Word: crimea
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Instead the German picked his spot for a preliminary attack; limited in scope if not in fury-possibly to get a jumping-off place for a big attack to be launched when weather permits from Leningrad to the Black Sea. The spot the Nazi chose was the Crimea, where his troops had held on through the winter with Russians in front of him and behind him (at Sevas-topol...
...Crimea, then. Field Marshal Dieter Wilhelm von Mannstein, Junker-born apostle of the swift and crushing thrust, slogged east toward Kerch. Before his power drive the Russians fell back toward the end of the Crimea, and at week's end were fighting in Kerch. With water at their backs they were in a tough spot, but so since last October had been the great naval base at Sevastopol. And Sevastopol was still in Russian hands...
What the German was after in the Crimea seemed reasonably plain. If he cleared out Kerch, he would find it easier to have another try at Sevastopol, chief base of the Russian Black Sea fleet. And east of Kerch, across only four miles of water, lay the Caucasus and its oil. If the German could get across, he would have something more than the fuel and lubricating oil he bitterly needs. He would also be in a position to lance down into Persia and cut the roads over which U.S. and British supplies are flowing into Russia...
...probable that the Germans would throw their whole strength into the Crimea, although it is only 22 miles across the Kerch Straits from the oil-soaked Caucasus. To risk everything in a game of leapfrog from Crimea to the Caucasus would mean leaving their left flank open to the wiliest of the Russian generals, Marshal Semion Timoshenko...
...there could be no more logical first move in an attack on the Caucasus than to clean out the Crimea. With the Russians still holding valiantly to Sevastopol and firmly entrenched in the town of Kerch, the German's Black Sea flank would remain insecure. With the Russians out, the Black Sea might be made a channel of communications...