2.1. The transition of the Red Army to a strategic offensive in the winter of 1942 Roosevelt's demarche regarding the opening of a second front in 1942 The first strategic offensive of the Red ArmyThe success of the counteroffensive near Moscow in December 1941 Stalin decided to complete the achievement

Documents say that the role of L.Z. Mehlis and D.T. Kozlova in these terrible events is somewhat exaggerated

Stumbling ditch for tanks

Most of the failures of the Soviet troops in 1941-1942. one way or another connected with the sparse formation of formations, when the divisions occupied lanes much wider than the statutory norms. The accompanying mistakes in determining the direction of the enemy's strike made the picture of events quite obvious and understandable.

The Crimean Front represented the exact opposite of all this: its troops took up defensive positions on a narrow isthmus and had (at least from the point of view of statutory requirements) sufficient means for defense. It seemed almost impossible to miss the direction of the enemy's strike on such a front. Accordingly, most often the defeat of the Crimean Front was associated with the activities of L.Z. Mehlis and D.T. Kozlov. The first was the representative of the Headquarters in the Crimea, the second - the commander of the Crimean Front.

Is it possible to confirm this version 70 years after the war, having documents from both sides? Immersion in details leaves more questions than answers in the outline of the version about the overly active L.Z. Mehlis and "non-Hindenburg" 1st Commander D.T. Kozlov. Within the framework of the traditional version, it is completely incomprehensible how the Crimean Front was not defeated a month and a half before the fateful May 1942. For some reason, then the Soviet troops quite successfully repulsed the blow of the fresh German 22nd Panzer Division, which had just arrived in Crimea from France. Even then, decisive tasks were set for her - to cut off the main forces of the Crimean Front with a blow to the shore of the Sea of ​​\u200b\u200bAzov. The German counterattack ended in complete failure and demands to deal with it personally from Hitler.

The circumstances of the events were as follows. The next offensive of the Crimean Front began on March 13, 1942, but no decisive result was achieved. After a week of fighting, the Soviet units were pretty battered and exhausted. On the other side of the front, the situation was also assessed without much optimism. The command of the 11th Army and personally the commander E. von Manstein considered the situation of their troops to be extremely difficult. Upon arrival in the Crimea, the fresh 22nd Panzer Division was on the march, until the full concentration of units was thrown into battle in the early morning of March 20, 1942. The counterattack pursued ambitious goals - by striking through the village of Korpech to the northeast, cut off the main forces of the Soviet 51st Army Crimean front.

Despite the initial success, a massive tank attack (about 120 tanks at a time - for the first time in the Crimea) forced the Soviet infantry to leave their positions, then events began to develop according to a scenario that was extremely unpleasant for the Germans. The stream that crossed the offensive zone of the division, which was considered by the Germans to be surmountable even for the Kübelwagen, 2 was escarped and turned by Soviet sappers into an anti-tank ditch. German tanks huddled near the stream came under heavy fire from Soviet artillery. At that moment, Soviet tanks appeared.

It must be said that after a week of a difficult and unsuccessful offensive, the tank troops of the 51st Army were not in the best condition. They were represented by the 55th tank brigade of Colonel M. D. Sinenko and the combined tank battalion of combat vehicles of the 39th, 40th tank brigades and the 229th separate tank brigade (8 KV and 6 T-60 on March 19).

By 05:00 on March 20, the 55th brigade had 23 T-26 cannons and 12 KhT-133 flamethrowers in service. This seemingly meager amount of armored vehicles finally turned the tide of battle in favor of the Soviet troops. KV shot German tanks, lighter vehicles dealt with infantry. As noted in the report of the brigade on the results of the battles, "flamethrower tanks were especially effective, destroying enemy infantry running back with their fire" 3 . The 22nd Panzer Division was put to flight, leaving 34 tanks of all types, some of them serviceable, on the battlefield. The German casualties amounted to more than 1100 people.

The main reason for the failure was the unpreparedness of the fresh formation for the conditions of the war in the Crimea. In a report to the Supreme High Command of the Ground Forces, in the hot pursuit of the events, Manstein outlined its features in bright colors: “The high consumption of artillery ammunition, the constant attacks of very large aviation forces, the use of multiple rocket launchers and a large number of tanks (many of them are the heaviest) turn battles into a battle of equipment, in no way inferior to the battles of the World War" 4 . It should be noted here that the formations of the Crimean Front operated under the same harsh conditions. If everything fit into the simple formula "Mehlis and Kozlov are to blame for everything," the Crimean Front would have been given up as early as the end of March 1942.

Preparing for the Bustard Hunt

In the course of preparing Operation Bustard Hunting, the German command took into account all the lessons of the battles of January-April 1942. Bearing in mind the negative experience with the stream turned into a ditch, detailed information was collected about the anti-tank ditch in the rear of Soviet positions. Aerial photography, a survey of defectors and prisoners made it possible to evaluate this engineering structure and find its weaknesses. In particular, it was concluded that a breakthrough through heavily mined (including sea mines) crossings across the ditch was completely hopeless. The Germans decided to build a bridge over the moat after breaking through to it away from the crossings.

The main thing that was done by the German command was the concentration of forces and means sufficient to defeat the troops of D.T. Kozlov. One of the widespread misconceptions about the events of May 1942 in the Crimea is the belief in the quantitative superiority of the Soviet troops over the German strike force. It is the result of an uncritical assessment of the data of E. von Manstein, who wrote in his memoirs about the conduct of the offensive "with a ratio of forces of 2:1 in favor of the enemy" 5 .

Today we have the opportunity to turn to the documents and not to think along with Manstein about the "hordes of Mongols." As is known, by the beginning of the decisive battle for the Kerch Peninsula, the Crimean Front (with part of the forces of the Black Sea Fleet and the Azov Flotilla) numbered 249,800 people 6 .

In turn, the 11th Army on May 2, 1942, based on the number of "eaters", totaled 232,549 (243,760 on May 11) military personnel in army units and formations, 24 (25) thousand people of the Luftwaffe personnel, 2 thousand people from Kriegsmarine and 94.6 (95) thousand Romanian soldiers and officers 7 . In total, this gave over 350 thousand people of the total strength of Manstein's army. In addition, several thousand personnel of the imperial railways, the SD, the Todt organization in the Crimea and 9.3 thousand collaborators, designated in the German report as "Tatars", were subordinate to her.

In any case, there was no question of the numerical superiority of the Crimean Front over Manstein's troops aimed at it. Strengthening went in all directions. The 11th Army was transferred to the VIII Air Corps, specially trained for interaction with the ground forces by the Luftwaffe air force. In early May 1942, 460 aircraft arrived in Crimea, including a group of the latest Henschel-129 attack aircraft.

Another widespread misconception is the thesis about the offensive grouping of the front, which supposedly prevented it from effectively defending itself. Documents now available indicate that the Crimean Front at the turn of April-May 1942, without any doubt, went over to the defensive. Moreover, reasonable assumptions were made about the possible directions of enemy attacks: from Koi-Asan to Parpach and further along the railway and along the Feodosia highway to Arma-Eli. The Germans in Bustard Hunting chose the second option and advanced in May 1942 along the highway to Arma-Ely.

Ammunition on a starvation ration

The lengthy preparation of the operation allowed the Germans to choose a vulnerable sector of the defense of the Crimean Front. It was the strip of the 44th Army of the Hero of the Soviet Union, Lieutenant General S.I., adjacent to the Black Sea. Chernyak. In the direction of the planned main attack of the Germans was the 63rd Mountain Rifle Division. The national composition of the division was motley. As of April 28, 1942, out of 5,595 junior officers and privates, there were 2,613 Russians, 722 Ukrainians, 423 Armenians, 853 Georgians, 430 Azerbaijanis, and 544 people of other nationalities 8 . The share of the peoples of the Caucasus was quite significant, although not dominant (for comparison: 7,141 Azerbaijanis served in the 396th Infantry Division, with a total division strength of 10,447 people). On April 26, units of the 63rd Division participated in a private operation to improve positions, which was not successful and only increased losses. The situation was aggravated by the shortage of weapons. So, on April 25, the division had only four 45mm guns and four 76-mm divisional guns, machine guns - 29 pieces. The "icing on the cake" was the absence of a detachment detachment in the division (they appeared in the Red Army even before order N 227 "Not a step back"). The division commander, Colonel Vinogradov, motivated this by the small number of units.

Shortly before the German offensive, on April 29, 1942, an officer of the General Staff in the 44th Army, Major A. Zhitnik, prophetically wrote in his report to the Chief of Staff of the Crimean Front: "It is necessary either to completely withdraw [the division] ... to the second echelon (and this is the most the best) or at least in parts. Its direction is the direction of a probable enemy strike, and as soon as he accumulates deserters from this division and is convinced of the low morale of this division, he will strengthen his decision to strike his blow in this sector "9. Initially, the plan did not provide for the change of division, only the rotation of regiments within the formation with the withdrawal to rest in the second echelon 10 . The final version, approved on May 3, 1942, envisaged the withdrawal of the division to the second echelon of the army on May 10-11, two days after the start of the German offensive. Major Zhitnik was heard, but the measures taken were belated.

In general, the 63rd Mountain Rifle Division was one of the weakest formations of the Crimean Front. At the same time, it cannot be said that she was a completely outsider in terms of weapons. Weak staffing of 45-mm guns was a common problem for Soviet troops in the Crimea, their number in divisions ranged from 2 to 18 per division, on average - 6-8 pieces. As of April 26, out of 603 "forty-fives" ordered by the state, the Crimean Front had only 206 guns of this type, out of 416 divisional 76-mm guns - 236, out of 4754 anti-tank guns laid down by the state - 1372 12 . The problem of anti-tank defense was somewhat alleviated by the presence of four regiments of 76-mm SPM guns in the Crimean Front, but they still had to be at the right time in the right place. A massive enemy tank attack would be a big problem for any division of the Crimean Front. It is also often forgotten that in 1942 the Red Army was on a starvation ration both in terms of weapons and ammunition. It was difficult to organize the Kursk salient in July 1943 in the Crimea in May 1942 with the forces of four "forty-fives" and 29 "Maxims".

To a large extent (and this was clearly shown by the episode of March 20, 1942), the anti-tank defense of the troops of the Crimean Front was provided by tanks. By May 8, 1942, the tank troops of the front had 41 KV, 7 T-34, 111 T-26 and flamethrower KhT-133, 78 T-60 and 1 captured Pz.IV 13 in service. A total of 238 combat vehicles, mostly light. The KV tanks were the core of the tank troops of the Crimean Front. In the band of the 44th Army, according to the plan, two brigades were involved, which had 9 KV. In the event of an enemy attack, a counterattack plan was developed for several options, including an enemy strike in the zone of the neighboring 51st Army.

The trouble came from where they did not expect

This is the time to turn to folders with gothic font on the covers. Yes, theoretically, the Crimean Front could repeat the success of March 20, 1942 with a tank counterattack, but only if the qualitative composition of the enemy grouping did not change. It was she who underwent changes that had fatal consequences for the Soviet troops in the Crimea. The German command reinforced the armored vehicles in the Crimea qualitatively. The 22nd Panzer Division received 12 of the newest Pz.IVs with a 75-mm long-barreled gun, 20 Pz.IIIs with a 50-mm long-barreled gun and Marder self-propelled guns with a 76.2-mm gun to the anti-tank division, the 190th assault gun division received 6 self-propelled guns with a 75-mm long-barreled gun 14 .

However, the German offensive began on the morning of May 8, 1942, not with a tank attack. It turned out to be atypical. The Germans abandoned artillery and aviation preparation for the attack. The infantry attacked after a fire attack from rocket-propelled mortars, including those with incendiary warheads. An attack by assault boats followed from the sea, bypassing the coastal flank of the Soviet positions. It was assault sapper boats that were used to force rivers and build pontoon bridges. There was no opposition to this landing from the small ships of the Black Sea Fleet, but Mehlis will be blamed for the failure.

Only after the beginning of the infantry offensive did artillery open fire, and air attacks began. As later noted in the report of the 11th Army on the breakthrough of the Parpach positions, "according to the prisoners, the enemy's telephone network was damaged so badly that the Russian command was confused" 15 . Loss of communication due to massive artillery strikes was a typical occurrence. Nevertheless, the tanks of the 44th Army were put into action according to plan. However, the opposition of the attackers was stronger than expected.

After overcoming the ditch, the 22nd Panzer Division struck north, repulsed tank counterattacks and closed the encirclement of the main forces of the 47th and 51st Armies of the Crimean Front. This sealed the fate of the battle. As indicated in the report of the headquarters of the 11th Army on the results of the breakthrough of the Parpach positions, "the success of the 22nd tank [tank] division] in breaking through the position of Parpach and advancing through Arma-Eli to the north was largely determined by the presence of new weapons. Thanks to With this weapon, the soldiers had a sense of superiority over the Russian heavy tanks" 16 . Soviet sources confirm a qualitative change in the situation: "Among the new means used by the enemy, attention is drawn to the presence of shells that penetrate the armor of the KV and set it on fire" 17 . It should also be noted that later, with the widespread use of the latest 75mm guns on the Soviet-German front, until 1943 they were more often used with cumulative shells (as they were called in the Red Army, "termite"). In the Crimea, the latest technology of the Wehrmacht used the most effective caliber armor-piercing shells.

