Liepaja defense

German forces

On June 22, 1941, the German 291st Infantry Division (commander Major General Kurt Herzog ) launched an offensive in the direction of the city of Liepaja of the Latvian SSR , which included the 504th, 505th and 506th infantry regiments. The divisions were given two battalions of the Marine Corps, artillery and aviation ^[1] , an armored train from the 18th German Army, Colonel General Georg von Kuhler of Army Group North. All in all, about 20,000 troops participated in the battle for Liepaja.

Of the weaknesses of the German group, it was noted that the units of motorcyclists and cyclists did not have automatic weapons, they operated with the support of only armored personnel carriers and mortars. The Marine Corps did not have enough heavy weapons, the delivery of which was delayed so much that they had to use captured captured weapons. On June 22, the 291st Infantry Division was supported only by 9 (maybe a little more) U-88 bombers . In the early days of the war, fighters and front-line bombers were not allocated at all on this sector of the front, and if they appeared, they acted sporadically and without coordination ^[2] .

Soviet forces

By the beginning of the war, the Liebava Naval Base of the Baltic Fleet was based in Liepaja (base commander 1st-Class Captain M.S. Klevensky , about 4,000 personnel), which included:

• a separate detachment of torpedo boats (TKA-17, TKA-27, TKA-37, TKA-47, TKA-67);
• detachment of security raid boats (4 boats);
• 4th Division of Border Courts (9 boats);
• 23rd coastal battery of 130 mm guns (commander - senior lieutenant S. E. Gordeychuk) ^[3] ;
• 27th coastal battery of 130-mm guns (commander - senior lieutenant MN Savin) ^[3] ;
• 18th separate railway battery of 180 mm guns (commander - captain V. P. Lisitsky, four guns) ^[3] ;
• 43rd separate anti-aircraft artillery division (commander - Major V. Kh. Russky) ^[3] ;
• 84th separate anti-aircraft artillery battalion (commander - senior lieutenant V. S. Soroka) ^[3] ;
• 32nd separate local rifle battalion ^[3] ;
• small units of air defense and communications;
• naval hospital.
• 12th Guards Airborne Regiment Air Force KBF .
• 11th Aviation Assault Division
• 43rd Baltic Fleet Air Force Separate Aviation Squadron

The destroyer "Lenin" and the 1st brigade of submarines (up to 15 units undergoing major repairs ^[3] ) were based on Liepaja

The Soviet 67th Infantry Division (commander Major General N. A. Dedaev ) was also stationed in the city and neighboring cities, consisting of the 56th, 114th and 81st Infantry Regiments, the 94th Artillery and 242th Howitzer Regiments , separate anti-tank and anti-aircraft artillery divisions, reconnaissance, combat engineer and automobile battalions. A serious lack of technical equipment and human resources was observed in the division. Moreover, the division was dispersed: the 114th rifle regiment with an artillery division was deployed in Ventspils , the anti-aircraft division went to the training ground near Riga . In general, as of June 22, 1941, there were 5,300 personnel in the division ^[4] .

The 148th Fighter Aviation Regiment of the Air Force of the Baltic Special Military District (part of the 6th Garden ) was based in the vicinity; by June 22, 1941 it was armed with 69 I-153 aircraft (including 14 out of order)) ^[5] and 43 Separate marine near-reconnaissance squadron (13 MBR-2 aircraft). Liepaja also housed the Naval Air Defense School (chief Major General I. A. Blagoveshchensky ) ^[6] . In total, about 10-11 thousand personnel of the Red Army and the Red Army took part in the defense of the city.

At 3 hours 55 minutes on June 22, the first Luftwaffe air raid on Liepaja took place. The bombs were dropped at a naval base, ship parking, and also an airfield. The fleet's objects were covered by anti-aircraft artillery divisions and suffered little ^[3] , at the airfield, German fighters Ju-88 destroyed 8 fighters of the 148th fighter regiment ^[7] .

