The Wilmington morning star., 1943-08-24
CHAPTER ~

CdAFIEh ~
The German army came out o.
its Information like giant snake
wounded, but still venomously dan.
gerous, stirring from its winter
sleep with a violent, deadly flick
of its armor-scaled tail. 1t was
definitely wounded, for it had suf.
fered setback that was at first
CALLING for it's pride. then gan
grenous for its morale, and finally
grueling for it's actual physical
strength. But not mortally so. It
survived a hostile Russian win
ter, something Napoleon had not
even dare. 20 try, although in do
ing SO it experienced horrible an.
guish. But, in its turn. it was
still able to deliver another all-but-
mortal blow.
When the snake gave the first
real flick of it's tail the crack was
heard in Moscow the night OF
May II.
On the Kerch peninsula the
evening communicate said tersely,
our troops fought hard battles
with the enemy who started an
offensive
The 1912 campaign was on. Ac-
tually, it had started three days
earlier, May 8, when the Germans
launched their attack on Kercn,
the northeastern arm of the Crl-
mea. They had chosen their spot
cautiously. Kerch was probably
the most vulnerable of all the Rus
sian positions. The winter cam
paign there had not been com
plete success. The Red army OF
the Caucasus had succeeded IN
crossing the Kerch strait and max
ing a landing, but it lost Feodosla,
on its left flank, and failed to take
its real objective, Simferopol. in
the heart of the Crimea, where
it would have relieved the Sebas-
topol garrison and probably driv-
en- the Germans entirely out OF
the Crimea back to the mainland.
Instead, it simply camped on the
smaller Kerch peninsula, a threat
and a nuisance to the Germans,
but itself in an awkward, danger
GUS position.
The Germans put on their old
act of Luftwaffe and Panzer.
broke through to Kerch, and
drove the Russians back to the
Caucasus. They claimed the city
and harbor of Kerch May 16. The
Russians acknowledged W e k
later, May %, that they had evac-
uated the peninsula. The surprs-
ing thing was that this was all
the Germans did to open their
spring offensive. The break
through at the ten-mile neck of
the Kerch peninsula was a far
cry from the Nazi conquest Of
the Balkans in May, 1941, and of
France in May and June, 1910.
Certainly, the snake was wounded.
Four days after the Germans
started their attack on Kerch, the
Russians ventured on their w n
spring offensive. They mounted a
full-scale assault May IL, with ar
tillery and aviation preparation,
tank and infantry advance on the
Kharkov front. 1t was their first
experiment in Blitzkrieg, 'Molnie-
nosnaya Voina,' of their own max
ing. It did not have the hoped-for
whitening effect, but neither was
it flash in the pan.
The offensive started along the
winter line that ran about so miles
east of Kharkov and swung south
west near Krasnograd around the
salient formed by the Russians
through Lozovaya. The German
front line was quickly broken, and
the Russians advanced into the
densely fortified defense zone.
There the enemy resisted stub
bornly, brought up reinforcements
and counter attacked. Tank battles
developed in which the Germans
employed their 21st and 23d ar
mored divisions. These veterans
proved difficult foe for the fledg-
ling Russian lightning warriors.
The Germans, meanwhile,
mounted a offensive or the
Izium-Barvenkovo sector, south of
Kharkov, striking at the base of
the Red army's Lozovaya sail
ent. The battle eddied back and