Landing without chance of success
In the Soviet historiography of the Great Patriotic War, Shlisselburg landing is shown primarily from the point of view of the heroism of sailors flotilla and paratroopers. At the landing site, on the banks of the Novoladozhsky Canal, in an inaccessible place, an anchor monument is installed. The inscription on the plate says that in this bay, in an unequal battle with the German invaders, the death of the brave marines, paratroopers, officers and cadets of the naval border school, KBF submarine divers and sailors of the Ladoga military flotilla. Finding a monument is not easy. An appeal to the encyclopedias gives little information that the Schlisselburg assault is a tactical assault of the Soviet Ladoga flotilla, landed on September 25, 1941 during the 1st Sinyavinsky operation to break through the blockade of Leningrad. The lack of information causes increased interest in the study of this little-known attempt to release Leningrad. But in addition to the heroism of the paratroopers, one should also note the poor preparation of operations, when the command sent soldiers to death without the slightest chance of success.
The landing operation was preceded by the end of August 1941 of the divisions of the 39 th motorized corps of the 16 th army of Army Group North to the south-eastern approaches of Leningrad. On August 30, units of the German 20 Motorized Division reached the Neva River in the Ivanovsky area and at the same time reached the Mga station and cut the Kirov railway, the last line linking Leningrad with the country. By capturing MGA, the German units launched an offensive towards the southern shore of Lake Ladoga and on September 8 captured Shlisselburg, completely blocking Leningrad from land. Thus began the heroic defense of Leningrad.
The Soviet command hastily proceeded to the preparation of the operation on the de-blockade of Leningrad, which provided for the delivery of counter blows at the narrowest point of the blockade ring south of Ladoga (in the so-called bottle-neck). The troops of the Nevskaya operational group of the Leningrad Front from the right bank of the Neva and the 54 Army from the Volkhov River should, advancing towards each other in the general direction of the Mga and Sinyavino, unite and unlock Leningrad. Demanding the front commanders to launch an offensive as quickly as possible, the Supreme Command headquarters expected that the German command could not create a solid defense for 40 kilometers along the Mga - Shlisselburg line six to seven days after the capture of Shlisselburg. Part of the overall plan was the plan for the landing of the 1 division of the NKVD and the battalion of sailors of the Ladoga military flotilla (LVF) in the Shlisselburg region in order to capture the city and subsequent connection with the troops of the 54 army southeast of Sinyavino.
On September 16, Army General Georgy Zhukov, commander of the Leningrad Front, ordered the headquarters of the Ladoga military flotilla to begin preparations for the landing operation. The first landing force was formed from special purpose diving scouts and cadets of the maritime border school (185 people). For their delivery to the landing site, 12 boats and 10 inflatable army boats were prepared. The commander of the detachment of ships appointed Captain-Lieutenant Baltachi. The landing was planned for 19 in September of 1941, but due to the stormy weather on Lake Ladoga, the scheduled date was postponed. The ten-point storm on September 17 threw the Ulyanovsk steamer on the coastal stones, the Kozelsk, Voima, Michurin steamers and other ships with food for Leningrad swept over the waves, sank the barge with the women and children evacuated from Leningrad.
On the night of September 21, due to the strong excitement on the lake, the first attempt at the operation failed. The towing cables of the boats were torn, and they were spent on all the dark time searching for and re-taking in tow. On the second night, on September 22, the squadron, due to a navigational error, set about landing an assault on the 2,5 miles east of the deployment point, practically in the rear of its 54 army. During the landing, three boats overturned, two fighters sank. After the detachment returned to Osinovets, captain-lieutenant Baltachi was removed from office, arrested on October 24 and 1941 of the year by the military tribunal of the Leningrad Naval Garrison convicted of disrupting the landing operation, for which he was sentenced to eight years of imprisonment without losing his rights .
In the afternoon of September 22, front-line commander Zhukov demanded to land a landing force no matter what it was at the designated place for further movement to Shlisselburg, and also to make a reconnaissance detachment of seafarers in Shlisselburg Bay next night. And this time, on the night of September 24, the troops failed to land. In the intended place was a stone ridge, which did not allow the boats to approach the shore, and the depth precluded reaching the shore along the bottom. But that night, in the area of the Shlisselburg Bay, a reconnaissance squad as part of the 40 sailors commanded by the head of the Baltic Fleet intelligence department, Lieutenant-Colonel N. S. Frumkin successfully landed.
A detachment on two boats approached Shlisselburg to a flooded sandbank. Having walked almost two kilometers across the chest in icy water, the landing went out unnoticed. Dispersed and disguised, the scouts observed the enemy, revealing the defense system in the area. Four artillery and six mortar batteries, 25 enemy machine gun points were found. The only radio station stopped working due to being in the water, and the detachment had to break through to its own in order to deliver the acquired information about the enemy. At night, a squad of fighting made its way across the front line to the location of the 54 Army in the area of the settlement of South Limes, losing four people killed and two wounded.