In total, on the first day of the war, German aviation made 15 air attacks on Liepaja, a naval base and an airfield ^[3] , in which up to 135 aircraft participated (3 of them were shot down) ^[8] .

At 4 o’clock in the morning south of Liepaja, German troops launched an artillery strike, after which they crossed the state border with battle. The Great Patriotic War began .

Parts of the 10th Infantry Division of the Red Army, located near the border, were subjected to shelling, the main force of which fell on the Kretinga area, where the formations of the 62nd Infantry Regiment were located. Between Kretinga and Palanga, mobile units of German troops broke through, moving towards Rucava . Units of the 10th Infantry Division were forced to break out of the encirclement and began to retreat to Jelgava . The path to Liepaja was open to the enemy.

In operational terms, the 67th Infantry Division was subordinate to the commander of the 27th Army of the North-Western Front , and the Libava Naval Forces were subordinate to the Commander of the Baltic Fleet; no single commander of the city’s defense was appointed. Therefore, the command of all army units, border guards and workers' squads was assumed by N. A. Dedaev, and M. S. Klevensky was entrusted with the tasks of defending a naval base and city from the sea ^[3] .

The command of the 67th Infantry Division and the naval forces of the base began to deploy combat units, the city was hastily prepared for circular defense, by decision of General Dedaev, three combat sites were created, which should have been prepared in engineering terms, while the units of the 67th Division were to hold back German offensive. From the crews of the repaired ships and coastal units, the formation of marine corps units began ^[3] .

• the northern combat area was occupied by the naval rifle battalion (commander - captain Pyshkin) ^[3] ;
• the eastern combat area was occupied by a battalion of cadets of the naval school (commander - Colonel Tomilin) ​​and units of the 56th RKKA Rifle Regiment, artillery support of which was provided by batteries of the 94th light artillery regiment, 27th battery of 130-mm guns, 841st and 503 1st anti-aircraft batteries ^[3] ;
• detachments from the coastal base of submarines and semi-crews, which were supported by a 180 mm battery and 502 anti-aircraft battery, occupied the southern combat site ^[3] .

To prevent an attack from the Baltic Sea, four submarines (L-3, M-79, M-81 and M-83 under the general command of Captain 2nd Rank A. G. Averochkin) were sent to watch. Following the submarines, torpedo boats headed by Captain Lieutenant S. Osipov set off for reconnaissance. The base minesweeper “Fugas” also left the harbor, which, on June 22-23, installed 206 ^[9] anchor mines ^[3] 10 km from land.

At noon on June 22, 1941, Baltic Fleet Commander V.F. Tributs gave the order to withdraw from Liepaja to Ventspils and Ust-Dvinsk "everything that was not connected with the defense of the base and had the ability to move." As a result of the attack by German torpedo boats, the S-3 submarine was destroyed (which, due to its technical condition, could not be submerged and was floating), but the Zheleznodorozhnik tanker and the S-9 , M-77, and Lembit ”and“ Kalev ”successfully arrived in the Gulf of Riga ^[3] .

Shortly before the German troops approached, they managed to send a train with the families of military personnel and a 180 mm railway battery from Liepaja ^[3] .

In the evening of June 22, the first German units at Rutsava reached the external contour of the Liepaja defense along the Barta River, 17 km south of the city. There were fighting parts of the 12th border detachment, reconnaissance battalion of the 67th Rifle Division and the 281st Rifle Regiment (incomplete) with two artillery divisions ^[3] . From this moment on, Liepaja’s heroic defense is counting down.

For the first day of the war, pilots of the 148th IAP made 162 sorties. By the end of June 22, the commander of the 6th Garden, in view of the enemy approaching the city, ordered the 148th IAP to be pulled out of attack and relocated to Riga for the night, so that the next day the Liepāja airfield would be used as an operational one. The specially abandoned technical staff of the 101st airfield maintenance battalion (bao) of the 119th air base was to meet and prepare the planes for departure. By evening, 27 aircraft flew to the airfield in Riga ^[10] .

