All language subtitles for Soviet Storm WWII in the East Series 1 3of9 The Defence of Sevastopol 1080p.eng

June 1941. German Army Group
South advances into Ukraine.

But at the powerful naval
bases of Odessa and Sevastopol,

the Germans encounter
fierce Soviet resistance.

Originally produced
for Russian television in 2011,

this is the story of Russia s
Great Patriotic War

and the Red Army s long road
from defeat to victory.

13th July 1941.

Soviet DB-3s dropped their bombs
over the Romanian city of
Ploesti,

and turned for home.

The target was
hidden by low cloud.

But the high-explosive
had found its mark.

Romania was Hitler s
main source of oil.

Now just three weeks into the
German invasion of the Soviet
Union,

this crucial supply
line was under attack.

The Unirea oil refinery
burned for several days.

The flames could be
seen for many miles.

Romanian oil facilities
were hit again and again

by bombers of the Soviet Black
Sea Fleet, based in the Crimea.

The Crimean peninsula had barely
been mentioned in German plans
for the invasion.

But now it was giving Hitler
growing cause for concern.

On 23rd July 1941,
Hitler issued Directive 33,

which gave increased priority to
the operations of Army Group
South in Ukraine.

On 12th August, he gave orders
to occupy the Crimea, which
because of its air bases,

he declared, posed a great
threat to the Romanian
oil-producing regions.

The Soviet bomber crews had
caught the attention of the
Fuehrer.

German forces were now heading
south to deal with them.

The first weeks of the war were
disastrous for the Red Army.

But in one arena, they had
reason to feel more confident.

The Soviet Black Sea Fleet was
a force to be reckoned with.

It included 1 battleship, 5
cruisers, 16 destroyers and 44
submarines.

There was no fleet to rival it
in the Black Sea.

It was commanded by the 42-year
old Vice-Admiral Filipp
Oktyabrsky.

Oktyabrsky joined the Russian
navy in 1917. An ardent
Communist,

he d gone as far as to change
his name from Ivanov to
Oktyabrskiy

meaning October,
the month of the Revolution.

He d commanded the Black Sea
Fleet since 1939.

In the summer of 1941 Stalin
issued many orders forbidding
units to surrender,

and demanding they hold
their positions to the last man.

Most had little effect.

But at the Black Sea port of
Odessa, it was a different
story.

The defence was led by
the Independent Coastal Army,

which would soon be under the
command of General Ivan
Efimovitch Petrov.

Petrov began his military career
as a private in the Red Army.

By 1941 he was a Major General
commanding the 25th
Chapayevskaya Rifle Division,

named after its legendary Civil
War commander, Vasily Chapayev.

Within weeks, Petrov
would be promoted

to command of the Independent
Coastal Army at Odessa.

The first battles for the city
were fought on 5th August

against the advancing
4th Romanian Army.

The Romanian generals thought
that Odessa would fall quickly.

But Soviet soldiers and
civilians had been put to work
building new defences.

They had dug more than 100 miles
of trenches and anti-tank
ditches.

Odessa would mount a stubborn
defence, holding out for many
weeks,

while it was kept supplied by
the Black Sea Fleet.

In September, Romanian troops
finally broke into the city s
suburbs

and began shelling the harbour.
Soviet marines launched a
counterattack.

Supported by amphibious landings
behind the Romanian lines,

they routed two enemy divisions.

The siege lines were driven back
more than 5,000 yards.

As the Coastal Army prepared to
carry the siege on into the
winter,

it received dramatic new orders.

Soldiers and their commanders
who have fought for the city
bravely and heroically,

shall be evacuated
with all speed to the Crimea.

Von Manstein s 11th Army
had crossed the Dnieper

and was about to cut-off the
entire Crimean peninsula.

Erich von Manstein
came from a Prussian family

with a long history
of military service.

He was seriously wounded in the
opening stages of the First
World War,

but went on to become a highly
experienced staff officer.

In 1940, he devised the plan
which led to the Fall of France.