The battlefield was left to the Germans, and they had the opportunity to inspect the wrecked vehicles. The conclusion was expected: "The bulk of the KV and T-34 was unequivocally destroyed by shells of 7.62 and 7.5cm" 18 . As for the impact on Soviet tanks from the air, Soviet data do not confirm the great success of the Khsh-129 anti-tank attack aircraft. Only 15 tanks fell victim to airstrikes, mostly T-26s from the 126th Separate Tank Brigade 19 .

Summing up the above, we can state that the legend about the role of L.Z. Mehlis and D.T. Kozlova in the history of the Crimean Front is somewhat exaggerated. The troops of the front suffered from problems common to the Red Army in 1942 with training and weapons. Favorable conditions for the defense of the narrow isthmus were parried by the Germans with the massive use of new types of weapons and the general concentration of forces and means to crush the Soviet troops in the Crimea. Actually, it was precisely the sharp change in the anti-tank capabilities of the German troops that became a big problem for the Red Army in the summer of 1942. The Crimea became a testing ground for new equipment, which the Soviet troops would soon get acquainted with on the entire front from Rzhev to the Caucasus.

* The article was prepared within the framework of the project of the Russian Humanitarian Science Foundation N 15-31-10158.

Notes
1. In response to the request of Mekhlis to replace Kozlov, the Kremlin replied: "We do not have Hindenburgs in reserve."
2. Army passenger car on a Volkswagen chassis.
3. TsAMO RF. F. 224. Op. 790. D. 1. L. 33.
4. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). T312. R366. Frame 794176.
5. Manstein E. Lost victories. M.; SPb., 1999. S. 260.
6. Russia and the USSR in the wars of the twentieth century: Losses of the Armed Forces. M., 2001. S. 311.
7.NARA. T312. R420. Frames 7997283, 7997314.
8. TsAMO RF. F. 215. Op. 1185. D. 52. L. 26.
9. TsAMO RF. F. 215. Op. 1185. D. 22. L. 224.
10. TsAMO RF. F. 215. Op. 1185. D. 47. L. 70.
11. Ibid. L. 74.
12. TsAMO RF. F. 215. Op. 1185. D. 79. L. 12.
13. TsAMO RF. F. 215. Op. 1209. D. 2. L. 25, 30.
14. NARA. T312. R1693. Frames 141, 142.
15. NARA. T312. R1693. Frame 138.
16.NARA. T312. R1693. Frame 139.
17. TsAMO RF. F. 215. Op. 1209. D. 2. L. 22.
18.NARA. T312. R1693. Frame 142.
19. TsAMO RF. F. 215 Op. 1209. D. 2. L. 30.

Soldiers of the second defense 1942.
"Great Dead Adzhimushkay".
Dedicated.

The war burst into every Soviet family with the pain of uncertainty and danger hanging over our Motherland, with a premonition of irreparable losses and suffering.
June 22, 1941 at 03:15 enemy aircraft raided the main base of the Black Sea Fleet - Sevastopol; Ishmael attacked. Even before the raid, on the orders of the People's Commissar of the Navy, Admiral N.G. Kuznetsov, the Military Council of the Fleet introduced operational readiness No. All personnel were on ships and in units. The calculation of the fascist German command for the night laying of mines by aircraft and the blocking of ships with subsequent destruction in the bases was thwarted.
In July - August 1941, under the onslaught of superior enemy forces, the troops of the southern front retreated to the east. The left-flank divisions of the 9th Army, cut off from the main forces of the front, were merged into the Primorsky Group of Forces, which was transformed on July 19 into the Primorsky Army (commanded by Lieutenant General G.P. Safronov). Under the blows of the enemy, the army retreated to Odessa.
The defense of Odessa lasted from August 5 to October 16; up to 80 thousand soldiers and commanders, 15 thousand inhabitants, about 500 guns, 14 tanks, 1158 vehicles, 163 tractors, 3.5 thousand horses, about 25 thousand tons of various cargoes were evacuated to the Crimea. The Odessa Defensive Line provided a preparatory stage and time in the defense of the Crimea, a successful evacuation supplemented the 51st Separate Army with combat experience and high morale of the Primorsky Army.
In the south of Ukraine, the German-Romanian troops, continuing the offensive, in mid-September 1941 reached the Chongar bridge and the Arabatskaya arrow. The enemy threw in the Crimean direction 7 infantry divisions of the 11th army and the Romanian corps (two brigades).
The complexity of the situation, the inconsistency of intelligence sources, served, in part, to disperse the 51st army (commanded by Colonel General F.I. Kuznetsov, then - Lieutenant General P.I. Batov) across the area of ​​the Crimean peninsula in order to counter probable enemy landings. The 51st Army was deployed in August 1941 from units of the 9th Separate Rifle Corps, previously stationed in the Crimea, and several divisions formed on mobilization. The new formations had weak weapons and did not have time to undergo sufficient combat training.
Already by June 26, the minesweeper T-412 on the approaches to the Kerch Strait, from Novorossiysk (the northwestern part of the Black Sea), had installed 250 mines. 15,000 Kerch residents were mobilized to the front.
July 15 - 5 rifle divisions from the 9th rifle corps and naval rifle divisions (51 armies and KVMB) took up defense on the Perekop-Sivash-Armyansk line.
July 20 - The Azov military flotilla is formed.
On August 1, in accordance with the report of Mironov to the Regional Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks on the selection of 200 partisans (by August 5 - 300 people), the following were formed on the Kerch Peninsula: the Mayak-Salyn group, headed by S.F. Leiko; Mariental - S.F. Mukhanov; Maryevskaya - G.I. Podoprigora. In the city of Kerch and adjacent settlements, the preparation of the population for P.V.O.
August 14 - The Headquarters of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief issued a Directive on the formation of the 51st army.
By September 1, the Kerch Naval Base was formed, which included: 3 divisions of ships for the protection of the water area and the 2nd group of ships for the protection of raids. During the 4th stage of the mobilization of Kerch residents in the 1st Crimean division (320 rifle division 51A), more than 15 thousand people left, 9 thousand people died, 4.5 thousand people were missing.
In accordance with the decision of the Bureau of the Regional Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks dated August 28, the enterprises of the city were transferred to a special mode of operation in wartime. The production of products necessary for the front has begun. The workers of Kerch are building and equipping two armored trains "Voykovets" and "Gornyak" for the front.
Stubborn fighting on the outskirts of the Crimea began on September 12, when the advanced units of the 11th German Army broke through to the Perekop Isthmus. Military sailors provided active assistance to the 51st Army in deterring superior enemy forces.
On September 17, the ships of the Azov Flotilla and the Black Sea Fleet helped units of the 51st Army to destroy enemy tanks that had broken through to the Arabat Spit.
On September 19, the Voroshilov cruiser fired at enemy positions in the Skadovsk, Khorly, Alekseyevka area.
On September 24, the troops of the 54th Army Corps of the 11th German Army (since September 17, commander Erich von Manstein), supported by tanks and aircraft, launched an offensive against Perekop and Armyansk, and on September 26 broke into Armyansk. Under pressure from the enemy, the Soviet units were forced to retreat to the Ishun defensive positions. This line of defense was weakly fortified, but the Nazi troops, who suffered significant losses in the battles for Perekop, were unable to immediately capture it.
On October 13, Rear Admiral S.G. Gorshkov was appointed commander of the Azov military flotilla. Under Kerch, three gunboats "Don", "Rion", No. 4 were additionally allocated.
On October 18, troops of the 11th German army attacked the Ishun positions. The weakened units of the 51st army, in exhausting bloody battles, could not hold back the superior enemy forces. The troops of the Separate Primorsky Army transferred from Odessa began to arrive on the Crimean Isthmus, when the Nazis had already broken through the Ishun positions.
To closely coordinate the actions of the ground forces and the Black Sea Fleet, on October 22, the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command created the command of the Crimean troops, headed by Vice Admiral G.I. Levchenko. Corps Commissar A.S. Nikolaev was appointed a member of the Military Council, and com. 51 of the Separate Army, Lieutenant General P.I. Batov.
On October 24, the command of the Crimean troops launched a counterattack in the Vorontsovka area. Fierce fighting continued for several days, but it was not possible to push the enemy back. Soviet troops began to retreat to the steppe regions of the Crimea, where there were no prepared defensive lines. The 51st army retreated with heavy fighting to the Kerch Peninsula. The Kerch Defensive Region was formed here, which included the forces of the 51st Army and the KVMB (Commander Rear Admiral P.N. Vasyunin).
A separate Primorye army, under continuous blows from superior enemy forces, began to retreat to Sevastopol. But the shortest paths to the city were cut by the enemy. The main forces of the Separate Primorsky Army had to break through the mountains, Alushta and Yalta to Sevastopol. evacuation of equipment, raw materials, wounded; mobilized to the front... The toiling city fulfilled its duty to the end.
KMZ workers equipped the Voykovets armored train to the front, which crossed the factory gates on August 21. And already on August 24 - baptism of fire at Perekop. Since October 25, the commander of the armored train, Major S.P. Baranov. The bright and short fate of the armored train crew. On October 31, at the Shakul station, Voykovets took his last battle. Part of the crew went out to connect with the Crimean partisans, the other - carried out the wounded commander and already in Sevastopol joined the ranks of the defenders of the fortified city.
October 27 - Kerch is bombed daily.
October 28 - on the basis of the decision of the Military Council of the Crimean troops in the Republic - a state of siege is introduced in Kerch.
On November 1, KVMB was included in the KOR and operationally subordinated to Lieutenant General P.I. Batov by order of 51A.
From November 1 to November 3 Evpatoria, Saki, Simferopol were occupied by the enemy.
November 4 - three of the five gunboats based in Kerch were sunk by enemy aircraft.
By November 6, the Adzhimushkay partisan detachment named after Lenin was formed in Kerch (leaders: M.A. Mayorov, S.I. Cherkez, N.I. Bantysh) in the amount of 60 people.
On November 7, the Starokarantinsky detachment was formed. Stalin (leaders: A.V. Zyabrev, I.Z. Kotlo) - 41 people. Mayak-Salyn detachment (I.I. Shulga, D.K. Tkachenko, V.D. Kostyrkin). The Headquarters determined the main task of the fleet: the active defense of Sevastopol and the Kerch Peninsula with all its forces, pinning down the enemy in the Crimea, and repelling his attempts to break through to the Caucasus through the Taman Peninsula.
By November 8, 200,000 people had been evacuated through the strait to the North Caucasus and Taman.
On November 9, the line of defense passes through the settlement of Seven Kolodezey, the Turkish shaft and the settlement of Bagerovo.
Formation of the Adzhimushkay partisan detachment named after Lenin began in August. In an atmosphere of the strictest secrecy at night, weapons, ammunition, food were delivered to the catacombs by carts, water tanks were cemented ... The main functions of the organizer were assigned to the head of the military department of the committee, S.I. Cherkez. The detachment was formed from the workers of the district committee
VKP(b), plant them. Voikov and nearby fishing farms. The detachment left for the catacombs on November 2. The leadership of the detachment was entrusted to M.A. Mayorov, director of the Yenikalsky Rybzavod. Fight the enemy in the occupied city - 60 men and 5 women took the oath. The experience of the civil war was continued in the harsh years of the Patriotic War.
On November 10, 51A reached the outskirts of Kerch along with the 9th brigade of the KVMB, two regiments of the 302nd Rifle Division.
November 12 The representative of the headquarters Marshal of the Soviet Union G.I. Kulik decided to evacuate the 51st army.
The partisans of the Starokarantinsky detachment took their first battle on November 13, attacking the headquarters of the German battalion.
Since November 14, the Germans have been hosting the city.
Until November 16, under the cover of focal resistance of scattered units, evacuation is carried out. The loading of the wounded soldiers on the last ships was carried out under artillery and mortar fire. Overloaded ships ran aground in the strait. At the tip of the Chushka spit, a seiner with evacuated medical workers, m/v Gornyak with ammunition, a tugboat Silin with the wounded and other vessels ran aground. The entire strait is littered with boats, rafts and floating objects with people and wounded soldiers. People and cargo were removed from emergency ships by boats and transported to the spit. And at night, the ships themselves were removed from the shoals. The paramilitary flotilla evacuated up to 50 thousand troops and about 400 guns.
On November 18, the Starokarantinsky detachment was surrounded. The battle with the enemy began underground. In the first sortie, commander A.V. Zyabrev (later - commander senior lieutenant A. Petropavlovsky) died.
November 21 Adzhimushkay took their first fight. In the fight against the partisans, the Nazis drive the civilian population out of the upper tiers of the quarries.
November 29 - the tragedy of the Bagerovsky moat (about 7 thousand civilians were shot).
December 1: The Nazis do not spare even children - 245 junior schoolchildren are poisoned, high school students are shot.
On December 8, the enemy falls asleep and bombards the exits of the Adzhimushkay quarries. The underground regional committee of Kerch proceeds to active actions (I.A. Kozlov, N.V. Skvortsov).
In mid-November 1941, our troops launched a counteroffensive near Tikhvin and Rastov-on-Don.
On December 5-6, a powerful counteroffensive near Moscow began, as a result of which the enemy was thrown back from the Soviet capital by 350-400 kilometers. This victory was the beginning of a radical turn in the course of World War II and the first major defeat of the Nazis in World War II. The Nazi command accelerated preparations for the invasion of the Caucasus from the Crimea. But the enemy was afraid to try to force the Kerch Strait without capturing Sevastopol.
On December 17, the Nazis, after artillery and aviation preparations, launched a second offensive against Sevastopol. The skillful use of reserves inside the SOR, the delivery of large reinforcements from the Caucasus, and the landing operation that began on the Kerch Peninsula played a big role in disrupting the new onslaught of the enemy.
The troops of the 51st and 44th armies of the Transcaucasian Front and the forces of the Black Sea Fleet were involved in the Kerch-Feodosiya landing operation, originally planned for December 21, by decision of the Headquarters. The purpose of the operation was: to prevent the enemy from breaking through to the Caucasus, breaking through the encirclement of Sevastopol; encirclement of the Kerch group and its destruction.
(The commander of the 42nd Army Corps, Hans von Sponeck, under the threat of encirclement, withdrew his units from the Kerch Peninsula without an order, for which he was removed from his post and put on trial. In January 1942 he was sentenced to death, later replaced by 6 years in prison . Shot 3 days after the assassination attempt on Hitler).
Theodosia was chosen as the main direction. From the composition of the 44th Army (Commander Major General A.N. Pervushin), 23 thousand people were allocated to the port of Feodosia and 3 thousand to the southern coast of the peninsula in the region of Mount Opuk. The ships of the Azov military flotilla (commander Rear Admiral S.G. Gorshkov) and the KVMB (commander Rear Admiral A.S. Frolov) were to land 13 thousand people from the 51st Army (commander Lieutenant General V.N. Lvov) on the northern and eastern coast of the Kerch Peninsula.
In connection with the storming of Sevastopol by the enemy, the operation is postponed to December 25. Under Sevastopol, 345 SD and 79 MSBR are being transferred from the landing forces.
Great difficulties arose in connection with the stormy weather in the Sea of ​​Azov and in the Kerch Strait and the absence of special landing and landing craft here; the impossibility of using aviation to prepare bridgeheads for landing and during the landing period. Prepared for landing: 42 thousand people, 2 cruisers, 6 destroyers, 6 gunboats, 20 torpedo boats, 32 patrol boats, 10 minesweepers, 2 boats, 17 transports, 176 canoes, 77 boats, 58 launches, 17 oaks.
Of the five landing points (Ak-Monai area, Zyuk, Tarkhan, Khroni and Yenikale) the landing was carried out only in 2. On the afternoon of December 25, 15 warships and 115 small ships, having taken on board parts of the landing force in Temryuk and Kuchugury, due to the intensifying storm, could not reach Ak-Monai and, by decision of S.G. Gorshkov, landed at the Zyuk cape (1378 people, 3 tanks, 4 guns, 9 mortars) and m. Khroni (1452 people, 3 tanks, 4 guns). The landing was carried out in very difficult conditions and dragged on.
By the evening of December 26, the storm intensified to 6-7 points. An ice edge formed near the shore, preventing the approach of ships. The next day, the landing force was attacked by enemy aircraft.
At the same time, ships and vessels of the KVMB received landing forces in Taman and Komsomolsk and proceeded at night in storm conditions through the shallow Tuzla ravine, since enemy batteries installed on the coast of the Kerch Peninsula interfered with the Tuzla spit from the north. The buoys and milestones set out the day before along the planned route were partially torn off by the storm, and many ships ran aground at the passage.
On December 26, more than 1,600 people were landed near Kamysh-Burun, 55 people near the Old Quarantine, about 500 people north of Eltigen, and 19 people in Eltigen.
The subsequent landing echelons were delivered to the Kerch Peninsula on the night of December 28th.
As of December 31, the total number of landed troops of the 51st army with weapons and equipment was brought to 17383 people. In addition, on December 29, 2393 paratroopers were delivered to the bridgehead in the Kamysh-Burun area by a detachment of ships that had the task of landing them in the area of ​​Mount Opuk, but due to bad weather and mistakes made by his command, he could not do this.
On the night of December 29, a breakthrough of boats with an assault landing in the port of Feodosia ensured the landing of the first landing.
On December 30 and 31, landings continued in Feodosia (23,000 people, 133 guns and mortars, 34 tanks, 334 vehicles, 1,550 horses, about 1,000 tons of ammunition).
The goal of the Kerch-Feodosiya operation was partially achieved. But with the threat of encirclement, the Nazis hastily left Kerch.
By the end of December 31, a detachment of sailors was advancing on Koktebel. The troops of the 44th Army captured the Vladislavovka area, but the enemy managed to stop their advance. The troops of the 51st army failed to launch an offensive in the western direction - to Sudak, Simferopol, Dzhankoy.
On December 30, the strait was frozen over, which made it possible to speed up the transfer of units of the 51st army.
On December 30, Volodya Dubinin died while clearing the Starokarantinsky quarries.

