea coast resorts, has a superb sunny summer climate. Anapa has beautiful sandy beaches. However, Anapa attracts tourists from outside Russia due to its modest infrastructure and its inconvenient accessibility from Western Europe via Moscow or Krasnodar. Anapa remains an attractive and inexpensive option for Russians who prefer traditional Russian resorts to more expensive destinations. Transportation facilities include the Anapa Airport, a railway station, an international passenger port for small-tonnage ships, a bus station, a network of highways.
Anapa has a humid subtropical climate at the lower elevations. Its average annual temperature is +9.0 °C at night. Average annual precipitation is about 560 millimeters; the Town Theater of Anapa is located on Krymskaya Street. It was opened after the reconstruction of the Town Cultural Center. There are twenty nine public libraries including four for children. In 2010 the libraries of Anapa received more than 8,000 books, magazines and newspapers were ordered costing more than 1,000,000 roubles, in addition, nine hundred CDs were purchased. There is museum of Local History on Protapova Street; the Gorgippia Archeological museum Gates of Turkish fortress Church of St. Onuphrius Lighthouse Wildlife preserve of Bolshoy Utrish south of Sukko Maria Skobtsova Valentin Mashukov Germogen Korolyov Mikhail Boyur Vitaly Astapenko Vladimir Tsukanov Anatoly Pakhomov Tatyana Yevsikova Kinoshock film festival Blue-eyed Anapa song Festival Russian coast guard academy Anapa is twinned with: Gomel, Belarus Novy Urengoy, Russia Kizlyar, Russia Управление по взаимодействию с органами местного самоуправления Администрации Краснодарского края.
Справочная информация №34.01-707/13-03 от 23 мая 2013 г. «Реестр административно-территориальных единиц Краснодарского края».. Законодательное Собрание Краснодарского края. Закон №676-КЗ от 1 апреля 2004 г. «Об установлении границ муниципального образования город-курорт Анапа и наделении его статусом городского округа», в ред. Закона №1756-КЗ от 3 июня 2009 г «О внесении изменений в некоторые законодательные акты Краснодарского края об установлении границ муниципальных образований». Вступил в силу со дня официального опубликования. Опубликован: "Кубанские новости", №64–65, 17 апреля 2004 г. (Legislative Assembly of Krasnodar Krai. Law #676-KZ of April 1, 2004 On Establishing the Borders of the Municipal Formation of the Resort City of Anapa and on Granting It the Status of an Urban Okrug, as amended by the Law #1756-
Taganrog
Taganrog is a port city in Rostov Oblast, Russia, on the north shore of the Taganrog Bay in the Sea of Azov, several kilometers west of the mouth of the Don River. As of the 2010 Census, its population was 257,681; the history of the city goes back to late Bronze Age–early Iron Age, when it was the earliest Greek settlement in the northwestern Black Sea Region and was mentioned by the Greek historian Herodotus as Emporion Kremnoi. Taganrog was founded by Peter the Great on September 12, 1698; the first Russian Navy base, it hosted the Azov Flotilla of Catherine the Great, which subsequently became the Russian Black Sea Fleet. Taganrog was granted city status in 1775. By the end of the 18th century, Taganrog had lost its importance as a military base after Crimea and the entire Sea of Azov were absorbed into the Russian Empire. In 1802, Tsar Alexander I granted the city special status, which lasted until 1887. In 1825, the Alexander I Palace in Taganrog was used as his summer residence, where he died in November 1825.
Taganrog became important as a commercial port, used for the import and export of grain by the end of the 19th century until the early 20th century. Industrialization increased in the city when Belgian and German investors founded a boiler factory, an iron and steel foundry, a leather factory, an oil press factory. By 1911, fifteen foreign consulates had opened in the city. During World War I, Taganrog was occupied by the troops of the German Army from May until August 1918. In 1919, General Anton Denikin established his headquarters at the Avgerino mansion in the city while commanding White Russian troops fighting in South Russia during the Russian Civil War; when the White Russians were defeated and Bolshevik power was established in the city on December 25, 1919, Denikin's remaining troops and the British Consulate were evacuated by HMS Montrose. Full power was granted to the Executive Committee of The City Soviet Workers' council on December 17, 1920, Taganrog joined the Ukrainian SSR as the administrative center of Taganrog Okrug, until it was transferred to the Russian SFSR along with Shakhty Okrug on October 1, 1924.
