Black Sea Campaigns (1941-1944)

The Black Sea campaigns took place between 1941 and 1944 within the framework of the Eastern Front of the Second World War, the Black Sea was the scene of harsh clashes between the Soviet fleet and a German flotilla, called 3 R, which reached its theater of operations crossing the European continent.

The 3 R flotilla

The Germans needed to attack the Soviet positions in the Black Sea. Given the difficulty of sending a fleet through the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, the 3 R fleet was ordered to reach its theater of operations by waterways and road. Mounted on giant platforms with 64 wheels, these ships, weighing around 120 tons, left Magdeburg, on the Elbe, and moved slowly southwards along a highway. When they reached the banks of the Danube they returned to the water. This surprising path was also traveled by fast surveillance ships, transport barges and even small submarines.

The Soviet Black Sea Fleet comprised several cruisers, gunboats, destroyers and numerous vessels of at least equal value to those of the German units, as well as some submarine flotillas.

Although the Romanian navy remained inactive, it is no less true that the Soviets followed them in that inactivity. It is the time of the German penetration into southern Russia and the Stuka squadrons sink the Soviet ships in the ports of the Caucasus. Only Soviet submarines show any activity. The small German ships are dedicated to fulfilling their missions, which are not at all limited to mine dredging. The 3 R not only escorts transports and convoys, but also supports ground combat: it accompanies the army in its advance and bombards enemy positions, such as the "mountain of death" in Novorossiysk. When ammunition is almost exhausted and the most powerful Soviet ships appear, there is no recourse but to escape.

But there are times when the minesweepers are forced to confront the adversary, even in cases where it is much superior, as in 1943, when the Soviets on land definitively took the initiative from the Germans. Just as shortly before the minesweepers supported the advance of the German army, now they have to support its retreat.

Naval combat in the Kerch Strait

In November 1943, the Soviet command feels quite strong and begins to transport thousands of soldiers to Crimea, through the Kerch Strait, in order to establish a bridgehead. The first Soviet assault succeeds. Final success is only possible by using every night as much as can float to pass reinforcements, ammunition, weapons, provisions and especially... drinking water. The "German Black Sea Fleet" is ordered to intervene. It is in charge of intercepting the passage of Soviet supplies through the Kerch Strait, "whatever the cost", in order to allow the already very weak German detachments remaining in Crimea to reduce and eliminate the bridgehead achieved by the Soviets.

The Kriegsmarine is made up, in this area, of a flotilla of minesweepers, two or three fast surveillance ships and a flotilla of assault barges. Unlike this, the Soviets have a hundred small ships of various types, as well as gunboats and destroyers that this time have orders to be used fully. However, the freedom of action of the Soviet fleet is limited: firstly, the Germans have closed the strait with mines and the free channel is very narrow, and secondly, when a convoy tries to pass through, the Germans launch between the transports, so the Soviets cannot use their superior artillery for fear of shooting at each other. This tactic was used by the Germans after observing the passage of convoys in the Kertch Strait a few nights. Generally, these confrontations take place in a type of "hand-to-hand" fight. Ship to ship and man to man, in the course of which ships come to touch.

The naval combats in the Kerch Strait began on the night of November 6 to 7, 1943 and were almost the same as those of past centuries: the ships approached at incredibly short distances to attack each other, "the combats take place at pistol shot". The speed and seamanship of the ships ended up giving the Germans victory. The Germans had smaller ships and took advantage of a defect that the Soviet ships had. The large-caliber guns of the Soviet ships were unable to fire at angles below the horizontal: this being the case, the Germans got so close to these ships that they were out of the path of the projectiles. Being in these conditions, the Germans threw their mines at the Soviets without them being able to do anything. The crews of the German fleet 3 R constantly use their imagination to take advantage of the limitations of the Soviet fleet and stop the supply line destined for the Soviet bridgehead.

As an anecdote of the non-traditional war that takes place in the Kertch Strait, it is enough to tell an unorthodox tactic that the Germans use: they get close enough to the Soviet ships to shoot a cable with the rope launch gun. These ropes have at one end a hook that is going to get stuck somewhere on the Soviet ship and at the other end they carry an underwater grenade that, by the traction of the cable, is going to be propelled against the hull of the Soviet ship, which at the same time collide, it explodes. Soviet losses are thus considerable. This non-traditional war takes place over eleven days. On November 17, the Soviet Army units established in the Crimean bridgehead are defeated due to lack of supplies and the bridgehead ceases to exist. The following year, 1944, the German front in Russia collapsed and it was also the end of the German naval units fighting in the Black Sea. Soviet armies moving from the north invade Crimea. The Germans have to retreat; In this action, the minesweepers of the 3 R fleet, in their last operation, managed to save most of the Sevastopol garrison, to take it to Romania and Bulgaria. Each boat carries up to 400 men and they carry out the operation with the bridge at water level.

Withdrawal of the Kriegsmarine from the Black Sea

On August 28, 1944, German sailors scuttled their ships off the port of Varna and allowed themselves to be disarmed on land by the Bulgarians. The Bulgarian general then signs an incredible order: «Order. "The German lieutenant Klassmann is authorized to freely cross the Bulgarian border with 800 men." (citation needed. Until September 8, Bulgaria remains in the Axis camp).

The Germans manage to convince a Bulgarian train driver to take them from the Black Sea to the border with Yugoslavia, through a country occupied by the Soviets, using a railway track. The Germans camouflage the train by mounting "artillery"; said artillery are telegraph poles, when in reality the 800 men are armed with two revolvers. They finally get hold of a radio and come into contact with Austrian units of the Wehrmacht. The German soldiers were never seen again, they were surely annihilated or captured by Josip Broz Tito's forces. Meanwhile the sailors arrived at Nich. In this city they find a telegram from Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz in which he orders Lieutenant Klassmann: "Return to Germany as quickly as possible, to assemble a new flotilla 3 R ."

The order is executed. The new ships set sail as soon as they are ready, most of them unarmed; Their mission is to transport fugitives across the Baltic Sea, which they do until the capitulation.

End of flotilla 3 R

After the capitulation, the Soviets insisted to the British that the 3 R flotilla with its full crews be handed over to them. Rumors of the negotiation reach Klassmann's ears and although the British assure him that they will not be handed over, the head of the flotilla manages to disembark the old crew members and replace them with new ones. Finally the flotilla is handed over to the Soviets, but of the old crews only Lieutenant Klassmann remains: the rest have dispersed.

Klassmann realizes what the Soviets intend: they want to take him to Russia as an instructor, with important offers: good salary, excellent accommodation, help for relatives who remain in Germany. Klassmann refuses. The ships of the 3 R flotilla continued their journey east, but without their crews and, like many other ships of the Kriegsmarine, were incorporated into the Soviet fleet.