From December 30 to January 1, the fascist German command concentrated the 46th and 73rd German infantry divisions and the Romanian mountain rifle corps west of Feodosia. The 132nd and 170th German infantry divisions were hastily pulled up from the Sevastopol area. Almost all enemy aircraft from the airfields of the Crimea was redirected for operations in the Kerch-Feodosiya direction.
By the end of January 2, the front line had stabilized. It passed from Kiet (on the coast of the Sea of ​​Azov) through Seit-Asan, Kulecha-Mosque and Karagoz to Koktebel (on the Black Sea coast).
On January 2, the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command approved the plan presented by the command of the Caucasian Front, which provides for: an offensive operation by the main forces of the front with a strike on Dzhankoy, Perekop, Chongar, and part of the forces on Simferopol, landing in the areas of Alushta, Yalta, Perekop and Yevpatoria in order to cut all routes withdrawal of the enemy from the Crimea, and then destroy it. The headquarters ordered the front commander to speed up the concentration of troops and the transition to a general offensive in every possible way.
From December 29, 1941 to May 13, 1942, the ship forces of the Black Sea Fleet and the Azov Flotilla transferred over 260 thousand people, 1596 guns, 629 tanks, 8128 vehicles, tractors and trailers to the ports of Kamysh-Burun and Kerch.
On January 5, a tactical assault force landed in Yevpatoria as part of a marine battalion (commander captain-lieutenant G.K. Buzinov) and a unit of the intelligence department of the fleet headquarters (commander captain V.V. Topchiev).
The impossibility of landing due to weather conditions and strong opposition from the enemy of the second echelon on the night of January 6-7 made the fate of the fighters and commanders of the 1st echelon of the landing force short and tragic, remaining in our memory as an example of the courage and heroism of the Soviet Warrior.
(January 8, a reconnaissance group of 13 people perishes in the Evpatoria region - the commander of the battalion - commissioner U.A. Latyshev).
How I wanted to believe that the war was leaving the Kerch land and now we have to work, work tenfold strength in order to drive the enemy without stopping and respite ...
January 2 restored: railway Kamysh-Burun - Salyn (Chistopolye); city ​​water pump.
On January 3, the newspaper "Kerch worker" is published.
On January 6, 13 thousand soldiers crossed from Taman along the ice crossing (built by the 132nd engineer battalion, commander Captain P.N. Nikonorov), 198 mortars, 229 machine guns, 14 wagons, 210 horses, 47 guns and 12 cars were transported.
By January 10, several city schools began to work, and by January 15, the governing bodies of the city of Kerch were basically staffed.
The fleet command failed to prepare and start the planned operation in time: the 11th German army, reinforced by two infantry divisions, went on the offensive, captured Feodosia and forced the Soviet units to withdraw to the Ak-Monai positions.
On January 28, the Crimean Front was formed as part of the 44th, 51st and 47th armies and the SOR; the Black Sea Fleet and the Azov Flotilla were quickly subordinated to him (Commander Lieutenant General D.T. Kozlov, member V.S. Divisional Commissar F.A. Shamanin, Chief of Staff Major General F.I. Tolbukhin, representative of the Headquarters Commissar 1st Rank L .Z. Mekhlis).
All attempts by the troops of the Crimean Front to launch an offensive (February 13-27) ended in failure. By order of the Headquarters, the troops went over to a tough defense. The third period of the defense of Sevastopol began.
On February 7, the Kerch Komsomol members launched an initiative to raise funds for the construction of a tank column named after. Komsomol (collected more than 300 thousand rubles)
On February 10, navigation was opened in the port (headed by A.S. Polkovsky), in the Kamysh-Burun port (V.A. Zhuchenkov).
On February 20, 12 steam locomotives, 322 wagons, 70 kilometers of railway tracks were repaired. By February 27, 9271 people work at the enterprises of the city of Kerch. The arsenal of the Crimean Front was the plant named after. Voikov. A steam-powered tram line was put into operation.
February 28, school number 11 was renamed the school. Volodya Dubinin.
On March 4, a city defense committee was created (headed by N.A. Sirota, I.I. Antilogov, P.A. Khvatkov, A.S. Frolov).
On March 24, at the KMZ, under the leadership of T.I. Tikhonov, the workers of the plant built a separate light armored train No. 74. With the outbreak of war, the Kerch workers created three armored trains for the army - 1941 - Voykovets and Gornyak (Kamysh-Burun) and 1942 - No. 74 (Comm. Major P.S. Kononenko).
On April 1, bread shops are open in the city.
April 3 in the village of Bulganak, pos.im. Voykov open lunch kitchens and medical stations.
The fighting on the Crimean front turned into a protracted defensive one. An attempt to break through the enemy defenses in February, March and April led to minor successes, but they were not decisive.
On April 13, the Crimean Front, by order of the Headquarters, goes on the defensive and is reassigned to the North Caucasian direction. Under the leadership of Marshal S.M. Budyonny, an offensive is being prepared for May 20-25.
By May 1, the German command had developed a plan for the offensive "Hunting for bustards", and on May 7 began to implement it, intensifying raids on the front line, warehouses, airfields, concentrations of troops and equipment. In the eastern part of the Crimea, the enemy concentrated up to 8 divisions. The 22nd Panzer Division transferred from France was reassigned to the commander of the 11th Army, which played an important role with the start of the offensive on May 8, 1942, wedged into the defense in the zone of the Soviet 44th Army.
May 10 - the communications of the troops are disorganized. Due to weather conditions - spring rains and mudslides, the withdrawal of the 47th Army (Commander General K.S. Kolganov) to the line of the Turkish Wall to organize a stable defense there was extremely difficult. But already on the night of May 9-10, the Nazis, having rushed forward to the Turkish Wall, captured 2 dominant heights on it with marks 108.3 and 109.3; airfields in the area of ​​​​the villages of Marfovka, Kenegez and Khadzhi-Bie (Storozhevoe) were captured.
On May 11, the command of the 47th and 51st armies withdraws the main units from the semi-encirclement along the roads along the Sea of ​​\u200b\u200bAzov. On this day, at 11.30, Lieutenant General V.N. Lvov was killed (he was replaced by the chief of staff, Colonel G.I. Kotov). In the area of ​​the Ak-Monai Isthmus, part of the forces nevertheless turned out to be surrounded.
On May 12, 156 rifle divisions fought especially hard battles for heights 108.3 and 109.3.
On May 13, German troops broke through the defenses in the center of the Turkish Wall, where the highway to Kerch passed, and occupied the village of Sultanovka (Gornostaevka). The way to Kerch opened before the enemy. (1 line of defense: Cape Tarkhan - settlement Katerlez - Kerch-port; 2 line: height 95.1 - 133.3 - Adzhimushkay - Kolonka).
On May 14, on the outskirts of Kerch, north of the city, the head of the combat training department of the Crimean Front headquarters, Colonel P.M. Yagunov, was appointed to lead the defense of the site. With the wounding of the commander of the 1st Frontal Reserve Regiment, Major A.G. Golyadkin and Commissar Eliseev, the command of the regiment passes to Senior Lieutenant M.G. P.M. Yagunov is subordinate to about 4,000 people; together with 157 SD, they enter the first battle in the evening. At the same time, battles are being fought in the areas: Soldier's Slobidka, the city of Metridat, the Ak-Burnu metro station (KVMB, 156 SD, 72 KD - Colonel Commissar V.A. Martynov).
On May 16, the Nazis broke into the village of Adzhimushkay. Parts of the 44th Army (Colonel Kuropatenko, Lieutenant Colonel P.M. Tatarchevskiy) are fighting hard in the village. Column and KMZ. The command gave the order to start the evacuation.
On May 17, the Germans broke through in the village. Lighthouse and settlement Zhukovka. 41 thousand people were evacuated.
On May 18, the defense was broken in the area of ​​​​the plant. Voikov. The armored train No. 74 is conducting its last battles outside the city of Mithridates, the station, Bulganak, the approaches of the plant.
On May 19, the Nazis in the city began mass executions of the male part of the population.
Breakthrough from the factory. Voikov to connect with P.M. Yagunov is carried out by a group of Lieutenant Colonel G.M. Burmin (up to 2000 people).
Yenikale-Kapkany - defense sector of the 77th Rifle Division, 302nd Rifle Division, 404th Rifle Division, 95th Border Regiment (commander V.V. Volkov, M.K. Zubkov, N.I. Ludvigov, P.M. Tatarchevskiy).
May 20 Yenikale - the last bridgehead. The last defenders were evacuated at night.
May 21 - Temryuk. Commander D.T. Kozlov indicated the following figures in the report: 138923 people were evacuated. (30 thousand people wounded); losses - 176566.
Front-line soldiers know that the most difficult and ungrateful thing is to cover the withdrawal of troops. The fate of the people of the cover (rearguard) in the initial period of the war was often deplorable and ungrateful. Unknown heroes often died without a trace, they simply did not get orders and other awards.
For 5.5 months, two underground garrisons fought the enemy in the Adzhimushkay quarries - the Central and Small quarries. 170 days and nights of unparalleled courage and stamina put the feat of soldiers on a par with the Brest Fortress and the Sevastopol Fortress.
Now the command of the 11th German army was faced with the task of capturing Sevastopol. To do this, the enemy group concentrated 10 divisions (about 204 thousand people), 670 guns (including siege artillery with a caliber of up to 600 mm.), 655 anti-tank guns, 720 mortars, 450 tanks and about 600 aircraft. Strengthened the blockade of Sevastopol from the sea.
By July 4, the organized resistance of the SOR units had ceased. On this day, the Sovinformburo transmitted a message that the Soviet troops had left Sevastopol by order of the Supreme High Command. 8 months, was one of the brightest events of the Great Patriotic War.
For the soldiers of the underground garrison of Adzhimushkay, Sevastopol was a support and hope, the organization of new landing operations by the command in the bloody battle for the Crimea.

