Word: crimea
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...Germans had forced a huge segment of Russia's industry back into the Urals, but they had not even won the approaches to that rear reservoir of might, where Russia's armies could be partly supplied even if most of Russia was lost. The Germans had the Crimea, they had Kerch on the Black Sea. But on their anniversary date they did not yet-not quite -have Sevastopol, the fortress which controls the Black...
With the current news from Libya and the Crimea, the star which the complacent West had begun to see over the Eastern front seems to be sputtering and growing dim. Of course this is not the first time since the Allied offensives in Africa and in Russia that temporary revivals of Nazi power have appeared. Nor is it the first time since 1939-or even the first time since the close of the Chamberlain administration-that the British have openly expressed a lack of confidence in the conduct of the war. But while Rommel had the English with their backs...
Hitler's General Fritz Erich von Manstein had thrown some 100,000 men into this effort to smash Russia's last strong hold on the Crimea, to abolish the southern anchor of the long Russian front, to win command of the Black Sea, to open one gate to the oil-rich Caucasus. He also threw in planes, so many that the Russians soon—and ominously—admitted that the few Russian aircraft able to operate within Sevastopol's narrowed defense area were greatly outnumbered...
North of the Crimea, some 300 miles, the Russian lashed furiously at his German foe, headed through German dead toward Kharkov, the Pittsburgh of the Ukraine...
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...