At the same time that the defense of Kyiv is about to begin, in the south, the defense of Odessa has been in full swing for two days. During these two days, the 25th and 95th Infantry Divisions, the 9th Motorized Rifle Division, the 421st Marine Brigade, and the 33rd and 34th Infantry Regiments of the Border Guards of the Red Army, which were empty of army groups, withstood the onslaught of the Romanian Fourth Army.

The Romanian Fourth Army had the 1st, 3rd, 7th Infantry Division, 15th Infantry Division, 1st Armored Division, 1st Cavalry Brigade and 2nd Tank Regiment.

After careful pre-battle reconnaissance, the Romanian 1st, 3rd and 7th Infantry Divisions, in cooperation with the 2nd Tank Regiment, began to attack the front of Odessa, and after a short artillery fire (mainly because the Romanian artillery fire had not stopped), the Romanian soldiers launched a full-scale offensive half an hour later along the safe passage opened by the engineers.

The first line of defense of the Soviet army was not as strong as expected, and it was soon torn open by the 2nd Tank Regiment and the 1st Infantry Division, and then the 3rd Infantry Division also swarmed in, and the two infantry divisions strode along the breakthrough to the city of Odessa.

Commander of the Romanian Fourth Army, Nikolai. Lieutenant General Sopyka's report on the battle at the front received that morning described it as follows: "Our 1st and 3rd Infantry Divisions have launched their attack at 4 a.m. as planned, and since only a small amount of enemy resistance has been encountered, the 1st Infantry Division has advanced to the outskirts of Odessa...... Only the 7th Infantry Division did not progress well and was halted by the stubborn resistance of the Soviet troops. Aerial support has been summoned. ”

Lieutenant General Sopica was clearly not too pleased with the result. In a hurry, he wanted to take Odessa in one go, and then directly threaten Nikolaev. After noon, all reserves were thrown into one go.

Lieutenant General Sopyka's main direction of attack was the defense line of the 9th Motorized Rifle Division of the Red Army, in fact, this 9th Motorized Rifle Division belonged to the halfway unit, and before that they were the 9th Cavalry Division of the Red Army. After the fall of Stalin, the cavalry of the Red Army was greatly reduced, and the 9th Cavalry Division was forced to change its course, and after sending most of the war horses to the artillery units, the tank battalion under the division was also transferred, and it became a light infantry division that was not in order.

By December 1940. The division's automobile regiment was relocated to support the newly formed 30th Mechanized Corps. That is to say, at the time of the outbreak of the war, this so-called motorized infantry division really had nothing to do with motorized infantry divisions.

Even compared with the ordinary infantry divisions in other key directions, the firepower of the division is quite weak, most of the fighters still use Mosinagan 30 cavalry guns, the machine guns are also the old Maxim, and the divisional artillery regiment has only two battalions of 76 grenades and one rocket artillery battalion lacking rockets (the battalion is still equipped with the oldest rocket artillery in the Red Army in 1920).

To make matters worse, the division did not have a single tank, nor a single specialized anti-tank gun, and the only anti-tank weapon was the RPG-2 rocket launcher, which had just been issued to the infantry squad in May 1941.

And the RPG-2 bazooka is a typical Soviet-made weapon. It's easy to get started but it's hard to use well, and the bazooka has the problem of heavy smoke and burning when it is launched, and the rocket wind is too strict. For novices, it is not easy to use it to fight tanks.

When the Romanian 2nd Tank Regiment rushed in front of the 9th Motorized Rifle Division, a vicious battle broke out. At first, the Romanians advanced smoothly and broke through the first line of defense of the 9th Motorized Rifle Division without much effort, and the Red Army motorized infantry, lacking anti-tank weapons, could only watch as Romanian CKDAH-IV light tanks and Skoda S-II-a medium tanks wreaked havoc on their positions. To tell the truth, the performance of these two Czech tanks is really like that, but it really can't stop the lack of anti-tank weapons in the 9th Motorized Rifle Division!

There may be comrades to say, isn't there still an RPG-2? Yes, there are too few rockets, and before the outbreak of the war, the 9th Motorized Rifle Division carried out a large-scale training activity in order to let the soldiers master the RPG-2 as much as possible, and consumed a considerable amount of stockpiled ammunition. And the Separate Primorsky Army was never the focus of the Red Army, and the supply priority belonged to the tail of the crane. And as Tukhachevsky insisted on counterattacking, he also took away a considerable amount of ammunition from the Independent Primorsky Army, which also led to the fact that the RPG-2 of the entire Independent Primorsky Army was short of ammunition, and a considerable part of it became burning sticks!

However, the living can't let the urine suffocate to death, although the 9th Motorized Rifle Division is weak, but it also wants to hold the position, in the face of the Romanian tanks that roared over, they suppressed the Romanian infantry with machine guns on one side, and used secret weapons on the other side!

What secret weapon? Isn't it a Molotov cocktail? Of course not, that's too uncreative, the secret weapon of the Red Army is the demolition dog!