During World War II, Taganrog was occupied by Nazi Germany from 1941 to 1943 during Operation Barbarossa, when two SS divisions entered the city on October 17, 1941, followed by Wehrmacht divisions, with the city suffering extensive damage. The occupation led to the local government system being replaced by German-style Bürgermeisteramt, which governed the city until it was liberated by the Red Army on August 30, 1943. Within the framework of administrative divisions, it is incorporated as Taganrog Urban Okrug—an administrative unit with the status equal to that of the districts; as a municipal division, this administrative unit has urban okrug status. The climate of Taganrog is temperate. Taganrog experiences hot summers. Taganrog is the leading industrial center of Rostov Oblast. Local industry is represented by aerospace, machine-building, military and steel industry, metal traders and processors, woodwork and paper, light and industry of construction materials, one of the major ports of the Sea of Azov.
The biggest company operating in Taganrog is Taganrog Metallurgical Plant, which manufactures steel, steel pipe, for oil and gas industry and consumer goods. The other major employer is Taganrog Auto Factory, which originated from Taganrog Combine Harvester Factory; the plant manufactures automobiles licensed by Hyundai. The production line includes Hyundai Accent compact sedan, mid-size Hyundai Sonata, sport utility vehicle Santa Fe, Hyundai Porter pickup truck. Taganrog is home to the aircraft design bureau Beriev; the area around Taganrog has a large industrial potential, a diversified agricultural industry, production plants, a modern infrastructure. The location of Taganrog on the intersection of traffic routes and the seaport facilitate access to the emerging CIS markets. Taganrog's main trading partners are the CIS countries, South Korea, Italy and Egypt; the Taganrog air base is 3.6 miles to the northwest of the city and hosts the Taganrog Aviation Museum. The city hosts the Taganrog military museum.
Taganrog College of Technologies Taganrog State Pedagogical Institute Taganrog College of Management and Economy The image of the city and its people is featured in numerous Anton Chekhov works, including Ionych, The House with an Attic, The Man in a Shell, Van'ka, Three Years, My Life. It is believed that Taganrog's image may be used as Lukomorye in Alexander Pushkin's Ruslan and Lyudmila, it appeared in the novels of Ivan Vasilenko and Konstantin Paustovsky and in the poems of Nikolay Sherbina and Valentin Parnakh. The conspiratorial legend of "Elder Fyodor Kuzmich" is cited in the book Roza Mira by Russian mystic Daniil Andreyev. According to this legend, the Russian tsar Alexander I did not die in Taganrog, but instead left his crown and the status of monarch to continue his life as a traveling hermit. In foreign literature, the city was mentioned in the titles of Der Tote von Taganrog by Eberhard von Cranach-Sichart and Taganrog by Reinhold Schneider. In 2004 Sabine Wichert published a collection of poems titled Taganrog.
Numerous Russian and international aristocrats, politicians and scientists were born and/or have lived in Taganrog. Taganrog is the native city of Anton Chekhov, Faina Ranevskaya, Sophia Parnok, Alexandre Koyré, Isaac Yakovlevich Pavlovsky, Dmitri Sinodi-Popov.
White movement
The White movement and its military arm the White Army known as the White Guard, the White Guardsmen or the Whites, was a loose confederation of anti-communist forces that fought the Communist Bolsheviks known as the Reds, in the Russian Civil War and to a lesser extent continued operating as militarized associations insurrectionists both outside and within Russian borders in Siberia until World War II. During the Russian Civil War, the White movement was a big tent political movement representing an array of political opinions in Russia united in their opposition to the Communist Bolsheviks, from the republican-minded liberals and Kerenskyite social democrats who had profited from the February Revolution of 1917 on the left to the champions of Tsarism and the Russian Orthodox Church of Eastern Orthodox Christianity on the right. Following their defeat, there were remnants and continuations of the movement in several organizations, some of which only had narrow support, enduring within the wider White émigré overseas community until after the fall of Communism in the Eastern European Revolutions of 1989 and the subsequent Dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1990–1991.
This community-in-exile of anti-communists was divided between the liberals and the more conservative segments, with some still hoping for the restoration of the Romanov dynasty, including several claimants to the empty throne like Nicholas Romanov, Prince of Russia living in Italy and Prince Andrew Romanov in the United States and other exiles, still hopes for a true constitutional democratic republic in Russia. In the Russian context after 1917, "White" had three main connotations: Political contra-distinction to "the Reds", whose revolutionary Red Army supported the Bolshevik government. Historical reference to absolute monarchy recalling Russia's first Tsar, Ivan III, at a period when some styled the ruler of Muscovy Albus Rex; the white uniforms of Imperial Russia worn by some White Army soldiers. Above all, the White movement emerged as opponents of the Red Army; the White Army had the stated aim to keep law and order in Russia as the Tsar's army before the civil war and the salvation of Russia.