1942 Adzhimushkay

May 21 - Defense Regiment of Adzhimushkay quarries named after. Stalin.
85% officers. Order of P.M. Yagunov on the formation:
Com. garrison - Colonel P.M. Yagunov
Commissioner - Art. baht. com. I.P.Parakhin
NSh - Art. Lieutenant P.E. Sidorov
Deputy com. - Colonel F.A. Verushkin
N.floor otd. - bat. com. F.I. Khramov
Beginning rear - quartermaster 2nd rank S.T. Kolesnikov
Com. 1 baht. - Lieutenant Colonel G.M. Burmin
Com. 2 baht. - Captain A.P. Panov
Com. 3 baht. - Captain V.M. Levitsky
May 22 - An attempt to break through to the coast by the regiment was not successful.
May 23 - Explosions and collapses of galleries by the enemy become systematic.
May 24 - Chemical attack of the 88th sapper battalion (Cap. G. Frelich, com.
46 div. General Gactius). Central quarries - approx.
5000 people, Small ~ 2011 people After the gas attack: surrender - 1000 people, died - 1000; 1500 people.
May 25 - Gas chemical attacks continue
May 29 - Small quarries. The entire command and political staff of the 3rd battalion died from the blockage, in the Central one of the hospitals.
June 01 - About 3000 people left. in the Central Quarries. 20 people were shot for treacherous intentions, 100 for violation of discipline, 5 people for theft. (for 4 buckets of water - losses up to 100 people)
June 03 - Water. Undermining 20 meters to the salt well (group of G.F. Trubilin). Throwing of the reconnaissance group of the NKVD (there were 8 attempts in total to send the reconnaissance group and troops from 47A to contact the regiment).
June 15 - Food ran out. There is no bread.
July 08 - On the night of July 9, P.M. Yagunov died after the battle
July 12 - The Germans were replaced by the Romanian units. About 1000 people remained in the central quarries.
July 15 - 1st breakthrough from the Small Quarries to the coast.
August 14 - Small quarries: the exit of the group of Colonel Ermakov S.A. Povazhny's group is demoralized, delaying the exit. Ration - 150 gr. Sahara,
20 gr. soup. prod., bones, skins, hooves, spikelets of barley, grass.
September 02 - German landing on the Taman Peninsula.
September 22 - Explosions. Crashes. Organized resistance ceased (about 100 people remained)
October 28, 29, 31 Germans in adits. Captured: G.M. Burmin, I.P. Parakhin, V.M. Levitsky, F.I. Khramov, V.I. Zheltovsky, A.A. Povazhny, V.P. Shkoda, B.A. Driker, S.F. Ilyasov, N. Shevchenko, L.F. Khamtsova, Z.V. Gavrilyuk.

1942 The second period of the occupation of Kerch

On July 11, Manstein, while at the command post in the village of Yukhara-Karales, heard a special message on the radio about the assignment to the rank of field marshal general. After the capture of Sevastopol, Hitler apparently perceived Manstein as a great expert on sieges. Therefore, he instructed him to move with the 11th Army to Leningrad, where the situation became more and more difficult.
On August 27, the command arrived at the Leningrad Front.
In the summer of 1942, the fascist German command, taking advantage of the absence of a second front in Europe, planned extensive offensive operations in the east. It was envisaged to strike the main blow on the southern sector of the front in order to reach the Volga and take possession of the Caucasus. To implement this plan, the enemy concentrated exceptionally large forces: 37% of infantry, cavalry and 53% of tank and motorized formations.
On July 9, Army Group South was divided into two groups - A and B. The first received the task of capturing the Don, Kuban and the Caucasus, and the second - to capture Stalingrad and go to the Volga.
On July 17, at the turn of the Chir River, the Battle of Stalingrad began.
On July 25, the enemy launched an offensive in the Caucasus. It was attended by 17 German and 3 Romanian field armies, 1 and 4 tank armies and part of the troops of the 11 army located in the Crimea. The enemy threw into battle 167 thousand soldiers and officers, 1130 tanks, 4540 guns and mortars, up to 1000 aircraft.
In connection with the haste of leaving the peninsula by the troops of the Crimean Front, underground groups and partisan detachments arise spontaneously from among the patriotic residents and the Soviet prisoners of war who escaped with their help. The fight against fascism is becoming massive.
Since May 27, intelligence officer E.D. Dudnik, together with associates S. Boboshin and A. Rodyagin, members of their families, have been collecting information about the enemy and transferring it to the headquarters of the 47th Army. 87 radiograms - the result of the feat of the courageous girl "Tony" and her associates.
Communication with the Adzhimushkay garrison, sabotage, agitation and the release of leaflets, the release of Soviet prisoners of war - all this is in the most severe surveillance and atrocities of repression by the fascist authorities of the second period of occupation.
V.I.Malkevich, O.Shuldishov, V.G.Yakush and hundreds of other unknown patriots who were shot for their connection with the soldiers who remained in the quarries and ruins of the plant named after. Voikov.
Girls help the resisting fighters. With their desperate courage and determination, escapes are arranged from the transit camps in the Engels club and on the Snake cape of prisoners of war. These are Yu.Dyakovskaya, M.Bugaeva, M.Rudenko and T.Kolesnikova, Evdokia Vasilievna Dunaeva, N.Stroganova, Lucy Dumartseva and many others.
The first underground organization in Kerch - August 1942 - a group of A.G. Strizhevsky and N.V. Kudryashov establishes contact with the Simferopol underground, 48 escaped from captivity join the ranks of those fighting the invaders. Explosions of ammunition depots on the Shirokoy Mole, the collapse of a military echelon at the Kerch II station ...
On November 7, underground workers hang out the flag of the USSR in the city.
November 14 - battle in the Adzhimushkay quarries. A group of 20 people fired at a Romanian post. Presumably it was a group of fighters of the regiment of P.M. Yagunov, headed by Art. Lieutenant P.E. Sidorov. They died with weapons in their hands - the forgotten soldiers of the 42nd.
December. About 2 thousand civilians were killed in Adzhimushkay; 1 thousand were shot in the mine of the plant. Voikov; 500 people driven into the quarry galleries and blown up; 5 thousand soldiers and civilians were poisoned with gases; 400 people were burnt alive in the plant's engineering and technical club...
During the 17 months of occupation, the following died: prisoners of war - about 15 thousand people; 14 thousand civilians; 14342 people were taken to Germany.

Hiding from the fascists in the Bagerovsky, Adzhimushkaysky and Starokarantinsky quarries, partisan detachments are formed. Thanks to the work of underground groups, detachments are replenished, mainly from among former prisoners of war. One of these groups was the group of V.S. Pushkar.
Young Komsomol members, printing press workers, underground workers in the Leninsky and Mayak-Salynsky districts ... nothing can stop the struggle of the patriots against the enemy.
In the spring of 1943 in the village. Marfovka created an underground organization "Young Guard". It was headed by an underground committee consisting of: A. Chub, A. Nagolov, V. Motuzov, A. Ilyasov. Sabotage, disruption of communications, destruction of the enemy.
The failures and death of the Kerch patriots are a heavy burden for young underground groups; lack of experience and the strictest secrecy in the conditions of well-functioning work of enemy punitive services.
The partisan detachment in the Starokarantinsky quarries was headed by K. Mukhlynin and commissar D. Vasyunin. The combat activity of the detachment is activated in the directions: Kamysh-Burun and Eltigen, where the enemy is concentrating forces in November 1943 to strengthen the defense.
In September-October 1943, two partisan detachments were formed from among the prisoners of war and local residents - “Red Stalingrad” (commander K.I. Moiseev) and them. Stalin (commander P.I. Sherstyuk).
In September 1943, mass arrests and executions, provocations and surveillance began. But even this could not stop the growing hatred of the invaders and their henchmen.
After the death of the group of P. Tolstykh, the banner of struggle was raised in the village of the plant named after. Voykov on November 7, underground workers M.R. Rusanova, K. Karaseva, N. Komarova ...
The German command, starting in October 1943, began to evacuate the population of Kerch. The quarries become a refuge for those who preferred the fight against the enemy to slavery.
The fourth detachment stands out for active hostilities - Bagerovsky, the backbone of which was 103 military personnel led by S. Parinov, F. Zarudsky and I. Belov. And again - tunnel explosions, gases, lack of water ...
In the hardest struggle and an attempt to break out of the encirclement in January-February 1944, most of the partisans of the Bagerovo quarries perish, chaining two enemy infantry regiments and three battalions to themselves.
The period of the second occupation of Kerch became the bloodiest page in the military history of the city - these are mass executions in the Adzhimushkay and Kamysh-Burun ditches, the Starokarantinsky quarries; burned at the school. Voikov; executions of prisoners in the streets and camps - st. Chkalova, Cooperage plant, Enegels club, pos. 3 Samostroy, mines of the plant. Voykov, the building of school number 24 on Vokzalny Highway ... Typhus, hunger, death from wounds.
In October-December 1943, the front approached the Kerch Peninsula. The Nazis were in a hurry to take out the remaining "useful" for Germany from these scorched steppes - these are children and youth from 13 years old and older.
Old men and women are driven to the construction of defensive lines and then, by order of Chief of Staff Keitel on July 8, 1943, all men from 16 to 55 years old are considered prisoners of war and are to be transferred to camps to work in Germany. For refusing to "evacuate" - execution! The Nazis, trying to intimidate the population, for not arriving at the assembly point, burned and buried alive, sparing neither the elderly nor the babies.

On April 11, 1944, the depopulated and destroyed city was liberated. Retreating, the Nazis created the so-called "desert zone", guided by the order of the German command of September 7, 1943 - on the methods of carrying out destruction during the retreat of military units: - some degrees can be useful to the enemy: living quarters, cars, mills, wells, haystacks ... "
On April 11, the city of Kerch met the liberators in ruins and ashes.
In the South-Western direction at the beginning of 1943, as a result of the rapid advance of Soviet troops from Stalingrad to Rostov, the Nazi group of troops operating in the North Caucasus was under the threat of encirclement and began to retreat. The troops of the Transcaucasian Front (since January 24 - the North Caucasian Front) went on the offensive.
By the spring of 1943, almost the entire North Caucasus was liberated. Only on the Taman Peninsula did the enemy gain a foothold on the so-called Blue Line, which flanked the Azov and Black Seas.
In the autumn of 1943, the Taman Peninsula was cleared of the Nazis.
On October 23, the troops of the 4th Ukrainian Front liberated Melitopol, on October 31 they reached Sivash, and on November 1 they captured the enemy’s heavily fortified positions near the Turkish Wall on the Perekop Isthmus. The Nazi troops in the Crimea were completely isolated from the land.
On October 13, the commander of the North Caucasian Front, General of the Army I.E. Petrov and the commander of the Black Sea Fleet, Vice Admiral L.A. Vladimirsky, submitted to the General Staff a plan for the Kerch-Eltigen landing operation, which was approved by the Headquarters. The concept of the operation provided for the simultaneous landing of the Azov military flotilla - 3 divisions of the 56th Army in the main, Yenikalsk, direction and the Black Sea Fleet - one division of the 18th Army in the auxiliary, Eltigen, direction.
The 386th Separate Marine Battalion (commander N.A. Belyakov) and the battalion of the 255th Marine Brigade (commander Major S.T. Major N.V. Sudarikov) of the Azov Flotilla.
After landing, the landing troops were to strike in converging directions northeast of Kerch and Eltigen, to capture the city and port of Kerch and the port of Kamysh-Burun. The Kerch Strait and approaches to it were mined. In addition to fortifications on the coast, the enemy built three lines of defense with a total depth of up to 80 kilometers. About 30 high-speed landing barges, 37 torpedo and 25 patrol boats, 6 minesweepers were based in the ports of Kerch, Kamysh-Burun and Feodosia. The Soviet command involved in the landing operation: about 130 thousand soldiers and officers, over 2000 guns and mortars, 125 tanks, more than 1000 aircraft, 119 warships and 159 landing craft.
To distract the enemy's attention from the landing sites of the main forces, demonstrative actions were envisaged in the areas of Cape Tarkhan and Mount Opuk.
Due to stormy weather, the landing was postponed from October 28 to October 31 in the Eltigen area, and on the main direction - to November 3.
On the evening of October 31, the landing took place: 5,6,7 detachments - in Taman; 1,2 - near Salt Lake; 3.4 - in Krotkovo (detachments of commanders D.A. Glukhov, A.A. Zhidko, N.I. Sipyagin, M.G. Bondarenko, G.I. Gnatenko).