During the first day of the war, despite the bombing, loading operations continued in the port of the city under the leadership of the port chief G.P. Balkvadze. As a result, in the early morning of June 23, the steamships of the Latvian shipping company Kandava, Meero, Payna and five more vessels left the port of Liepaja to Vindava, onto which, by order of the city’s defense headquarters, the people were loaded. At the end of the day, under the shelling of German artillery, two more ships of the merchant fleet, Amga and Maya transports, broke through from the port ^[11] .

German Attack from Barta

On the morning of June 23, German forces decided to launch an attack on the city from the south along the coast of the Baltic Sea , but this attempt failed, as the gunners of the 67th Rifle Division and long-range guns of the 27th Battery of the Fleet's coastal defense opened intense fire on the attackers and repelled them to their original positions. Refusing from subsequent attempts to break through the defense line at Bernati near the mouth of the Barta River, the Germans made a new attempt to break through to the city in a southeast direction. The main forces of the Germans - the 504th and 505th regiments - began to move in the direction of Priekule . This small town, located on the direction to Grobini, was taken by German units in the afternoon of June 23. Thus, the city was completely surrounded. His continuous artillery bombardment began. Aerial bombardment practically did not stop.

After the capture of Priekule and the threat of a breakthrough to Liepaja from the side of Grobini, the Liepaja city party committee issued an order to attract workers' troops to participate in the defense of the city ^[12] .

On June 23, the MPVO headquarters was created, headed by the chairman of the city committee, Vasily Bilevich. The responsibilities of the headquarters of the MPVO included the construction of trenches to shelter residents during the bombing, the organization of the supply of food and weapons by road, the transportation of victims, the training of factory workers and residents on sanitary and fire safety standards.

For actions in the most critical areas, the city’s defense headquarters created an attack Komsomol-youth detachment under the command of Imant Sudmalis , its deputies were Boris Pelnen, secretary of the Komsomol city committee and Janis Yanushka, employee of the Komsomol district committee ^[3] .

The head of the City Palace of Pioneers, Lina Jansone, assumed the responsibility of creating the Liepaja Sanitary Ward and provided him with medicines.

Working battalions began to occupy positions on the northern outskirts of the city:

• the working battalion of the Tosmare shipyard took positions at the forts and along the canal ^[12] ;
• the working battalion of the Sarkanays Metallurgs plant took up positions in the grove area ^[12] ;
• detachment of the party-Soviet asset and detachment of I. Sudmalis (70 detachments of the detachment and 10 Lithuanian Komsomol members who arrived from the Palanga Pioneer Camp) took positions from the highway to Lake Liepaja ^[12] ;
• certain groups of militias defended along the shore of Lake Liepaja in order to prevent a possible German landing ^[12] ;

In the evening of June 23, German motorcycle units began preparing a breakthrough to Liepaja from the east. They managed to break through to the outskirts of the city, but the defenders of the city managed to recapture the captured area. Stubborn battles between rifle units and the Germans broke out in the southern section of the Barta River.

On the night of June 23-24, 1941, two 130-mm coastal defense batteries destroyed enemy artillery batteries deployed in the Grobini area, at the Batsky airfield and in the Shkedi direction ^[7] .

Due to the constantly changing situation, it was difficult to keep track of the movements of enemy combat groups, therefore, very often defender formations encountered an information vacuum or received unintentionally false information about the course of hostilities and the movement of enemy groups.

In the early morning hours of June 24th, German aircraft again bombarded the port and military harbor. From the east, avant-garde units of German troops approached the city, their advanced mobile units managed to capture the Liepaja railway workshops and surround the Tosmare plant. Due to the lack of time for the construction of fortifications, this defense sector was the weakest link in the city’s defense system.

On June 24, the M-83 submarine returned to Liepaja harbor, which fired from an artillery shell on German units breaking through to the Tosmara plant until all shells were used up ^[3] .