They worked to remove Soviet functionaries in White-controlled territory. Overall, the White Army rejected ethnic particularism and separatism; the White Army believed in a united multinational Russia and opposed separatists who wanted to create nation-states. American historians Richard L. Rubenstein and John K Roth state that 60,000 Jewish members of the Red Army were killed in combat against White forces during the Civil War of 1917 to 1923. British parliamentary influential leader Winston Churchill warned General Anton Denikin of the Imperial Army and a major White military leader, whose forces effected pogroms and persecutions against the Jews: y task in winning support in Parliament for the Russian Nationalist cause will be infinitely harder if well-authenticated complaints continue to be received from Jews in the zone of the Volunteer Armies. Many of the White leaders were conservative, accepting autocracy while remaining suspicious of "politics". Aside from being anti-Bolshevik and anti-Communist and patriotic, the Whites had no set ideology or main leader.
The White Armies did acknowledge a single provisional head of state in a Supreme Governor of Russia in a Provisional All-Russian Government, but this post was prominent only under the leadership in the war campaigns during of Admiral Alexander Kolchak of the previous Russian Imperial Navy. The movement had no set plan for foreign policy. Whites differed on policies toward the German Empire in its extended occupation of western Russia, the Baltic states and the Ukraine on the Eastern Front in the closing days of the World War, debating whether or not to ally with it; the Whites wanted to keep from alienating any potential supporters and allies and thus saw an monarchist position as a detriment to their cause and recruitment. White-movement leaders such as Anton Denikin advocated for Russians to create their own government, claiming the military could not decide in Russians' steads. Admiral Alexander Kolchak succeeded in creating a temporary wartime government in Omsk, acknowledged by most other White leaders, only for it to fall with the loss of his armies.
Some warlords who were aligned with the White movement, such as Grigory Semyonov and Roman Ungern von Sternberg, did not acknowledge any authority but their own. The White movement had no set political leanings as members could be monarchists, rightists, or Kadets. Among White Army leaders, neither General Lavr Kornilov nor General Anton Denikin were monarchists, yet General Pyotr Nikolayevich Wrangel was a monarchist willing to soldier for a republican Russian government. Moreover, other political parties supported the anti-Bolshevik White Army, among them the Socialist-Revolutionary Party, others who opposed Lenin's Bolshevik October Revolution of 1917. Depending on the time and place, those White Army supporters might exchange right-wing allegiance for allegiance to the Red Army. Unlike the Bolsheviks, the White Armies did not share a single ideology, methodology, or political goal, they were led by conservative generals with different agendas a
Temryuk
Temryuk is a town and the administrative center of Temryuksky District in Krasnodar Krai, located on the Taman Peninsula on the right bank of the Kuban River not far from its entry into the Temryuk Bay, amid a field of mud volcanoes. The seaport of Temryuk is situated 4 kilometers from the town itself. Population: 38,046 . Situated in the proximity of the site of ancient Tmutarakan, Temryuk was vied by various powers as a vantage point commanding the mouth of the Kuban River; the first recorded settlement on the site was Tumnev, a Tatar fortress, which passed to the Genoese merchants in the 14th century. It was known as Copa until occupied by the Crimean Khanate in 1483; the Russians, allied with a local potentate, Temryuk of Kabardia, captured Tumnev and built a fortress of New Temryuk there. The Crimean Tatars retook the fort in 1570. In the 18th century, the site was settled by the Cossacks, whose stanitsa was incorporated as the town of Temryuk in 1860. Within the framework of administrative divisions, Temryuk serves as the administrative center of Temryuksky District.
As an administrative division, it is, together with three rural localities, incorporated within Temryuksky District as the Town of Temryuk. As a municipal division, the Town of Temryuk is incorporated within Temryuksky Municipal District as Temryukskoye Urban Settlement. Управление по взаимодействию с органами местного самоуправления Администрации Краснодарского края. Справочная информация №34.01-707/13-03 от 23 мая 2013 г. «Реестр административно-территориальных единиц Краснодарского края».. Законодательное Собрание Краснодарского края. Закон №685-КЗ от 1 апреля 2004 г. «Об установлении границ муниципального образования Темрюкский район, наделении его статусом муниципального района, образовании в его составе муниципальных образований — городского поселения, сельских поселений — и установлении их границ», в ред. Закона №1756-КЗ от 3 июня 2009 г. «О внесении изменений в некоторые законодательные акты Краснодарского края об установлении границ муниципальных образований». Вступил в силу со дня официального опубликования.