1943 fiery foothold

... It began on the night of November 1st. Having stuffed more than 6 thousand mines from Cape Takil to Cape Zyuk on Azov, the Germans were waiting for the repetition of the Kerch-Feodosia landing and were preparing for it.
The first foothold in the lead storm was wrested from the enemy by the courage and stamina of the sailors of the 386th OBMP and 318th Rifle Division who made their way through.
By the end of November 1, the paratroopers had captured a bridgehead up to 5 km wide. and up to 2 km deep.
Loaded motorboats rested on the shallows and those few whose fate extended their lives, having passed through mines and fire, rushed at the enemy, overcoming wire and minefields, breaking the back of the enemy for those - who remained in the strait, for those - who were left in 41 and 42 th year...
Landings on the main and auxiliary axes landed at different times, the enemy could freely maneuver with reserves. In this regard, the landing on Eltigen was in an exceptionally difficult situation.
The feat of Galina Petrova and Georgy Titov, Alexei Elizarov, sailor N.A. Dubkovsky, pilots - B.N. Volovodov and V.L. Bykov ... 15 enemy attacks per day withstand the fighters of Captain P. Zhukov and Major A. Klinkovsky, Alexei's platoon Shumsky... 61 Hero of the Soviet Union - warriors of the first throw.
On the night of November 3, the main part of the guards regiment of Colonel P.I. Nesterov arrived.
In total, by the end of November 3, 9418 people, 39 guns, 28 mortars, 257.2 tons of ammunition and 61.8 tons of food were delivered to the Eltigen area. Colonel V.F. Gladkov and his headquarters hold the bridgehead of "Land of Fire" with the fighters of the first landing, who have already beaten off up to 50 enemy attacks, in a complete blockade.
The enemy pulled almost all of his reserves to the Eltigen bridgehead. This put the landing force in a difficult position, but, on the other hand, facilitated the landing of units of the 56th Army north of Kerch on the night of November 3.
At 10 p.m. on November 2, powerful artillery and aviation preparations began in the Gleika and Zhukovka area. After that, armored boats with assault groups of marines rushed to the shore, ships and vessels of all five detachments, together with landing troops (commander senior lieutenant I.S. Solyanikov, senior lieutenant D.R. Mikaberidze, art. Lieutenant I.G. Chernyak, Captain Lt P.N.Sorokin, Senior Lt A.E.Tugov). In three hours, they landed 2274 paratroopers delivered from Temryuk with 9 guns from the 2nd Guards Taman Division and the 369th OBMP (commander of the landing cap. 3rd rank P.I. Derzhavin), and then the 1st, 3rd, The 5th detachment transferred the remaining units of the 2nd Guards Taman Division here from the Ilyich cordon area. By 5 o'clock in the morning on November 3, more than 4 thousand fighters and commanders were already fighting on the bridgehead in the Gleika, Zhukovka area.
In the Opasnoye, Fishery (Yenikale) area, after artillery preparation, which began at 03:25, the 2nd and 4th detachments carried out an assault landing from among the troops of the 55th Guards SD, delivered from the Chushka Spit (1900 people).
By 7:30 a.m., the remaining troops were delivered from the berths of the Chushka Spit, thereby bringing the total number to more than 4 thousand people.
The enemy's lack of significant reserves and the diversion of his forces in the Eltigen area made it possible to build up the landing forces of the 56th Army in the daytime as well. (by November 3 - 4440 people, 45 guns).
By the end of November 11, the landing force had captured an operational foothold in the sector from the Sea of ​​Azov to the outskirts of Kerch. By that time, there were already 27,700 people here.
The marines of the assault groups under the command of officers N.S. Aidarov, A.V. Mikhailov, I.D. Shatunov, M.G. Spelov fought bravely and boldly.
Meanwhile, the position of the landing force in the Eltigen area became more and more difficult. For 26 days, boats managed to break through to the bridgehead only 16 times. The soldiers experienced an acute shortage of ammunition and food, it was not possible to evacuate the wounded.
The pilots of the 46th Guards Women's Regiment Evdokia Bershanskaya came to the aid of the paratroopers. At night, dropping vital cargo and at the same time, having no weapons on the light PO-2, the regiment did not lose a single crew!
The bitter fate of the wounded with a lack of painkillers and disinfectants, cold and dampness, thirst and malnutrition, blood loss, helplessness and hopelessness, bombing and all this - to the lot of the courageous doctors of the medical battalion of the 318th division.
Surgeon major V. Trofimov and more than 1000 people who passed through the operating room, which served as a cemented water storage ...
An incredibly difficult task was the evacuation of the wounded by boat sailors. Breaking through the blockade of armored and fast-moving German barges, they sacrificed their own lives, rushing to rescue the fighters, doing their duty to the end.
On December 5, the Germans broke the defense of the paratroopers.
December 6 - the center of the bridgehead was lost; With a desperate counterattack at dusk, the soldiers beat off our wounded from the Germans ...
Two nights are the main ones in the Eltigen epic: on the eve of November 1 and on December 7. Capturing the bridgehead and leaving Tierra del Fuego!
On the night of December 7, by order of the front command, 386 OBMP was the first to break through the encirclement. Army units follow them. The rear of the enemy was ahead, but not everyone was destined to break out.
The group of Colonel Nesterov is heading to Cape Ak-Burun, but having accepted the battle on the way, they are forced to take refuge in the Starokarantinsky quarries. The division commander, Colonel Gladkov, led the fighters, having made a daring raid, to the outskirts of Slobodka, along the coast, to Mount Mithridates, where he entrenched himself. The wounded and fragments of small groups of resisters who remained on Eltigen were suppressed. Captivity and executions. The result - 1562 people. prisoners, and no one considered the wounded ...
The success of Gladkov's capture of the Mithridatic bridgehead was not developed, as were the attempts of the troops of the Separate Primorsky Army (56th Army) to break into the city.
On the night of December 11, the ships of the Azov Flotilla took out 1080 people. Parts of the 83rd brigade remained in cover ... (about 450 killed and 600 captured).
Eltigen, for all its tragedy, serves the faith in a better future, the true values ​​of historical memory, pride and gratitude, the departed generations and the responsibility of each person living today.
For crossing the Kerch Strait, landing and capturing a bridgehead, 129 soldiers, including 33 Black Sea sailors, were awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

1944 Liberation

In an effort to hold the right-bank Ukraine and the Crimea, the enemy concentrated 105 divisions and 2 brigades on the southern wing of the Soviet-German front, which were part of Army Groups "South" and "A". Here were 76% of his armored and 41% of his infantry divisions. The troops of all four Ukrainian fronts and the Separate Primorsky Army participated in the liberation.
In January-February, the troops of the Ukrainian fronts defeated the main forces of Army Group South, eliminating the bridgehead in the Nikopol area, from where the enemy expected to release his troops in the Crimea.
On March 6, 3, the Ukrainian Front struck at the German army grouping "A" in the area between the rivers Ingulets, the Southern Bug.
In the period March 26 - April 14, the troops of the 3rd and 2nd Ukrainian fronts carried out the Odessa offensive operation.
On March 28, Nikolaev was liberated.
On April 10, Soviet troops liberated the city of Odessa.
By the beginning of April 1944, the fascist command had 7 Romanian and 5 German divisions in the Crimea (about 200 thousand soldiers and officers, up to 3600 guns and mortars, over 200 tanks and assault guns, 150 aircraft).
Fascist Germany attached great importance to the retention of the Crimea, since its influence on Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey, as well as on the situation on the entire southern flank of the Soviet-German front, depended on this.
In the event of a retreat, the Nazi command prepared several intermediate defensive lines in the areas of Simferopol, Ak-Monai, the valleys of the Bulganak, Alma, Kacha rivers, but its troops could not hold on to any of them.
April 8, 1944 begins the last act in the fate of the German group in the Crimea. With an overwhelming advantage, with two tank corps and eighteen divisions, the troops of the 4th Ukrainian Front began a breakthrough to Perekop and in the Sivash direction.
On April 10, our tankers were already in Dzhankoy. At 22.00, the Separate Primorsky Army under the command of General I.E. Petrov went on the offensive with the right flank. Before dawn, units of the 3rd Mountain Rifle Corps occupied the Bulganak stronghold and rushed to the Turkish Wall. The left-flank 16th Rifle Corps on the northern outskirts of Kerch defeated the enemy's barriers.
By 06:00 on April 11, the Separate Primorsky Army, with its left flank, completely captured the city and port of Kerch.
***
Late in the evening and all night long, a fluttering tongue of flame was visible on Mount Mithridates, wandering among the mixed Soviet soldiers frozen in a mortal battle with the enemy. The old mother was looking for her son among the fallen, looking into the open eyes of those who had gone into the sky. Legend or reality? Since then, in the spring, when twilight descends into the ancient city, both young and old, merging into a burning human river, rise to the heart of the city - the obelisk of Glory, to find their memory. And then an invisible thin thread is connected, which came from time immemorial through the storms of hard times of the Great Patriotic War and goes through the heart of every little Kerchant, there - into the Future!
On the gray-haired Mount Mithridates soaked in the blood of a Soviet soldier in August-October 1944, the soldiers of the 9th motor-engineering battalion, Lieutenant Colonel F.I. He immortalized the glory of the heroic paratroopers and liberators of Kerch from the Nazi invaders.
On April 13, the cities were liberated: Feodosia, Simferopol and Evpatoria; April 15 - Yalta, and on April 16, the Soviet units reached the approaches to Sevastopol.
On May 9, with a joint attack by units of the 51st and Primorsky armies from the south and the 2nd Guards Army, which forced the Northern Bay from the north, the Nazis were driven out of Sevastopol.
Three days after the liberation of Sevastopol, the last remnants of the Nazi troops laid down their arms in the area of ​​Cape Khersones.
The victorious spring of 1944 came to Crimea.

From mid-July the sun dries the steppe. Today, the scorched steppe is the work of human hands, those whose conscience and head are not burdened with pain and thoughts, and 66 years ago this land burned from ruptures, grief and the blood of compatriots.
Everything goes away, and the pain dulls, the wounds heal little by little. There are fewer and fewer participants and witnesses to those fiery years, and books are written differently and speak differently, or even completely silent when they do not lie.
What remains for us today from our grandfathers and from those guys of 1942 who never became fathers, for our hearts, for our souls?
This is a word spoken and written to us in our native language, the only thread connecting the souls of those lost in the steppe and now living. A word born of grief, pain, despair, truth, hope and feat for the sake of us who forget.
And also - this is nature, our Kerch, steppe, with a transition to the blue of water sparkling in the sun. Every year, replacing rainy May with blooming June and hot July, she, with silent perseverance, returns those who seek her memory, repeating and repeating, repeating and repeating in the history of those days ...
I want you to believe in this and feel with all your heart the voice of our Fatherland and its best sons. And the words and lines of those who are no longer among us and the genius of Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin will help to return to July 1942 in the Adzhimushkay steppe.
In the early days, Sevastopol fell - the last hope of the defenders of the underground fortress; The 11th German Army is transferred to Leningrad; by mid-July - the Germans near Voronezh, Rostov ...
By the will of fate, the genius of the Great Russian poet, A.S. Pushkin, was called from above to strengthen the spirit of our soldiers. In his diary for August 1, Alexander Klabukov wrote: "I read and listen to Pushkin's collected works several times." The commander of the garrison of the Small Quarries, Mikhail Grigorievich Povazhny, wrote in his memoirs: “One book miraculously survived with us - Pushkin's The Captain's Daughter. We knew almost all of it by heart, but we read page after page out loud again and again.
What did Alexander Sergeevich say when he turned the will of the soldiers and commanders to resist the invaders into an alloy harder than Krupp steel?
The fate and path of the Russian soldier according to A.S. Pushkin is the fate of Ivan Kuzmich: “... Having become an officer from soldier's children, he was an uneducated and simple man, but the most honest and kind.”
Here, near Kerch, the children of those who created the Great Power fought and survived the fire of the civil war, when half the world took up arms against the new Russia. Here the heirs of courage, heroic fortitude, grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the defenders of Sevastopol in the Crimean War died in battle.
The amazing words of A.S. Pushkin are the key to unraveling the spiritual height of the Great Dead Adzhimushkay: “My parents blessed me. The father said to me: Farewell, Peter. Serve faithfully to whom you swear; obey the bosses; do not chase after their affection; do not ask for service; do not excuse yourself from the service; and remember the proverb: take care of the dress again, and honor from youth.
In each chapter of The Captain's Daughter, the soldiers return in their memory to the places where they left their relatives and loved ones, and Alexander Sergeevich is their heartfelt guide in this: “Left alone, I plunged into reflection. What was I to do? ... Duty demanded that I appear where my service could still be useful to the fatherland in these difficult circumstances ... Although I foresaw a quick and undeniable change in circumstances, I still could not help but tremble, imagining the danger of her position (about Marya Ivanovna).
Here, in the adits, in complete surroundings, not desperate rage hovered over them, but love for life, for us - living today. Dying - they believed in Our victory. They fought and died, went into battle, knowing that it would be the last: “Why are you, kids, standing? shouted Ivan Kuzmich. “To die, to die like this: a service business!”
This is the truth of the Russian soldier - above his own life - the honor of the Fatherland! The truth of the present situation also entered the hearts of the defenders of Adzhimushkay with the phrases of the Great Poet: “... This siege, due to the negligence of the local authorities, was disastrous for the inhabitants, who suffered hunger and all kinds of disasters. Everyone despondently awaited the decision of their fate... In these skirmishes, the preponderance was usually on the side of the villains, well-fed, drunk and good. Sometimes our hungry infantry went out into the field ... "
Each of the fighters sooner or later asked himself the last question, and perhaps the main one: What memory will remain after ... July, August, September, October 1942? Alexander Sergeevich answered. And this answer is in the wise and far-sighted, simple words of a folk song, taken out by the Poet above his own in the epigraph:

"My head, little head,
Head serving!
Served my head
Exactly thirty years and three years.
Ah, the little head did not last
Neither self-interest, nor joy,
No matter how good a word
And not a high rank;
Only the head survived
Two tall poles
maple crossbar,
Another loop of silk!