Already at the end of the day on June 24, the defenders of the city launched a counterattack, as a result of which the advanced units of the Nazis were driven back to the Ilgsky forest , which allowed an important respite. In this battle, Soviet gunners destroyed German armored train. After this enemy offensive was stopped, the defensive units settled in the old forts, which ceased to be used for their intended purpose even before the First World War, where they excavated earthen ramparts. In these forts, a temporary base was created for naval forces, units of the 56th and 281st rifle regiments, border guard units and the defensive detachments of the Liepaja workers formed on the previous day. The defenders were covered by coastal defense batteries and anti-aircraft guns, as well as two divisions of the 94th light and 242th howitzer artillery regiments of the 67th infantry division.

On the afternoon of June 24, on the orders of General N. A. Dedaev, a strong counterattack was launched on Grobini. Soviet soldiers and sailors managed to break into it, but they could not advance further. Fierce street battles were going on in Grobini until the evening, after which the attackers retreated to the starting line .

On the same day, Soviet artillery fired at the Krustoyums railway junction, where the enemy’s armored train was located ^[7] .

Breakthrough

On June 26, 1941, the defenders were ordered to withdraw units from the encirclement. It was decided to go on a breakthrough in two columns, in the northern and eastern sections of the defense.

• in the northern section, under the command of Major Kozhevnikov, a breakthrough along the coastal road towards Skede at 10 a.m. on June 27 launched an attack on units of the 56th Rifle Regiment, the 32nd Local Rifle Battalion, the combat crew of the 84th Air Defense Division and the 23rd Coastal batteries. As part of the convoy, vehicles with wounded men moved. Soviet troops managed to break through German positions, but then came under artillery and mortar shelling and bombing of German aircraft ^[3] .
• in the eastern sector, under the command of Colonel Bobovich, the forces defending the eastern and southern military plots, the command of the 67th Rifle Division and part of the Libava Naval Forces took a breakthrough ^[13] .
• the command of the Libava Naval Base attempted to break into Ventspils on two torpedo boats (17, 47), but they were attacked by German boats at the passage between Liepaja and the Uzhava lighthouse. In the area of ​​the Uzhava lighthouse, Soviet ships met with 6 large torpedo boats of the enemy ^[14] Thanks to successful maneuvering, the Soviet torpedo boat TCA No. 47 carried along most of the German boats. Having received several direct hits, he nevertheless broke away from the pursuit, but then lost his course. Having built a raft from gas tanks, Soviet sailors landed on the shore in the Ventspils area, where they were captured. Boat 47 died in battle, but boat 17 reached the Gulf of Riga ^[3] .

The last, having blown up the bridges behind them, were the border guards, fighters of working squads, the calculation of the 27th coastal battery and the anti-tank battery ^[3] .

By the end of the day on June 27, a significant part of the retreating (including M. Buka, Y. Zars, the commander of the 67th Infantry Division, Colonel Bobovich, the commander of the battalion of cadets of the air defense school, Colonel A. A. Tomilov) were killed. Some of the servicemen left the highway and continued to move to the front line as part of small groups or individually. Another part of the retreating joined the units of the 114th Infantry Regiment (retreating from Ventspils) and made a breakthrough to the east, in the Tukums region, to connect with the units of the 8th Army.

Subsequently, some of the defenders of Liepaja participated in the defense of Riga .

The sinking of the medical vessel Vieniba

There were more than 2000 wounded in the Liepaja hospital. Part of them and the families of the military personnel were evacuated on the medical vessel “Veniba” (“Unity”). On the transport there were signs of the International Red Cross and the flag of the Red Cross was hoisted, on board were from various sources from 800 ^[11] to 2000 people. At dawn on June 27, the ship left Liepaja ^[15] , accompanied by three torpedo boats (27, 37 and 67) ^[16] . The Vieniba ship was attacked about 10 miles from Liepaja ^{[17] by} two German planes ^[18] , which ignored the signs of the Red Cross clearly visible in clear weather. The ship was damaged and sank ^[19] , German pilots shot into the sea from a sinking ship by German pilots using machine guns. As a result, hundreds of wounded, civilians (including women and children), and medical personnel were killed. According to various sources, from 13 ^[11] to 25 people were saved. The TKA torpedo boat No. 27 (commander A. S. Safonov) also died during this bombing ^{[20] [21]} .