Опубликован: "Информационный бюллетень ЗС Краснодарского края", №16, 5 апреля 2004 г
Crimean Offensive
The Crimean Offensive, known in German sources as the Battle of the Crimea, was a series of offensives by the Red Army directed at the German-held Crimea. The Red Army's 4th Ukrainian Front engaged the German 17th Army of Army Group A, which consisted of Wehrmacht and Romanian formations; the battles ended with the evacuation of the Crimea by the Germans. German and Romanian forces suffered considerable losses during the evacuation. During late 1943 and early 1944, the Wehrmacht was pressed back along its entire front line in the east. In October 1943, the 17th Army withdrew from the Kuban bridgehead across the Kerch Strait into the Crimea. During the following months, the Red Army pushed back the Wehrmacht in southern Ukraine cutting off the land-based connection of 17th Army through the Perekop Isthmus in November 1943; the Wehrmacht was able to hold on to the Crimea after it had been cut off by land due to their ability to supply it via the Black Sea. Holding the Crimea was considered important as its loss would negatively affect the attitude of Turkey and put Romanian oilfields under risk of Soviet air attacks.
Aside from Soviet landings across the Kerch Strait and in the north-eastern sector near Sivash at the end of 1943, the Soviet Army ignored the Crimea for the next five months. Paul Ludwig Ewald von Kleist was removed from the command of Army Group A on March 30, 1944, he was succeeded by Ferdinand Schörner. An assault across the Perekop Isthmus was launched on 8 April by elements of the 4th Ukrainian Front's 2nd Guards and 51st Armies; the 17th Army was unable to stop the advance. Kerch was reached by the Separate Coastal Army on 11 April; the 17th Army was retreating toward Sevastopol by 16 April, with remaining Axis forces in the Crimea concentrating around the city by the end of the third week of April. The OKH intended to hold Sevastopol as a fortress, as the Red Army had done during the first Crimean campaign in 1941–42. However, the fortifications of the city had never been restored and Sevastopol was not the strong defensive position that it had been in 1941. Fighting broke out in the city outskirts towards the end of April and the city fell on 9 May, less than a month after the start of the offensive.
The Axis sea evacuation to Constanța was attacked by Soviet land-based bombers. The evacuation of the Crimea in April–May 1944 was the most complex and extensive operation of the Romanian Navy during the Second World War. From 15 April to 14 May, numerous German and Romanian warships escorted many convoys between Constanța and Sevastopol; the scale and importance of the operation can be attested by the usage in combat of all four Romanian destroyers, the largest Axis warships in the Black Sea. The last phase of the evacuation saw the fiercest combat, as Axis ships transported, under constant attacks from Soviet aircraft and shore artillery, over 30,000 troops. Of these, 18,000 were transported by Romanian ships. On 11 May, the German tanker Friederike was torpedoed and damaged by Soviet submarine L-4, preventing her participation. In total and German convoys evacuated over 113,000 Axis troops from the Crimea, most of them during the first phase of the evacuation. No Romanian Navy warships were lost during the evacuation, however the destroyer Regele Ferdinand came close to being sunk.
She was struck by a large aerial bomb, which failed to detonate. The bomb was extracted several days after the end of the operation. Two naval actions involving the Romanian Navy took place during the second phase of the evacuation, near Sevastopol. On 18 April, the Soviet Leninets-class submarine L-6 was twice attacked with depth charges and damaged by the Romanian gunboat Ghiculescu, numerous bubbles emerged from the depths after each attack, before being finished off by the German submarine hunter UJ-104. During the night of 27 April, a convoy escorted by the Romanian gunboat Ghiculescu, the German submarine hunter UJ-115, one R-boat, two KFK naval trawlers and 19 MFPs engaged the Soviet G-5-class motor torpedo boats TKA-332, TKA-343 and TKA-344, after the three attacked and damaged the German submarine hunter UJ-104. Ghiculescu opened fire with tracer rounds, enabling the entire escort group to locate the two Soviet MTBs and open fire. TKA-332 was sunk. Over 12 Soviet aircraft were shot down during the evacuation, including two by the minelaying destroyer escort Amiral Murgescu.
The last Axis pockets in the Crimea were destroyed on 12 May. The last Axis warship to leave the peninsula was Amiral Murgescu, carrying on board 1,000 Axis troops, including the German General Walter Hartmann. In a meeting with Adolf Hitler in Berchtesgaden, Jaenecke had insisted that Sevastopol should be evacuated and his cut off Army of 235,000 men withdrawn. After the loss of the Crimea, he was arrested in Romania and court-martialed. Only the intervention of Heinz Guderian saved his life, he was dismissed from the army on 31 January 1945. The German and Romanian formations suffered the loss of 57,000 men, many of whom drowned during the evacuation; the sinking of the Totila and Teja on 10 May alone caused up to 10,000 deaths. In total, the German losses at sea amounted to five cargo ships, one tanker, three tugs, three lighters, three motorboats and four submarine hunters, while the Romanians lost three cargo ships; the successful evacuation of Axis troops from the Crimea earned the commander of the Romanian Navy, Rear Admiral Horia Macellariu, the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross.
The table below is based on information from Glantz/House When Titans Clashed.: 4th Uk
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