On the morning of September 25, the commander of the armed forces, Rear Admiral B. V. Khoroshkhin, fulfilling Zhukov’s request, ordered an immediate landing of a landing force a day just east of Shlisselburg, straight to the enemy. The airborne detachment was formed from the units on hand - 40 scouts, divers, 105 cadets of the maritime border school, 44 people from the guard platoon of the flotilla headquarters. The landing party consisted of the Chapaev transport, the Saturn vessel, five patrol boats, four ZIS-type pleasure boats, two longboats and several boats. For fire support, the gunboats Olekma and Bureya, five small hunter boats and one armored boat, as well as the artillery division of the flotilla were identified. The guard ship “Designer” and the gunboat “Nora” remained in reserve on the Osinovetsky roadstead. Preparation of the landing, like all previous ones, was completely absent. By the appointed time, the headquarters of the flotilla had only time to assemble the ships at the loading point and land the troops.
The landing was carried out under the cover of smoke screens, set by boats. The fighters had to ford about a kilometer to the coast, overcoming the strong current from Ladoga to Neva. Under the cover of the ships' fire and the artillery battalion, the paratroopers were able to reach the coast and gain a foothold on the 16 watch. By that time, according to survivors ’memories, up to half of the landing force, including those commanding ahead, had already died from enemy fire.
As part of the anti-landing operation, the German command first attracted an assault Aviation, which attacked in groups of 10-12 aircraft, then launched a counterattack supported by tanks. Smoke from the explosions, stretching the entire coast, prevented targeted artillery support of the landing by the fire of ships and coastal artillery. With the onset of darkness on the night of September 26, the Schlusselburg landing was already completely destroyed.
Of the 189 participants in the operation, only 14 people survived. Of these, 11 fought their way through to their own ones in the Bugry area, and three of them sailed to Ladoga, where they were picked up by boats. 175 fighters and commanders died or went missing. Modern historians have managed to establish some names of those who survived the landing. This is the chief officer of the special purpose company BF Kadurin, the lieutenant of the maritime border school Safonov, the intelligence officer of the Ladoga flotilla Bavin, the cadets of the maritime border school Popov, Yerokhin and Vorobyov. From the landing force, only one person was subsequently awarded the Order of the Red Banner, another six people received the medal "For Courage".
The Soviet command did not make the right conclusions from the rapid death of the landing force. Already on September 26, the headquarters of the Ladoga flotilla began preparations for a new landing operation: two boats and a launch should have landed an incomplete company (95 man) from the 1 rifle division of the NKVD in the Shlisselburg pier. Another unprepared landing began at dawn 27 September. When approaching the pier, they were discovered by the enemy, meeting with artillery and machine-gun fire. Both boats were sunk, 17 people died, the rest managed to lift cover boats from the water.
In the evening of September 27, Zhukov set a new task: to land the infantry battalion of the 1 division of the NKVD (200 man, four guns, mortars and other heavy weapons) to the Oreshek fortress, where the Soviet garrison defended, to land it on the boats through 120-meter nevskuyu channel directly to Shlisselburg. To prepare for the operation was given a few hours. The troops were loaded from the pier, which was under the shelling of the Germans, and already there some of the ships were damaged. As a result, only one minesweeper managed to get to the fortress in the dark and disembark paratroopers. The remaining 130 fighters and artillery arrived there on the night of September 29, and on the way back the Shchors transport ran aground north of Nut. The crew managed to evacuate under cover of darkness, the enemy immobilized in the morning of September 29, the enemy discovered and destroyed with artillery fire.
However, this landing also turned out to be in vain, and October landing operations were canceled on October 1. Thus ended the attempt to liberate Shlisselburg from the side of Lake Ladoga. All troops delivered to Oreshek Fortress were subsequently redeployed to the right bank of the Neva under enemy fire and casualties.
Earlier, September 26 ended and the first Sinyavskaya offensive operation, launched on September 19. As a result of joint efforts, the 54 army moved towards Sinyavino only 6 – 10 kilometers, and in the Mginsky direction they were forced to move away from the Mga-Kirishi railway line to the Nazia River. Parts of the Neva operational group managed to force the Neva and seize a bridgehead on the left bank in the Moscow Dubrovka area. Subsequently, the bridgehead will be called "Nevsky Piglet" and until the 1944 year will become the site of bloody battles.
Summing up the landing operations, one should pay attention to the fact that not a single task was achieved. There is an opinion that the landing was required to divert the attention of the enemy from the Nevsky Piglet. But this is not confirmed by the German documents, according to which no additional forces to the site of the landing of small airborne troops did not condone. They did not create serious threats to the coastal defenses of the enemy, and the death of the Schlusselburg landing clearly showed the senselessness of the attacks of the fortified coast by small forces without adequate thorough preparation and support, and the 1 division of the NKVD with artillery and other heavy weapons was never landed. However, the command did not learn any of the lessons of the Schlesselburg landing, having spent the same disastrous landings in Peterhof and Strelna in the autumn of the same 1941.
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