The local Nazi press also wrote about the death of the ship with hundreds of wounded Red Army soldiers ^[22] .

It was also suggested that the “Veniba” ran aground in windy weather, got a hole and sank ^[15] .

The next morning, German units launched an attack on the position of the defenders of the city. Fierce street fighting ensued, German artillery inflicted massive blows at houses, turning the streets into ruins. The defensive detachments of workers and Komsomol members remaining in the city held the defense near Rainis Park and in the areas of the north-eastern suburbs newly populated at that time, and sailors held the defense in the vicinity of the military harbor.

In the morning of June 28, a significant blow was inflicted on the German units here, which, according to the recognition of the Wehrmacht commanders themselves, some units of the Marines "could no longer be brought back into battle." In the evening, the fighting moved to the area south of the so-called New Liepaja to the canal at the trading port, which separated the area of ​​new buildings from the old part of the city. The bridges over the canal could not be destroyed, since the defenders of the city (mainly Komsomol detachments) used up all their explosives. Therefore, the Komsomol units defended the old part of the city with live force by all forces, including night and morning of June 29.

At this time, the Germans made an attempt to agitate the defenders, and an armored personnel carrier with a reproducer arrived at the canal - the Germans offered to surrender the city without unnecessary casualties and to avoid unpleasant consequences and tremendous torment. The grenade thrown by a grenade was seriously damaged, and propaganda did not have the desired effect. The names of factory workers A. Murnieks, Eglitis, father and son Ukstinsha, Dreyfeld, Edolf, A. Rosenthal, Kopstans were among the stubbornly defending on June 28-29.

The last defenders of Liepaja under enemy fire managed to break out in a southerly direction. One defensive group relatively safely reached the border with Lithuania on June 28 (it was commanded by A. Dundurs and captain Solovyov), and a number of other formations broke through from June 27 to 29 in different directions, but they managed to neutralize the bandit formations of the Lithuanian collaborators and disparate units of the formations on the way back. Wehrmacht. One of the groups temporarily recaptured the Lithuanian city of Skuodas from the Wehrmacht .

On the evening of June 29, the city was completely captured. There are numerous eyewitness accounts, some of the direct participants in the hostilities left detailed descriptions of the massacres of the city population. Some city defense leaders were also killed, for example, the head of the Tosmare workers ’detachment, Arthur Peterson, who was captured on the way to the front line.

• in 1960, a monument to the defenders of Liepaja was erected in the city ^[23] ;
• in 1966, a memorial wall was erected in Liepaja ^[23] ;
• On August 9, 1977, the city of Liepaja was awarded the Order of the October Revolution ^[24]
• film " City under lindens " (USSR, 1971)

• I. Pinxis, G. Freiberg, V. Lein. The revolutionary Liepaja. Riga, 1956.
• A.F. Elk , R.A. Belevitnev. Defenders of Liepaja. Riga, Latgosizdat, 1963.
• R. A. Belevitnev, A. F. Elk. Fortress without forts. M., Military Publishing, 1966.
• In June, the forty-first ... Riga: Avots, 1986. - 306 p.
• Orlov V.A. Sailors in the defense of Liepaja (June 1941) // Red Banner Baltic Fleet in the Battle of Leningrad. M .: "Science", 1973. - pp. 21-33.
• Khlebnikov N. M. Under the roar of hundreds of batteries. M., Military Publishing, 1974.
• V.I.Savchenko. The heroic defense of Liepaja // "Questions of History", No. 6, 1981.
• V.F. Tributs . The Baltics are fighting . - M .: Military Publishing House , 1985. - S. 24-36.
• V.I.Savchenko. Seven days of fire Liepaja, June 23-29, 1941. Riga, “Zinatne”, 1985. - 278 pp., Ill.
• Buldygin S. B. Defense of Liepaja. Gangut, St. Petersburg, 2012-148 p.