Those who remained in the burning July 42 remain in our hearts and in the songs that the people pass on to their children.
Life is cruel and rich in trials for every generation. The more history is eradicated from memory, poets and the language in which they think, love and sing folk songs are banned, the stronger the connection between generations becomes - this is the will of the People! This is love for life and for the Fatherland!
“18.07.42. What a wonderful morning: the sky is blue, the air filled with aroma comes to our quarry. After yesterday's night rain, the air on the field is also refreshed, you can feel the coolness. The wind also helped us, it cleared our passages and compartments (rooms) from soot and smoke, drove out with a draft.
(From the diary of A.I. Klabukov)
Surprisingly, it is a fact - on July 17 the weather was cloudy all day, and at times it rained, but this is already in 2008 - 66 years after ...

Reference.
Lev Zakharovich Mekhlis - as a representative
Headquarters of the Supreme Commander.
Crimean Front - 1942
I

1889 13.01. was born in Odessa.
1903-1911 6-year education, at the rate of a real school; then - served as a clerk, gave private lessons.
1905-1907 member of the Jewish workers' self-defense unit.
1907 Jewish Social Democratic Labor Party.
1911 drafted into the army; until 1917 on the Southwestern Front (there is no information about participation in hostilities).
January 1918 - participated in the establishment of Soviet power in Odessa. Joined the RCP(b).
April 1919 - political commissar of the 46th rifle division - until May 1920 (for assignments to the Revolutionary Military Council). Meets Stalin.
1920 October - December - military commissar of the 46th rifle division (participant in the liberation of the Crimea from Wrangel).
1920 elected to the 8th Congress of Soviets; seconded to the location of the Central Committee of the RCP (b).
1922-1926 - Assistant Secretary of the Central Committee I.V. Stalin.
1926-1927 - Marxism courses.
1927-1930 - student of the Institute of red professors (economic department).
1930-1937 - editor-in-chief of Pravda; elected a member of the Central Committee; Deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of the 1st convocation.
1937-1940 Head of the political department of the Red Army, deputy. People's Commissar of Defense, army commissar of the 2nd rank, participant in campaigns - Western Ukraine, Belarus, Bessarabia, the Soviet-Finnish Company, Khasan Lake, Khalkhin Gol River.
September 6, 1940 - People's Commissar of State Control of the USSR.
May 1941 - deputy. Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR.
June 21, 1941 - Head of the Main Directorate of Political Propaganda. Deputy Defense Commissar.
1942 January-May - Acts as chairman of the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command on the Crimean Front.
June 1942 - removed from office, reduced to corps commissar; Member of the Military Council of the 6th Army of the Voronezh Front.
December 1942 - lieutenant general.
1944 Colonel General; released from duties. Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR.
1946 - Deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of the 2nd convocation.
1946-1950 Minister of State Control of the USSR.
02/13/1953 - died. Buried on Red Square, near the Kremlin wall
Awards: 4 Orders of Lenin, Order of Suvorov 1st Class, Order of Kutuzov 1st Class, 2 Orders of the Red Banner, Order of the Red Star.

A.M. Vasilevsky: “In case of emergency on one or another front, in the preparation of responsible operations, the Stavka sent its representatives to the front ...
Assess the capabilities of the troops on the spot, work together with the military councils of the fronts, help them better prepare for operations, establish interaction between the fronts, assist in providing the troops with supplies of everything necessary, be an effective link with the Supreme Civil Code "...
Arrived on January 2, 1942 with the task of the GK - com. front, Lieutenant General D.T. Kozlov, after the Kerch-Feodosia landing operation, expand the bridgehead and go on the general offensive by January 12.
On January 15, the Germans launched a preemptive strike.
Conditions on the Kerch bridgehead: slush, poor logistics front, lack of vehicles, special. units, provision of ammunition, fuel, thaw and mud at airfields, poor communications, insufficient provision of air defense systems.
From 01/20/1942 to 01/22/1942, Mekhlis reported “Comfront Kozlov does not know the position of the units at the front, their condition, as well as the enemy’s groupings ... Kozlov leaves the impression of a commander who was confused and unsure of his actions ...”
Order to the troops of the front No. 12 of 01/23/1942. On the appointment of senior and higher com. composition, which allowed the loss of control of the troops and the "shameful flight to the rear", arrest, betrayal to the tribunal: gene. major I.F. Dashichev, brigade commander V.K. Moroz (22.02 shot), battalion. Commissioner A.I. Kondrashov, p.p. P.Ya.Tsindzenevsky, early. political department s.d. N.P. Kolobaeva ... to put things in order in 3 days!
He acted energetically. Using the powers of the Headquarters of the Supreme Command, the representative, deputy. People's Commissar of Defense, actually removed Kozlov from full-fledged one-man command of the troops and took over all the threads of control. Thanks to the Mehlis, the Crimean Front will gain independence from January 28. He is trying to get Malinkov to replace the hp from Transcaucasia with Russian and Ukrainian servicemen (up to 15,000); personally selects and replaces the command staff, political staff (about 1,300 people of the commission staff, and then another 1,255 political fighters and political officers).
The positive is that a real increase in the combat capability of the troops has been achieved, and the negative is gross interference in operational affairs and total control over the actions of the com. front.
On February 27, the offensive was forced (13 Soviet divisions against 3 German). Failure. Military commander of the Red Star Konstantin Simonov: “... in February, a blizzard started along with the rain, ... carried ... got up ... the tanks did not go, the density of troops driven by Mekhlis, who led this offensive, replacing the actual commander of the front - the weak-willed General Kozlov, was monstrous . Everything was pushed close to the front line, every German shell, every mine, every bomb, exploding, inflicted huge losses on us ... A kilometer - two, three, five, seven from the front line, everything was in corpses ... it was a picture of mediocre military leadership and complete, monstrous mess. Plus, this is a complete disregard for people, a complete lack of concern in preserving manpower, in order to protect people from further losses ... "
On March 5, they resumed the offensive, ... replenished the front with 2 military commissars of divisions, 1 military commissar of a brigade, 9 military commissars of regiments, 300 political officers, 750 political officers and 2307 political workers (in April - another 400 political officers and 2000 political workers).
Since April 11, offensive attempts have ceased.
Relying on the quantitative factor, on the enthusiasm of people, at the same time, underestimating the training of headquarters, com. composition, personnel, a supporter of the pressure of a naked order ...
A correct assessment of the situation at the Headquarters of the Supreme Command and the Supreme Command was prevented by dizziness from a successful counter-offensive near Moscow and underestimation of the best strategist of the Wehrmacht, Colonel-General Erich von Manstein.
Mekhlis, not being a military man in the full sense, sought to replace Kozlov (“a glutted gentleman from the peasants”), removed General F.I. Tolbukhin from the post of chief of staff (replaced by Lieutenant General Eternal). He is characterized by suspicion, activity in an atmosphere of detective work, slander, and covert surveillance. Only com did not raise doubts. 51 Army Lieutenant General Lvov.
Mehlis ordered to shoot captured Germans.
N.G. Kuznetsov (Commissar of the Navy): “And here we are at the headquarters of the front. There is confusion there. The commander of the Crimean Front, D.T. Kozlov, was already “in the pocket” of Mekhlis, who interfered literally in all operational affairs. Chief of Staff P.P.Vechny did not know whose orders to carry out - the commander or Mehlis. Marshal S.M. Budeny (Commander-in-Chief of the North Caucasus direction, in whose subordination was the Crimean Front) - also did not dare to do anything. Mekhlis did not want to obey him, referring to the fact that he receives instructions directly from the headquarters.
Konstantin Simonov: “He was a man who, during that period of the war, without entering into any circumstances, considered everyone who preferred a convenient position a hundred meters from the enemy to an uncomfortable one fifty meters away - a coward. He considered everyone who wanted to simply protect the troops from possible failure - an alarmist, considered everyone who realistically assessed the strength of the enemy - unsure of their own abilities. Mekhlis, for all his readiness to give his life for the Motherland, was a pronounced product of the atmosphere of 1937-1938.”
During the fighting in February-April, the losses amounted to 225 thousand people.
(The enemy has 2 times less HP, 1.2 times less tanks, 1.8 times more artillery, but 1.7 times more aviation).
On April 21, preparations for the offensive began, and already on May 6, the task was set - to gain a foothold in the defense.
On May 10, the front commander and the chairman of the headquarters lost control. On May 11, at 11:50 p.m., the headquarters of the Supreme High Command ordered Marshal Budyonny to restore order ...

Documentary portrait
and combat characteristics of the commander of the underground garrison
Colonel Pavel Maksimovich YAGUNOV

The basis of the documentary portrait and combat characteristics of the outstanding personality P.M. Yagunov are the memoirs and notes of participants in the military events in Kerch in the period May-October 1942, as well as the memoirs of his daughter Klara Pavlovna Yagunova.
Pavel Maksimovich Yagunov was born on January 10, 1900 in the village of Cheberchina, Dubensky district, Mordovian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, Russian by nationality. After graduating from a rural school in 1913, he left home early in search of work: first he worked as a peddler of letters and documents under the volost government, and then, when the civil war began, the young man volunteered for the Red Army, in the Separate Turkestan Communist Regiment. Until 1923, he studied at the 4th Tashkent United Military School, served in the Red Army, and then, from 1930 to 1931. studied at the officer courses "Shot". P.M. Yagunov participated in battles with Denikin and the White Cossacks near Aktobe. He happened to take part in the battles with the cavalry of Enver Pasha and the gang of Junaid Khan's Basmachi on the Transcaspian front. Until 1938 he commanded the 65th Rifle Regiment with the military rank of colonel in the Far East. In June 1939, Yagunov, as an experienced officer, was sent to Baku, first as a teacher, and then as head of the infantry school department. During the civil war, P.M. Yagunov joined the ranks of the Communist Party.
With the outbreak of World War II, combat officer Yagunov went to the front as commander of the 138th Mountain Rifle Division, which crossed the Kerch Strait, carried out a number of successful operations in the Crimea, but suffered heavy losses. In March 1942, P.M. Yagunov was appointed head of the combat training department of the headquarters of the Crimean Front. On May 14, 1942, he led a combined detachment of reserve units, which was ordered to occupy a vital defensive line in the area of ​​​​Kerch.
In the personal file of P.M. Yagunov, no shortcomings have been indicated in performance appraisals since 1925. He was a strong-willed, militarily competent commander, he was a sensitive and sympathetic boss, an exceptionally modest and fair person.
According to Lieutenant Colonel A.Sh. Avanesov, Pavel Maksimovich was remembered for his outward smartness, accuracy, exactingness towards himself and his subordinates.
Captain V.S. Buzoverov characterizes the commander as an officer with a high degree of dedication and determination, concentrated and strict in his work. Cadets talk about P.M. Yagunov as a man of principle, firm views, extraordinary kindness and generosity. He deeply despised flattering, cunning and cowardly people.
His daughter, Klara Maksimovna, noted: “Father did not like to stand out in anything, did not tolerate when he was given special signs of attention. And, nevertheless, he was a man of great erudition, versatile ... This is how I remember my father: brave, strict, in love with his work and people, caring and merciless, cheerful and serious, always smart and neat, kind and shy, intolerant no frills, a modest person in everything and always.
An officer of the 138th division, Mikhailov, said simple and understandable words to every soldier: "Dad is like a father to all of us, and we will take care of him."
In heavy, bloody battles, the Crimean Front during May 1942 lost tens of thousands of people. On May 13, the enemy broke through positions in the central section of the Turkish Wall, and by the end of May 14, broke into the western and southern outskirts of the city of Kerch. In this situation, Marshal of the USSR S.M. Malinovsky, with the permission of the Headquarters, ordered the evacuation of the troops of the Crimean Front from the Kerch Peninsula.
Restrain the onslaught of the enemy in the area of ​​​​the village of Adzhimushkay - plant
them. Voikov, in order to organize a crossing through the Kerch Strait and evacuate the troops of the Crimean Front, was ordered to the most experienced officer with the highest authority - Colonel P.M. Yagunov.
On May 21, 1942, a full-fledged, with the strictest military discipline, with all the attributes of organization, a military unit from disparate forces was organized - a separate regiment of the Adzhimushkay quarries, skillful and decisive resistance to the enemy. Despite the difficult situation associated with limited capabilities in weapons and ammunition, a large number of wounded in the underground army hospital, lack of proper food and water, systematic enemy gas attacks, the underground garrison, thanks to the high organizational talent of the command staff, personal courage, example and dedication of the commander , survived and fought. Under the protection of the fighters and commanders of Adzhimushkay there was a civilian population: the elderly, women, children.
The command of the garrison systematically organized breakthroughs from the encirclement, but for objective reasons it was unsuccessful - there were not enough forces.
On May 29, 1942, in the order of the commander of the North Caucasian Front, Marshal of the USSR S.M. Budyonny, it was noted: “According to all types of intelligence, our commanders and fighters are in the area of ​​​​Adzhimushkay quarries, who continue to stubbornly resist the enemy.”
The main thing that helped the fighters to live and endure all the trials was their daily and systematic struggle with the enemy. The underground garrison of Adzhimushkay performed its combat mission in the same way as thousands of other units and subunits of the Red Army were performing it at that time along the entire thousand-kilometer stretch of the front.
Despite the tragic outcome of the events of July 1942 in Sevastopol, the underground garrison continued to fight the enemy, organized combat sorties - a response worthy of the Adzhimushkay defenders. According to Major A.I. Pirogov: “After a large, very successful sortie, combat trophies were checked, and a trap grenade exploded in Yagunov’s hands, which was often used by the enemy in the fight against the fighters of the underground garrison.”
The personal feat of Pavel Maksimovich Yagunov is contained in his selfless devotion to the Motherland and his Soviet people, is a vivid example of courage, stamina, will and organizational talent, high duty, honor and professionalism of a Soviet officer and Man.

