The siege of Sevastopol falls to Manstein
An eight-month fortress siege in Crimea opens the road to the Caucasus oil fields
Quick facts
- Location
- Sevastopol, Crimea
- Duration
- October 1941 to July 1942 (about 250 days)
- German commander
- Erich von Manstein, 11th Army
- Final assault codename
- Operation Sturgeon Catch (Storfang)
- Result
- German/Romanian capture of Sevastopol, July 4, 1942
What happened
German Eleventh Army under General Erich von Manstein reached the Crimean peninsula in autumn 1941 and by mid-November had cleared most of Crimea, but the heavily fortified Black Sea naval base of Sevastopol held out. Manstein besieged the city starting in December 1941, and Soviet forces briefly relieved pressure with an amphibious landing at Kerch that same month, forcing the Germans to divert troops east before eliminating that bridgehead in May 1942. On June 2, 1942, the Germans opened a final assault codenamed Operation Sturgeon Catch (Storfang), pounding the city's forts with siege artillery including the 800mm railway gun called Dora. Sevastopol fell on July 4, 1942, after roughly 250 days of siege, one of the longest sieges of the war on the Eastern Front.
Why it matters
Capturing Sevastopol secured German control of Crimea and the Black Sea's northern coast, clearing the way for the 1942 summer offensive toward the oil fields of the Caucasus that would eventually stall at Stalingrad. The cost was steep. German Eleventh Army suffered around 25,000 dead out of roughly 70,000 total casualties, a toll that helps explain why the army group had little strength left in reserve when the front turned against it later that year.
How we know
Soviet military records document irrecoverable losses of about 156,800 men (killed and captured) between December 1941 and July 1942, figures cited by World History Encyclopedia and corroborated by German 11th Army casualty reports.
Sources
- World History Encyclopedia. Siege of Sevastopol in 1941-2 · Reputable sourceworldhistory.org · The domain "worldhistory.org" is on our Reputable source registry. · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
- The National WWII Museum. The Peninsula: The Crimea at War · Reputable sourcenationalww2museum.org · The domain "nationalww2museum.org" is on our Reputable source registry. · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
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