He came to be regarded as one
of the best generals of the war.

Von Manstein was poised to break
through Soviet defences at
Perekop,

the gateway to the peninsula.
The cities of the Crimea would
be exposed,

including the main Black Sea
naval base at Sevastopol.

To try to save Sevastopol,
Odessa would be sacrificed.

Leaving behind a
small rearguard,

approximately 90,000 soldiers
were evacuated over the course
of 17 days.

They left leaflets addressed
to the people of Odessa.

We re leaving our beloved
Odessa, but not for good, and
not for long.

Those miserable killers, those
Fascist brats will be thrown out
of our city.

We will be back soon, comrades!

At dawn on 16th October,
the last ship left Odessa.

That evening,
the Romanians entered the city.

German troops advanced through
the Crimea, heading for
Sevastopol.

As they rested, shells suddenly
started falling amongst them.

Dozens of vehicles caught fire.

They were under attack from the
massive guns of Battery Number
30

dubbed by the Germans
Fort Maxim Gorky I.

Batteries Number 30 and 35 were
the fulcrum of Sevastopol s
defences.

Each battery had two turrets,
each with two 12 guns.

They had originally been built
for battleships, and had a range
of 26 miles.

Construction of the batteries
began in 1912, but because of
the turmoil in Russia,

they weren t completed
until 1936.

Electric engines were used
to load and aim the guns.

A light railway carried the
half-ton shells from the
magazine to the guns.

Only the towers, protected by
400 millimetres of steel plate,

were visible above ground.

The rest of the battery was
housed in an underground
complex, 130 metres by 50.

It included storage rooms for
ammunition, electric generators,

sleeping quarters,
even kitchens and infirmaries.

The battery was commanded
by Major Grygoriy Aleksander.

As the Germans continued
their advance,

Soviet troops retreated south
through the mountains,

along the Yalta highway,
and to Sevastopol.

Marines, supported by the heavy
coastal guns, held up the German
advance.

They bought crucial time for
reinforcements to reach
Sevastopol.

These included the Coastal
Army under General Petrov,

and Fleet Commander
Vice-Admiral Oktyabrisky.

Sevastopol s defences
were divided into four zones.

The first covered the harbour at
Balaklava. The second, the
highway to Yalta.

The third, the central
and eastern approaches.

And the fourth, the
road from Bakhchisaray.

Wounded soldiers and civilians
were hurriedly evacuated by sea.

On 6th November, the steamer
Armenia left, bound for the
Caucasus.

In the chaos of the evacuation,

many passengers were not entered
on the ship s register.

The next day at noon, she was
attacked by a German torpedo
bomber.

The Armenia sank in
just four minutes.

From an estimated
7,000 passengers,

an escort vessel picked up
just eight survivors.

Franz Halder, Chief of the
German General Staff,

recorded in his diary that the
assault on Sevastopol would
begin on 8th December,

and last no more than 5 days.

But summer rains intervened
to delay the assault.

Von Manstein had decided to make
his main attack against
Sevastopol s North Shore.

At first sight the Yalta highway
seemed more obvious.

The open country on either side
of the road was better suited to
German tanks.

That was why the Soviets were
hastily fortifying the area.

But Von Manstein knew
that if he took the North Shore,

his artillery would
dominate the harbour.

With no more supplies arriving
by sea, the city would be
doomed.

Realizing that Sevastopol
could not hold out on its own,

the Soviets planned to land
troops at Kerch, on the eastern
tip of the Crimea,

and at Feodosia.

The landings would be led by the
elite 79th Naval Infantry
Brigade.

They would seize the ports, and
clear the way for the infantry
that followed.

Two days before the landings,
the Germans began a brutal
assault on Sevastopol.

They made rapid advances.

The Stavka High Command received
an urgent message:

Should further attacks
be of the same pace,

the Sevastopol garrison can hold
out for no more than three
days .

Desperate measures
were required.

The 79th Brigade was immediately
diverted to Sevastopol.

At Sevastopol, warships
worked in 20 hour shifts,

bombarding German positions
from within the harbour.

