After the start of the German invasion of the Soviet Union, Emin volunteered for the Army and was deployed to Odessa, where he fought in the defense of the city until he was evacuated to Sevastopol. His experience during the siege of Sevastopol later influenced much of his work. During the later days of the defense of the city he was wounded and taken to a hospital, and after recovering he was sent to Tuapse, Adgeya. After being wounded multiple times in the Battle for the Caucasus he was declared unfit for military service. However, he managed to get permission to be sent to Crimea as a partisan, where he worked with other Crimean Tatar leaders and writers including Jebbar Akimov, Refat Mustafayev, and Shamil Aladin. After German troops were expelled from Crimea in April 1944 he continued to write for a Crimean newspaper until on 18 May 1944 he was deported from Crimea because of his Crimean Tatar ethnicity and deemed a "traitor" because of it, despite his many military awards from the war.