The evacuation of the Soviet coastal army took place under very difficult conditions. Because the Red Army forces had to repel the German frontal attacks, the embarkation points were constantly under enemy fire. In addition, the army command had no means of protecting these points from the action of
In fact, each passing day made the position of the Soviet coastal army even more perilous. In repelling the continual German attacks, she suffered heavy losses, both in men and material, losses that nothing could replace since all the reserves had been used. From the beginning of the second half of
The defeat at Kerch obviously led to a serious aggravation of the situation of the defenders of Sevastopol, that is, the coastal army of General Petrov. At the beginning of June, this unit comprised seven infantry divisions, four brigades, two marine regiments, two tank battalions and an armored tra
The STAVKA ordered the command of the Crimean front to withdraw its forces to the Turkish rampart, to install a stable defense there. But the enemy succeeded, on May 11, in surrounding part of the front forces near Ak-Monay. On May 15, he occupied the city of Kerch.During this period, the German air
The Soviet 5th Armored Army had gone into action with all the ardor of an experienced troop that had waited too long in its reserve positions. The vanguard of the Panzer S.S. corps rolling towards Prokhorovka fell on all of this fresh and fiery force. With slightly fewer manpower but more heavy tank
Reinforcements were on the way in the form of a regiment of the S.S. Leibstandarte which advanced unopposed over open ground from Werchopenje. Rudolf von Ribbentrop, the son of the German minister commanded this regiment and he later said that he had reached about 800 meters in the woods north of th
Dietrich, one of Hitlers oldest friends, said in one of his rare reviews of the Führer:Perhaps the feeling of failure had reached the troops on the Russian front from Kharkov. Not being able to secure victory was a bad thing. And Hitlers uncertainty was a sign. The conflict between the great genera
The Luftwaffe Stukas also attacked and had considerable success in destroying the Russian artillery batteries, but, Lomme recounted German pilot Hans Rudel:The Russians guns were almost as numerous as their mines and the camouflage was done. masterfully... We had to assume that each copse was an ar
The decision concerning the forces to be committed was made. General Models 9th Army with two divisions of Panzer, two of Panzergrenadier and nine infantry of- would attack from the north. To the south, General Hoths 4th Panzer Army and seven infantry divisions were to comb the ground. The two jaws
The cracks in the wall of Axis domination were becoming more and more numerous and more and more apparent. The Allies were beginning to overcome the effects of the German U-boat attacks. Italy was in a more precarious situation than ever. The advance of the Japanese into Burma and the southwest Paci
Even before the development of operations in the kyiv region, the enemy had advanced on the southern front, along the Black Sea coast, and by the beginning of August they were blockading the city on land and the port of Odessa. For more than two months, the defenders of Odessa repelled an enemy more
A difficult situation had arisen for the Soviet troops operating in the North-Western sector, especially in the kyiv region. Soviet troops had long contained the main forces of German Army Group South on the approaches to kyiv. The inhabitants of the city participated in the defense alongside the so
On July 30, the German command ordered the G.A. Center to go on the defensive. The Soviet troops had established themselves on the line Velikiy Luki - Yartsevo - Kritchev - Zhlobin. The enemys attempt to break through to Moscow, the central objective of the Barberossa plan, had failed. On the wester
Russian troops held the islands of Khiouma and Sarema, which command the entrance to the Gulf of Finland, until October 19.The garrison of the Soviet base on the Finnish peninsula of Hanko (west of Helsinki), which was surrounded , resisted the enemy for five months and was also successfully evacuat
But it was all just illusions. The successes of the Germans had cost them dearly:during the first twenty-two days of the offensive alone, the German armored units had lost more than half of their tanks; as of July 19, 1,284 enemy aircraft were out of action. From July to September, great battles too
However, it would be a mistake to believe that the German troops had met no resistance and had advanced without a fight. On the contrary, the Soviet troops resisted fiercely, but they had not been able to create a continuous and solid defense front.The defenders of Libava (Liepaïa), industrial city
We will therefore now consider the main events of each of these periods, emphasizing, of course, the most characteristic moments of these.The first period of the war was more hard for the Soviet people. It was a time of great trials and difficulties resulting from the temporary setbacks and the setb
How to explain the unpreparedness of the Soviet armed forces in the face of the invasion?Of course, the government of the U.S.S.R. and the high command possessed enough serious indications of the possibility of aggression. They were not without noticing the concentrations of German troops along the
But the superiority of the Wehrmacht was not only quantitative:it was ready for aggression. His troops were concentrated in compact groupings that had everything necessary for operations. The soldiers and officers had combat experience, they had been to the school of fire in the west and in the sout
In 1939-1940, the volume of production of the Soviet war industry had increased. In 1940, for example, 8,331 combat aircraft were manufactured, but these were mostly aircraft of an outdated type. However, it was during this period that the Lavochkine, Yakovlev, Mikoyan-Gurevitch fighters, the famous
For the German Nazis, Islam was a religion of warriors, a religion whose followers were good recruiting material. For this reason they supported Gailanis anti-British rebellion in Iraq in May 1941, worked closely with the wretched Grand Mufti of Jerusalem al-Husseini and recruited tens of thousands
Beira , former principality and historical province, north-central Portugal , from the shores of the extendable Douro River in the north to the upper reaches of the Tagus in the south-east and from the Spanish border in the east to the Atlantic Ocean to the west. The region was retak
Michiel de Ruyter Michiel Adriaenszoon de Ruyter (° 24 March 1607, † 29 April 1676) is the most famous admiral in Dutch history. De Ruyter fought in the first three Anglo-Dutch wars and won several resounding victories. In addition, he was active in various conflicts on the Baltic Sea and against p
Mesopotamia is derived from Greek words meaning land between the rivers. The rivers Tigris and Euphrates are the names of the rivers. The first inhabitants of this area, the early Sumerians, did not speak Greek; many years later, the Greek-speaking Alexander the Great conquered this territory and to