The Germans were finally
halted at Fort Stalin .

This was the name the Germans
had given to a hilltop position

held by the 365th
Anti-Aircraft Battery.

It was not a real fort, although
the position had some concrete
emplacements

for its four 76 millimetre
anti-aircraft guns.

The Germans had nicknames
for all the Sevastopol defences.

They included the GPU, the
Cheka, Siberia and Molotov.

Some of these defences dated
back to the Crimean War of 1854.

Grygory Zamekhovskiy
was at Fort Stalin.

A detachment of sailors was
formed to defend the battery,
and I volunteered.

We fought the German infantry
right by the battery,

hand to hand combat inside the
barbed wire. It was cruel.

Most of our detachment
was killed .

Sacrifices such as these
brought Sevastopol time.

But the situation
remained critical.

The Germans could break through
to the North Shore at any hour.

It was where all reinforcements
and ammunition were landed.

To break the stranglehold, the
Kerch landings would go ahead.

Advance detachments landed
at Kerch on 26th December.

But they were able to secure
only a few small bridgeheads.

Four days later, a risky
night-time landing was attempted
at Feodosia.

A Soviet submarine laid
navigational buoys along the
route.

Then it turned on its
searchlights to guide in the
attacking force.

A small raiding
party led the way.

They captured the lighthouse
and switched it on.

Now the rest of the landing
force steamed in.

But one last obstacle remained:
the boom that blocked the
harbour entrance.

Feodosia s boom was a floating
barrier made of rafts.

A Soviet submarine had made a
night-time reconnaissance of it
just a few days before.

It had been tightly shut.

A boat was supposed to
blow up the barrier.

But its commander had suffered
a failure of nerve .

He was two hours late, and
then withdrew without orders.

It was a dereliction of duty for
which he would later be arrested
and shot.

The entire operation
was in jeopardy.

Only then was it discovered that
the boom had somehow been left
open.

The first Soviet craft
surged into the bay.

The signal went up. The
landing party stormed ashore.

The German commander,
Count von Sponeck,

believed his forces were about
to be cut off. He ordered a
retreat.

The Germans abandoned
the Kertch peninsula.

For his decision, Von Sponeck,
a holder of the Knight s Cross,

would later be court
martialled and shot.

The landings had exactly the
effect the Soviets had hoped
for.

Von Manstein was forced to
suspend his assault on
Sevastopol.

He even had to give up ground.
Von Manstein described the
moment in his memoirs:

It was perfectly clear that it
was necessary to move troops
from Sevastopol

to the endangered areas. Any
delay would have been fatal .

Von Manstein s 11th Army
recaptured Feodosia on 18th
January.

The Soviets withdrew to a new
defensive line across the
Akmanay Isthmus.

The loss of Feodosia prompted
the Stavka High Command

to send its own representative
to the Crimea.

The man they chose was
Army Commissioner Lev Mekhlis.

Usually the Stavka sent a senior
general, but Mekhlis was a pure
party man,

a fanatical Bolshevik
with no military expertise.

His presence undermined the
Front Commander General Kozlov,

and threatened chaos
in the crucial days ahead

Over the Black Sea, nine German
torpedo bombers began their
attack run.

The transport ship Svanetti
was returning from Sevastopol.

She carried wounded
soldiers and refugees.

Her skipper successfully
evaded five torpedoes.

But he couldn t dodge them all.

In 1941 in the Black Sea,

the Germans sunk 23 Soviet ships
and damaged 26 more.

Luftwaffe air attacks
were proving lethal.

Most dangerous of all was Werner
Baumbach, commander of KG30.

He led an elite bomber squadron
that specialised in attacking
ships,

and had recently transferred to
the Black Sea from the Atlantic
coast.

Without adequate fighter
protection, Soviet shipping was
highly vulnerable.

In just two months, German
aircraft destroyed one third of
the transport tonnage

available to the Crimean Front.

For the new year, 1942, Hitler s
main strategic objective

was to capture the Soviet
oil fields in the Caucasus.