Documentary portrait
and combat characteristics of the commander of the Central Quarries
Adzhimushkaya in the period from July to October 1942
Lieutenant Colonel Grigory Mikhailovich BURMIN

The basis of the documentary portrait and combat characteristics of the commander of the Central Quarries, Lieutenant Colonel G.M.
Grigory Mikhailovich Burmin was born in 1906 in the village of Sloboda, Spassky District, Ryazan Region, Russian. After the death of his mother in 1916, he was homeless, ended up in an orphanage, escaped from there, and on August 25, 1918, he signed up as a volunteer in the Red Army. From March 1919 he fought with the troops of Denikin, then with the White Poles. In September 1920 he was seriously wounded. And all this at the age of 14!
In January-February 1921 G.M. Burmin fought with the Antonov rebels in the Tambov region. In 1922 he joined the Komsomol, and in 1923 he became a member of the CPSU/b/. In 1925 he graduated from the 7th grade of an evening school, in 1929 he passed an external exam for a military school. In 1933 he graduated from advanced training courses for the command staff of the armored forces.
From the certification of 1936: “A strong-willed commander, disciplined, initiative and courageous. Constantly working to improve his level of knowledge. Very honest, conscientious, truthful commander. He is well oriented in the mountain-taiga area.
Grigory Mikhailovich is a man of a heavy soldier's lot, inseparable from his Fatherland in the most difficult years of the formation of the young workers' and peasants' Republic.
GMBurmin started the war against fascism back in Spain, where he honestly and courageously fulfilled his international duty. On February 24, 1938, he was awarded the Order of the Red Banner for special military merits. Then he taught tactics at the Orel Armored School. From September 1940 to April 1, 1941 he served as deputy commander of the 11th tank regiment of a separate tank division. Since August 1941 he was the commander of the 108th tank regiment, introduced into Iran. From the end of 1941, he served as deputy commander of the 24th tank regiment on the Transcaucasian, and then on the Crimean fronts. From February 28, 1942 he commanded the Crimean regiment. The newspaper of the Crimean Front in the spring of 1942 noted: "the heroic deeds of Comrade Burmin's unit."
During the fighting on the Akmonai Isthmus, Burmin was wounded in the neck and throat, was treated in the Kerch hospital, after which he immediately took part in the battles as the commander of a consolidated group. The rank of lieutenant colonel was awarded to him on May 6, 1942.
During the period of bloody battles for Kerch, from May 17, in the area of ​​\u200b\u200bAdzhimushkaysky quarries, a group of troops was finally surrounded, covering the withdrawal and evacuation of units of the Crimean Front through the strait. Their months-long defense began. In the first days of the encirclement, underground garrisons became the center of consolidation of other, smaller groups northeast of Kerch. From the factory area. Voikov on May 19-20, 1942, a group of Lieutenant Colonel G.M. Burmin broke into the Central Quarries, who later, after the death of P.M.
With the greatest dignity, honor, courage and heroic tenacity, its last commander, Grigory Mikhailovich Burmin, led his garrison. He understood with all responsibility and knew the price of a soldier's life to continue the fight against fascism until the last minute, until the last breath - this is his whole life, the life of a real Soviet soldier.
In early September 1942, when units of the 47th Army were forced to withdraw from the Taman Peninsula to the Caucasus, the defenders of the quarries no longer had hope for an early landing of Soviet troops in the Crimea. It was the most difficult time - mortality from starvation, disease and wounds increased sharply. G.M. Burmin decides to go to the surface in small groups and try to contact the underground and partisans.
The German command planned to eliminate the desperate resistance of the remnants of the Adzhimushkay garrison with carefully prepared directed explosions. But the command takes away the surviving participants of the defense to distant areas of the quarries, where they continue to resist.
The command of the garrison is preparing, as the fascists reported in the report, a “forced exit”, therefore, together with the Romanian command, they are liquidating the last resistance groups - they knew about the condition of the fighters and commanders, the capabilities of weapons from the traitors. But, judging by the "report", in the Central Quarries, when the last group was captured, there was a fierce hand-to-hand fight - 20 people were injured.
Grigory Mikhailovich Burmin was in captivity and died on November 28, 1944. From the few memoirs of the participants, it is known that until the end of his days he remained faithful to his duty and devoted to the Motherland.
A.I. Trofimenko wrote in his diary found in the quarries: “I will not forget the famous words of the famous Russian writer Nikolai Ostrovsky. He wanted to commit suicide, but later he wrote: anyone and anyone can commit suicide, but in such conditions to save their lives and benefit the state - this, perhaps, would be more expedient, and not every one of us can do it. And in such difficult conditions, each of us must deal with such a task.
Lieutenant Colonel G.M. Burmin set such a task for himself, and completed it to the end. He did not become a scoundrel and a traitor, he did not put a bullet in his forehead, but courageously and steadfastly continued to fight the enemy, while remaining a commander, a communist, a Man.

Documentary portrait
and combat characteristics of the senior battalion commissar
Ivan Pavlovich PARAKHIN

The basis of the documentary portrait and combat characteristics of the communist I.P. Parakhin are the memoirs and records of participants and eyewitnesses of the military events in Kerch in the period May-October 1942.
Ivan Pavlovich PARAKHIN was born on March 29, 1903 in the village of Uspenye, Orel Region. Later, together with his parents, he lived at the Debaltseve station in the Donbass. In 1912, I.P. Parakhin completed the 2nd grade of elementary school and then continued his studies on his own. In 1920, Ivan Pavlovich joined the Komsomol, and in 1921 became a member of the Communist Party. In 1921-22. was the secretary of the Alichevsk district committee of the Komsomol of the Donetsk region. In 1926 I.P. Parakhin graduated from the Communist University in Kharkov. From June to October 1926 he was the secretary of the Aleksandrovsky district party committee. From November 1929 to December 1930 - secretary of the party committee of the mine "Ilyich" of the Kadievsky district. In 1932, Ivan Pavlovich was drafted into the Red Army for party mobilization. In the army, Parakhin served mainly in aviation units, his last position in May 1942 was as a senior instructor in the Department of the Political Administration of the Crimean Front. On April 27, 1942, he was awarded the military rank of senior battalion commissar.
From the diary of Alexander Ivanovich Trofimenko, found in the Central Quarries: “But can you imagine what several thousand people are doomed to?.. Strangely enough, and sometimes terribly, the struggle goes on as usual.
And one can feel the spirit of struggle and confidence in one’s strength, hopes that everything will be experienced, each of us lives in the fact that the hour will come and we will come to the surface to pay off the enemy.”
In the memoirs of the participants in the Adzhimushkay defense of 1942, in the diaries found in the catacombs, they talk about the great educational work that the communists and political workers did in the garrisons, raising the morale of the soldiers, helping them withstand the hardships of siege life in incredibly difficult conditions of the dungeon, politically providing operations conducted by the command of the garrison. This is also evidenced by the lines from the register of political studies found in the quarries.
But, probably, I.P. Parakhin, as the organizer of military-political work in the underground garrison, received the most accurate assessment of his work in the words of the occupiers: “... Propaganda was in the hands of political officers and commissars. It was aimed at inducing the people there to the greatest resistance ... it was accepted by everyone there as the truth.
From the words of the assistant chief of radio communications in the rifle division
F.F. Kaznacheev, later a participant in the defense of Adzhimushkay: “Commissar Parakhin is a great master of instilling in the hearts of people confidence in his strength, confidence that we will definitely defeat the insidious and hated enemy. This hatred of the enemy helps us endure the hardships and hardships of underground life.
Their party recall of a member of the CPSU / b / Guba dated May 8, 1938: Parakhina I.P. I know from joint service since 1932. This is an excellent mass activist-agitator and propagandist, in his work he is inseparable from the masses. Among the Red Army men and commissars, he enjoys excellent and lively prestige. Parakhin's favorite method in working with people is a lively conversation, deep, interesting, leaving no ambiguities in his conviction ... A friend of the Red Army men and commanders, he knows how to identify the best people loyal to the party, knows how to show their qualities as an example for others. In his personal life, Parakhin retained the psychology of a working miner, he never boasts or “boasts”. From the personal file it is clear that Ivan Pavlovich, reading a lot of political and military literature, knew Russian prose and poetry perfectly.
As a fourteen-year-old boy, Mikhail Petrovich Radchenko fell into the catacombs, now living, the last participant and witness of the heroic defense of Adzhimushkay. He wrote: “...Recalling the past, I only realized much later that the task was given to me by the commissar for the sake of my salvation. He knew that I would not leave the dungeon so easily. And he came up with a convincing excuse in the hope of one chance in a thousand that I would survive. He was a father himself, He was a commissar. And that's it".
“We were children plunged into the maelstrom of the terrible events of the war. Adults understood this and tried to protect us with their love. It was the love of hard days. The situation made demands on us as adults, but for adults we still remained children. I remember how once the commissar, sending us on reconnaissance, explained the task to us, and after finishing the briefing, he pulled out two pieces of sugar from his pocket and gave them to us. This simple, ordinary human caress of a warrior will remain in the soul forever, for it was given to us in the most difficult hour of life. Precisely because people managed to remain people in the inhuman conditions of the dungeon, the Adzhimushkay garrison managed to withstand 170 days in the face of the enemy and fight.
Ivan Pavlovich had a big heart of a big man. He was the father of four children. He knew what he was fighting for and going to his death. A man of honor and great love for the Fatherland.
Ivan Pavlovich Parakhin died brutally tortured by the Nazis in the dungeons of the Simferopol Gestapo.

The underground darkness receded
And the dawn rose before us.
It's time for the truth itself
Spoke your words!

When compiling combat portraits of the commanders of the underground garrison, documentary stories and memoirs of fellow soldiers, historians and researchers were used.

Mikhail Grigorievich Povazhny.
The commander of the garrison of the Small Adzhimushkay quarries.

“It so happened that, having passed the Gestapo, fascist prisons and death camps, I survived. Maybe in order to tell the young people about everything that we had to go through, about the bestial appearance of fascism, about our steadfast and courageous comrades who fought on Kerch land in the quarries of Adzhimushkay.
(M.G. Povazhny)