But first he would have to
eliminate Soviet resistance in
the Crimea.

Otherwise his southern flank was
exposed. Orders from the General
Staff stated:

The main task of Army Group
South is to recapture the Kerch
Peninsula

and take Sevastopol, to free up
forces for further advances.

To achieve this, von Manstein
was reinforced with the
newly-formed 22nd Panzer
Division.

He would also be supported
by the 8th Air Corps,

commanded by Wolfram
von Richthofen.

This unit was considered
the best in the Luftwaffe

when it came to
close air support.

The German offensive was
codenamed , Operation Bustard
Hunt .

Meanwhile in the
Kerch Peninsula,

Soviet soldiers were digging a
second and third line of
trenches.

The commander of the 44th Army
had given orders to construct
defences in depth.

But under pressure from
Commissar Mekhlis,

General Kozlov put an
end to such preparations.

Instead the men were told to
prepare for the big advance.

Neither Kozlov nor Mekhlis were
discouraged by earlier Red Army
disasters.

Their offensive was
set for 20th May.

Meanwhile a Croatian Luftwaffe
pilot had defected.

He warned of an
imminent German attack.

General Kozlov expected the
attack to come along the main
highway,

where he d positioned
the 51st Army.

Half his tanks were also dug in
along this route.

An advance along the Black Sea
shore was considered unlikely.

So only the weak 63rd Rifle
Division covered this route.

The Germans assault boats
approach through early morning
mist.

For a while the landings were
held up by Soviet engineers with
flamethrowers.

But only until
they ran out fuel.

Then the main barrage began.

German artillery targeted the
minefields in front of the Red
Army positions.

They blew lanes through them,
through which infantry and
assault guns could advance.

Meanwhile the 8th Air Corps
pounded Soviet defences from
above.

Once the Germans broke through
the front line, they met almost
no resistance.

Kozlov had spared his men
the trouble of digging.

Now they had no protection
on the open steppe.

Chaos and panic soon took hold.

On the second morning of the
battle, Von Manstein sent in the
22nd Panzer Division.

He was, on a smaller scale,
repeating the plan of
envelopment

which had led to the
Fall of France.

After breaking through to the
Soviet rear, German tanks turned
north,

trapping the Soviet 47th army.

It seemed that the battle
would be over in mere hours.

But on 9th May Soviet armour
fought back, led by a handful of
heavy KV tanks.

Late at night, Kozlov
and Mekhlis called Stalin.

They proposed to withdraw to a
new defensive line known as the
Turkish Bank.

But Stalin was not optimistic.

If you manage to reach
the Turkish Bank in time,

we ll consider that
quite an achievement .

Soviet units withdrew along the
shore of the Sea of Azov,
covered by their tanks.

But the Germans were first
to reach the Turkish Bank.

They followed on the heels of
a retreating Soviet column,

hidden in the clouds of dust.

The Germans launched an
immediate assault and smashed
through the line.

Now the Crimean Front was
ordered to retreat to the last
positions,

around Kerch itself.

In the open terrain, the Red
Army was exposed to air attack.

The losses were terrible.

At the outskirts of Kerch,

the Germans were briefly held up
as T-26 light tanks made
desperate counterattacks.

The guns of the Black
Sea Fleet joined in.

But unlike Sevastopol, Kerch had
no powerful coastal batteries.

The Germans entered the city,

driving Soviet survivors to the
eastern tip of the peninsula.

Their only hope now lay in
evacuation by sea,

across the 6 mile-wide
Gulf of Taman.

Every available boat or barge
was pressed into service.

Dunka s Fleet the
soldiers called it.

But here, there was to be
no miracle of Dunkirk

In the face of a merciless
German air onslaught,

120,000 troops got away.
Many more did not.

There weren t enough boats.

Most of those who tried to swim
for it were carried away by the
current.

As the Crimean Front collapsed,
Soviet casualties reached
160,000.

6th May 1942. The German
bombardment of Sevastopol was in
its fifth day.

A heavy shell had smashed
through the roof of one of the
turrets of Battery Number 30.

It was soon repaired but one
gun remained out of action.

Enormous shells were raining
down from the German lines

2 metres in length,
and weighing more than two tons.

They came from two giant
mortars, Thor and Odin.

The 600 millimetre guns had been
built to take on France s
Maginot Line.

Now they had come to Sevastopol.

Their shells could smash through
three and a half metres of
concrete,

or 450 millimetres
of steel plate.

They mortars took 10
minutes to reload.

But the Germans had brought
even bigger guns to Sevastopol.

The railway gun Dora had a
calibre of 800 millimetres,

and remains the largest gun ever
to be used in action.

It was manned by an artillery
battalion of 500 men,

which included transport units,
gunners, a camouflage unit, and
a field kitchen.

Its firing position was prepared
by 1,000 engineers and 1,500
labourers.

Assembly and preparation
for firing took six weeks.

Dora fired 48 shells during the
siege. Only one hit was
recorded.

It destroyed an ammunition store
27 metres underground.

Dora was in action for 13 days,
before being disassembled and
sent to Leningrad.

At that moment, 11th Army
contained nearly 1,000 guns of
all calibres.

Von Manstein believed
it was a record:

In general during the
Second World War,

Germany never used as much
artillery as it did during the
Siege of Sevastopol .

As the siege went on, ammunition
became an increasing concern for
both sides.

For the defenders of Sevastopol,
there was no place left to run.

There weren t enough ships
to evacuate the garrison.

The orders were to
hold out at all costs.

There were few illusions
about what this meant.

An immense German bombardment
began on the morning of 7th June
1942.

Thor and Odin fired 54 shells
at Battery Number 30.

But they failed to
destroy the turrets.

The Luftwaffe flew 1,400
sorties. The firepower seemed
overwhelming.

But German infantry advancing
along the Belbek River

were only able to advance
a few hundred metres.

It cost them dearly
more than 2,000 casualties.

Witnesses described the whole
horizon being alive with fire
and smoke.

The German onslaught
was unsustainable.

Von Richthofen s bombers
were running low on bombs.

His pilots had strict orders
to make every one count.

The artillery magazines
were almost empty.

On the night of 9th June,
General Petrov committed his
reserve,

the 345th Rifle Division.

Supported by fire
from Batteries 30 and 35,

they were able to stem
the German advance.

But four days later,
disaster struck.

As the transport ship Georgia
arrived in the harbour,

bringing reinforcements and
ammunition, she was hit by two
bombs.

Massive explosions quickly
sent her to the bottom.

The loss of men, and 500 tons of
ammunition, was a devastating
blow.

Vice Admiral Oktyabrisky
signalled the Stavka:

The shortage of men and
ammunition puts us on the verge
of catastrophe.

On 13th June, Manstein was able
to report the capture of Fort
Stalin,

which had held up the German
assault the previous winter.

It had not fallen until three of
its four guns had been put out
of action.

Von Manstein convinced Hitler
this was the crucial
breakthrough.

He persuaded Hitler to give him
three more infantry regiments,

and not to redeploy
the 8th Air Corps to Kharkov.

The main German summer offensive
towards Stalingrad and the
Caucasus

could not start until
Sevastopol fell.

Its garrison s bitter resistance
was holding everything up.

But step by step,
the Germans were closing in.

On 17th June, the Germans
attempted to storm Battery
Number 30.

The minefields were
destroyed by artillery,

and the infantry were able
to reach the turrets.

The gunners withdrew
underground. They held out for
four more days,

before Battery Commander
Major Aleksander gave orders

to blow up the turrets
and the generators.

The next day the Germans broke
in and captured the survivors.

Aleksander and a few others
escaped through a storm drain.

But while dressed as a civilian,
he was pointed out by a local
collaborator.

Major Aleksander was taken to a
prison in Simferopol, tortured
and shot.

The Germans had reached
the North Shore.

It meant no more supplies or
reinforcements could be landed
at the harbour.