The first to leave memories of M.G. Importantly, the remarkable military historian Vsevolod Abramov became.
“He lived in an old barrack and was engaged in harvesting scrap. He did not have a wife, but he had a teenage son, adopted by him from some woman, whom he unusually loved and spoiled. From his documents and stories, I understood that he never had a permanent wife, but all the time there were women with whom he cohabited. True, when he became a famous person in Kerch, he married quite officially. I found Mikhail Grigoryevich when no one had yet recognized him as the commander of the underground garrison, although his name had already begun to appear in the central press, but the Crimean press was stubbornly silent about him.
In search of housing M.G. Importantly, I walked for a long time in the rain and strong wind, which often happen in Kerch in winter and spring, through the village of Arshintsevo (Kamysh-Burun). Very wet, I introduced myself as M.G. In an important way, He was very happy that he was "finally visited by a military comrade from the center." Seeing my miserable appearance, he immediately ran to the store and brought a bottle "for warming up." M.G. Povazhny I immediately liked, I even spent the night with him. When he undressed before going to bed, I admired his young, completely youthful body. Only the wrinkles on his face betrayed an older man. I was told that some people, after a long hunger strike, become internally healthy, then get sick a little, but die quickly, one might say on the go.
Conversations dragged on, the memories that I wrote down in detail, Mikhail Grigorievich kept several sheets of papers with the dates of captivity and stay in fascist camps and prisons. M.G. Povazhny was cheerful, optimistic and quite satisfied with life. He was very similar to an old, retired pre-revolutionary soldier, still strong, active, believing that the best part of his life was yet to come. Then I learned that he enjoyed authority in his circle, was not a member of the party, but actively participated in social work, for many years he was the chairman of the comrades' court at the house management, he was repeatedly threatened by local hooligans, even beaten, but he stubbornly continued to fulfill the duties of a "judge ", because he was sure that this could bring "benefit to society." Only in a conversation about his work he complained: “They ordered me to collect a ton of broken glass, and where I take it, I’ll have to climb garbage dumps.” He carefully watched his appearance, was not only clean-shaven, but also had a beautiful mustache. His height was below average, squat, they say about such people: "the old man-boletus." His hair was neatly cut, curly, it was clear that even at this age (at 67) he was a success with women.
After the historic conference in honor of the 25th anniversary of the start of the defense of the Adzhimushkay quarries in May 1967, the position of M.G. Povazhny in Kerch changed dramatically. He was recognized. During one of his visits, he proudly told me that now he works as a "lecturer". “The work is very good, I am constantly invited to lecture at schools, state farms, industrial enterprises and they pay well.” Mikhail Grigoryevich did not differ in high erudition, but acted in the spirit of a good wartime political instructor: very emotional, sensible and intelligible, he liked to screw something humorous into his “lecture”. In personal conversations, he was distinguished by his spontaneity, a critical attitude towards himself, but he constantly emphasized that "he was the commander of the underground garrison of the Small Adzhimushkay quarries from the very beginning and remained so until the very end." For the "ceremonial event" and "lecturing" he acquired a military tunic, trousers, army officer's boots. I learned with surprise and delight from archival sources that in May 1942 he was awarded the rank of "captain", but the order did not reach him due to the German offensive. He received a comfortable apartment, it had an exemplary order, all the walls were decorated with diplomas, honorary addresses, souvenirs. Later he began to receive a personal pension.”
Student club named after P.M. Yagunova has been caring for the grave for many years.
M.G. Important. Every year, 2 times a year, in April and at the end of October (the last days of the defense of Adzhimushkay), I, with students of the Kerch Polytechnic School, come to the grave of the commander of the garrison of the Small Adzhimushkay quarries, paying tribute to the memory of the heroes of 1942 in the person of their commander, who found peace in the central cemetery of the city of Kerch. Kerch, and how many heroes the Kerch steppe from sea to sea will remain the last refuge ...
Unexpectedly, in December 2009, we were contacted by the daughter-in-law and grandchildren of M.G. Important. The son of Mikhail Grigorievich lives in Yevpatoria today, with whom the Club began to correspond. In one of the letters, Mikhail Mikhailovich tried to answer my questions.
Povazhny Mikhail Grigorievich was born in Krasnokutsk, Kharkov region in 1897. He had 3 classes of a parochial school. From May 1916 to February 1917 he fought near Riga with the Germans as part of the 173rd Kamenetz-Podolsky Regiment. From February 1919 to October 1920, he participated in the Civil War, fought with the rebels of Makhno and Antonov. As a cadet, as part of the Kotovsky brigade, he participated in the defeat of the "green" gang. In 1921, after completing 51 infantry courses in Kharkov, he served in the Red Army in command positions. In the service he had modest performance, often received comments from senior bosses. Mikhail Grigorievich told about himself with humor: “It used to be that the commander would call me and begin to pronounce the notation for me with these words: “Comrade Povazhny, you don’t serve well ...” In 1935, M.G. Povazhny was dismissed from the army as a commander unpromising in the future. It seems that at that time the leadership did not see in him a good middle-level commander, like the artillery officer Tushin, described
L. N. Tolstoy in the novel "War and Peace". M.G. Povazhny, like Tushin, was very modest, inconspicuous, "afraid of the authorities", but very conscientious, honest, knew his job well. Such commanders, as a rule, are close to the masses of soldiers, and therefore they enjoy authority among their subordinates. Povazhny all his life had a quality that is called "military bone". It was visible to everyone. He was always disciplined, tidy, collected and sociable. After his dismissal from the army, he immediately found himself in economic work in Sevastopol (Before the war, he worked as the head of supply at the Inkerman wines factory. In his last position, before the war, he was head of the secret department of the Tauride District in Sevastopol.), From where he was mobilized on July 20 in 1st reserve regiment. In early March 1942, he was appointed commander of a battalion of the 83rd Marine Brigade, was wounded in the battles on the Akmonai Isthmus, and after the hospital was again in the 1st Reserve Regiment.
On the outskirts of Adzhimushkay, the defense was held by a group from the 1st reserve regiment of the Crimean Front under the command of Major A.G. Golyadkin and senior battalion commissar A.N. Eliseeva. The regiment was formed in the autumn of 1941; it was then part of the 51st Army. The permanent composition of the regiment consisted largely of immigrants from the Crimea. The order for the defense of the 1st reserve regiment here was given personally by S.M. Budyonny, who had flown in by plane from Krasnodar. Calling A.G. Golyadkin and A.N. Eliseev, he demanded: “I order you to detain the Nazis at all costs. The longer you hold out here, the more you will detain the Nazis, and hence the more we will be able to transport people to the mainland. Stop retreating singles and small groups of fighters and commanders, put together units from them. We will strengthen you as much as possible."
On May 15, as a result of a mortar attack, A.G. was wounded. Golyadkin. The wounded orderlies put him in a horse-drawn cart, he called the battalion commander M.G. Povazhny and ordered to take command of the 1st reserve regiment. There were quite a lot of personnel in the regiment who were not fit for military service, there was a battalion of convalescents (these were soldiers who had returned from hospitals), a unit of female signalmen. An order was received to send all these people to the crossing for the purpose of evacuation to Taman. Political instructor V.M. was ordered to lead this mass of people. Ognev. With the onset of darkness, people began to be taken out of the quarries. Ognev safely led the convoy to the Kerch Strait and was transported with it to the Taman Peninsula that same night.
The headquarters of the 1st reserve regiment was located in the Small Adzhimushkaysky quarries, located about 250–300 m from the Central ones. The medical unit of the regiment, a food warehouse and some units were also located here. This circumstance led to the fact that after the encirclement, another garrison arose here, part of which continued to be commanded by Senior Lieutenant Povazhny. Another part of the personnel of this regiment ended up in the Central Quarries. A single underground garrison in the Small Adzhimushkay quarries, as in the Central ones, where P.M. Yagunov, it didn't work out. At least three groups were formed here, headed by Lieutenant Colonel S.A. Ermakov, Senior Lieutenant M.G. Povazhny and Captain S.N. Barlite. A prominent figure in the defense of these quarries was the battalion commissar M.N. Karpekin, who, during the rearguard battles east of Kerch, was sent to the quarry area by Lieutenant General D.T. Kozlov as a representative of the headquarters of the front and the political administration. Education S.A. Ermakov, his work and social hardening, rapid growth in military ranks overshadowed the modest track record of Mikhail Grigorievich Povazhny. CM. Ermakov, senior in rank in the Small Adzhimushkay quarries, was proud, somewhat arrogant, and therefore did not immediately like M.G. Povazhny and S.N. Barlit. Of the senior commanders, no one appointed him to command here; he ended up in the quarries by accident. His group was small, and therefore he had no one to rely on. In addition, he had absolutely no food, and he was forced to stand "on allowance" at first with S.N. Barlita, and then from M.G. Important. All these reasons influenced the fact that a garrison with a strong unified command did not form in these quarries.
From the memoirs of M.G. Povazhnogo: “... We lived as it should be for a military garrison. Every day an officer on duty for the regiment, orderlies for companies, and a duty company were appointed. Secrets were exposed, at the exits from the quarries - guards.
It is difficult to describe in words everything that happened to be experienced. When the last food ran out and hunger began to torment more and more every day, the skins and hooves of horses were used as food. They ate lice. The corpses of dead comrades, buried right there, decomposed. The air was heavy. The Germans continued gas attacks ... "
In the most difficult conditions, the personnel of the regiment worked out, as M.G. Povazhny - "their methods of struggle." They learned to deal with gases and smoke, but more and more often the fighters were “thrown off their feet by hunger, thirst, fatigue, gases, the heavy air of the dungeon…”
The last refuge in the last days of October 1942 in the catacombs were two stone rooms, in which the headquarters was located at the beginning of the defense. Obviously, the traitor remembered these rooms and brought the Germans here. "No matter how we hid, the fascists discovered and captured us - the last unarmed defenders of the Small Quarries."
We know about the feat of those who fought in the Small Adzhimushkay quarries from the legendary diary of Alexander Klabukov.
“10.7.42 ... Comrade. Povazhny bought himself a daughter, Svetlanochka. Svetlana was left without parents. Her parents left the catacombs for food on May 20 and did not return: they were killed or with the Germans. The girl is very smart beyond her years ... She understands perfectly. They gave her a cracker, she asks: “Uncle, is this for today or in general?” How prudent! If she had been told at all, then, of course, she would not have eaten it right away, but would have stretched it out for two, three days. Povazhny regiment commander, if he comes out of the catacombs and saves her life, he is a lucky man.
Fate was very cruel to everyone whom Mikhail Grigorievich dearly loved, and these wounds were added to the front: shortly before the war, his first-born twins died in a fire, and subsequently such a strong family was not created; Svetlana Tyutyunnikova died in the quarries (although Mikhail recalls that “after the war she lived in Kerch and often came to her father”), and the fate of her beloved son Misha was unenviable ... the son of a front-line soldier who went through captivity, German and Stalinist camps ... suspicions and humiliations .
In general, he was a cheerful, hospitable person. He loved to receive guests. My favorite holiday was the New Year. May 9 for M.G. Important - it's sacred! The most important holiday, which brought together all friends and associates. This is what he endured it all for. Of the veterans, after the war, he often met with L.T. Karatsuba, with Titov - a member of the Eltigen landing, I.A. Kiselev and many other comrades. M.G. Povazhny until the end of his days was a combat member of the Kerch veterans' organization.
Today, his awards and memoirs are kept in the Kiev Central Museum of the Great Patriotic War. Died M.G. Povazhny from stomach sarcoma in the Kerch oncological hospital.
The words of Adzhimushkayts N.D. sound today as a testament. Nemtsov. Words of our Memory: “Young and old! If you have a clear conscience and a good heart, if you, with good motives and a disinterested feeling, want to know the truth about people and about the events of those distant days of 1942, trust the sacred stones of Adzhimushkay, lean against their mighty and kind walls with a shershavinka, and they will tell to you about military youth, true friendship and boundless devotion to the Motherland and military duty.

Books about Kerch in the war of 1941-1945.

1. Abramov V. "Kerch catastrophe 1942" Moscow "Yauza" "Eksmo" 2006
2.Azarov V.B. The sailors went first. Simferopol Tavria. 1974
3. Akulov M.R. "Kerch - a hero city" Ot.TR.Kr.Zn.Voen.Izd. M. 1980
4. Batov P.I. "Perekop 1941" ed. "Crimea" Simferopol 1970
5.Combat way of the Soviet Navy. Edited by A.V. Basov, M. "Military Publishing House" 1988
6. But N. "Adzhimushkay 1942" Moscow Visual Arts 1985
7. In the catacombs of Adzhimushkay. Edition 4. Simferopol. Ed. "Tavria" 1982
8. In the catacombs of Adzhimushkay. Comp. B.E. Serman. Ed. "Crimea" Simferopol 1966
9. Military diary of F. Halder. In 3 volumes. Military publishing house MO.SSSR Moscow. 1971
10. Gladkov V.F. Landing on Eltigen. M. Military Publishing. 1981
11. Gusarov F., Chuistova L. "Kerch" Krymizdat 1955
12. Efremov N. "Dungeon Soldiers" publishing house "Crimea" Simferopol 1970
13. Zotkin N.F. and others. Red Banner Black Sea Fleet. M. Military Publishing, 1987
14. Zubkov A.I. "Kerch-Feodosiya landing operation" Ot.TR.Kr.Zn. Military Ed. M.O.USSR. Moscow 1974
15. History of the Second World War 1939-1945. In 12 volumes. Main editorial committee. Chairman Ustinov D.F. O.R.Tr.Kr.Znamya Military Publishing House of M.O.SSSR, M. 1982
16. Kerch military (collection of articles). KGIKZ. Kerch 2004
17. Kerch. Documents and materials on the history of the city. Simferopol. Editorial Department of the Crimean Press Committee 1993
18. Knyazev G.N., Protsenko I.S. Valor is immortal. About the feat of the defenders of Adzhimushkay. M. Izd polit. Literature, 1986
19. Crimea during the Great Patriotic War 1941-1945. Collection of documents and materials. Publishing house "Tavria" Simferopol 1973
20. Litvinova L. They fly through the years. Military Publishing House of the Ministry of Defense of the USSR, M. 1965
21. Manstein Erich Von. Soldier of the 20th century. Transitbook. Moscow. 2006
22. Manstein Erich Von. Lost victories. M. Military Publishing House 1957
23. Markov I.I. Kerch-Feodosia landing operation. M. Voenizdat 1956
24. Martynov V., Spakhov S. Strait on fire. Kyiv Ed. "Political Literature" Ukraine 1984
25. Mochulsky K.V. Seaport of Kerch. Historical story. Publishing house Typography Kerch - 1996
26. Pervushin A.N. Roads we didn't take. M. DOSAAF publishing house. 1974
27. Pirogov A. Fortress of soldiers' hearts. Ed. "Soviet Russia" Moscow 1974
28. Pirogov R.A. Banner over Mithridates. Simferopol 1973
29. Rubtsov Y. “Mekhlis. The Shadow of the Leader" M. "Eksmo", "Yauza", 2007
30. Sarkisyan S.M. 51st Army. M. Military Publishing 1983
31. Sirota N. “This is how Kerch fought” Documentary essay. Simferopol 1976
32.Cheremovsky Yu.Yu. Russian roulette. Simferopol "Tavrida", 2000
33. Shcherbak S.M. Battle glory of Kerch. Simferopol "Tavria" 1986