The cruiser Comintern , en
route to Sevastopol, had to turn
back.

But at Kazacha, Kamyshova,
and Strilets ka Bay,

submarines and small craft
could still land.

Douglas DC-3s of the
Moscow Special Aviation Group

were used to ferry out the
wounded. Grygoriy Zamekhovskiy
witnessed the scene:

Thousands of wounded lay at the
airfield. One aircraft could
take just 25 people.

A pilot would point to those
that were to be taken .

How many eyes looked at them
with hope and pain!

At most, the aircraft could
bring in a few dozen tons of
ammunition per day.

But Sevastopol needed
hundreds of tons per day.

On 26th June, the submarine S-32
was en route to Sevastopol
carrying fuel

and mortar shells. Southwest of
Yalta it was attacked by German
aircraft.

The explosion was
seen 20 miles away.

Soviet defences in the north had
collapsed, but the city was not
about to surrender.

In the south, the German 30th
Corps was held up by Soviet
defences

on the Sapoun Heights. In his
memoirs, Manstein described his
main concern:

The obvious way out
of that situation

was to redirect the main blow
to the southern side.

But redeploying an infantry
division from the northern
sector

to the south would
have taken many days,

giving the enemy time to rest
and reorganise .

What s more, Manstein had lost
von Richthofen s Air Corps

which had finally been
redeployed north.

Perhaps Sevastopol would
make it after all.

The sailors were building a
jetty for large ships as fast as
they could.

It would be complete
in just a few days.

Reinforcements and ammunition
could start to pour in once
more.

At 2 a.m. on 29th June, the
Germans launched 130 assault
boats

from Sevastopol s North Shore.
Under cover of smoke and heavy
artillery fire,

they crossed the bay and
landed on the southern shore.

Suddenly the Germans were behind
Sevastopol s two remaining lines
of defence.

Von Manstein had caught
the Soviets off-guard.

Crossing the bay had been
considered too high-risk.

The same night, Von Manstein
launched an attack along the
Yalta highway,

over the Sapoun Heights.

These twin blows led to the
total collapse of Soviet
defenses.

Small units fought on, but were
increasingly isolated and short
of ammunition.

Stalin ordered key personnel
to leave by plane.

That evening Vice Admiral
Oktyabrskiy left for the
Caucasus with 232 others.

Other senior officers
made their escape by submarine.

As they boarded in full view of
hundreds of soldiers and
sailors,

a riot looked likely.

Shots were fired, injuring a
Marine officer walking behind
General Petrov.

That night the submarine left
for the safety of Novorossiysk,

on the eastern shore
of the Black Sea.

Some commanders chose
to stay with their men.

Chief of Staff Kobalyuk of the
Coast Guard declared that he
would die with his unit.

Colonel Mikhaylov gave up
a seat on the last plane,

and was killed near Sevastopol.

Colonel Rubtsov, commander of an
NKVD border detachment, also
remained,

and shot himself rather
than be taken prisoner.

General Petrov tried to shoot
himself on board the submarine,

but was prevented by
those around him.

Those left behind felt doomed,
and betrayed.

As many as 80,000 men
many of them wounded

now faced death, or the horrors
of a German prisoner of war
camp.

But some refused to give up.

They put to sea in whatever
boats remained, or built rafts
from what was at hand.

One group of sailors built a
raft from a truck and 12 inner
tubes.

Many rafts were sunk
by German fire.

But this one made
it to the open sea.

After a few hours it was met by
Soviet patrol boats heading for
Sevastopol.

After taking the survivors on
board the ships approached the
coast.

But heavy German fire meant
they couldn t even get close.

At dawn, the patrol boats picked
up another boat carrying 12 more
survivors.

Then they turned back
to Novorossiysk.

In two years these soldiers
would return to Sevastopol as
victors.

In May 1944, it would be German
soldiers desperately building
rafts,

hoping to sail them to Romania.

The Red Army would come
to settle a score,

and exact a bloody revenge
for the defeat of 1942.