Don't underestimate these inconspicuous little things lying on the ground, they made the Romanian armored forces suffer a lot, and this dog, which the Red Army called "mine dogs", destroyed a large number of Romanian tanks that day!

The specific situation is like this, when the Romanian 2nd Tank Regiment stepped into a T-shaped front of the Soviet army with high spirits, 4 puppies rushed to the Romanian tank led by the leader, and the Romanian tankers laughed at the Russians presumptuously, thinking that the Russians were stupid enough to expect to use dogs to gnaw on tanks, which must be how two!

But soon the Romanians stopped laughing, and with four loud bangs, the two pilot cars turned into large fireballs. What's even more terrifying is that before the Romanians came to their senses, a large group of dogs jumped out of the trenches opposite, and the appearance of teeth and claws scared the Romanians!

"Machine guns! Quick, fire! ”

The Romanians shot wildly, but the dogs' targets were smaller than the people, and the little ones were very nimble, and although the Romanians killed some, more dogs still found their targets.

With a loud rumbling sound, the Romanian 2nd Tank Regiment dropped seven or eight burning tanks and hurriedly retreated. When Lieutenant General Rissopica, the command of the army group, learned that his armored forces had been defeated by dogs. The general was stunned and sighed and said: "Russian dogs can die to defend the Motherland." And the Romanian soldiers could not do this! ”

Yes, not all Romanians willingly boarded the German tank, in fact the Romanians had no good feelings towards Germany, but who made the British and French godfathers not give up? This feeling of being in the hands of someone else sucks!

Continuing back on the battlefield, after a night of adjustment, the Romanians regrouped the next day, ready to break through the lines of the 9th Motorized Rifle Division in one fell swoop, again at 4 a.m. Again, the same troops, this time the Romanians raised their vigilance against the dogs, and the infantry finally caught up with the tanks and defeated the dogs that came galloping.

However, the defeat of the dog did not mean that the Romanians would make progress, in fact compared to the previous day, the Romanians' progress was terrible, advancing only 1 km in the morning, and by 2 p.m., the Romanians had to stop in the face of a strong counterattack by the 9th Motorized Rifle Division.

After two hours of adjustment. Under the cover of the air force, the Romanians struck again, after a tragic hand-to-hand fight. The exhausted and depleted 9th Motorized Rifle Division was forced to retreat and recuperate. Of course, the Romanians were not able to take advantage of the victory, because they were also frightened by the tenacity of the Red Army.

As the battle entered the third day, the Romanians, who had made little progress, exhausted the patience of the Germans, and in order to occupy Odessa as much as possible, and also to cut off the support of the Crimean Front of the Red Army in the direction of Kiev, the Germans took it personally.

Two armored battalions of the 13th German Panzer Division (belonging to the 4th Panzer Regiment) and three grenadier battalions that fought together arrived in Odessa. The group was commanded by Major Muchlenkamp, and that morning the 1st Company was spearheaded by Captain Schunabelle, followed by the 2nd and 3rd Companies of Lieutenant Frugel, and the entire battalion was armed with the most advanced German tanks 3 and 4.

The Germans were indeed much more coordinated than the Romanians, and after easily running over the first line of anti-tank trenches of the Red Army, the Germans did not continue to advance rapidly, but stopped to suppress the machine-gun fire of the Red Army with artillery fire and cover their own infantry to follow.

"After our tanks stopped," Recalls Captain Schunabel, "Sergeant Horsinger led the sappers to creep cautiously towards the Soviet positions, carefully searching for and removing all mines and other obstacles in their path. From time to time, Soviet shells flew over their heads and beside them. And we, the armored soldiers, opened fire with all our might, beating the Russians on the opposite side so that they couldn't lift their heads! ”

However, Sergeant Hassinger's own recollection is full of criticism: "You can never count on so-called fire cover, and it is better to pray to God not to run into those damn mines." The Russians are too cunning and too evil, they have developed the laying of mines into an art, anti-tank mines, anti-infantry mines are misplaced, and they are mixed with Orion's traps, damn it, these bastards actually used a tiger clip, and the hapless Sergeant Hope was cut off his calf! ”

The situation of the German sappers was indeed difficult, and while climbing over a ditch, Sergeant Nelly, who was next to Sergeant Neusinger, was hit in the head by a flying bullet, and the heavenly spirit cover was lifted. However, to Horsinger's delight, soon an infantry company of the Greater Germania Regiment rushed up, and with the fire support of the company, the sappers could finally raise their heads a little and carry out their operations.

Horsinger later said: "When the first tank passed me, I understood that I had once again opened the way forward for the 'Viking' division. I was thrilled to see the scene of our tanks crushing the Bolshevik devils. ”

Muhlenkamp's troops successfully took the Soviet positions in front of them, but the stubborn resistance of the 9th Motorized Rifle Division also caused him to lose ten tanks, of course, the almost bare-handed Motorized Rifle Division also paid a heavy price for this, the whole division suffered more than half of the casualties in the three-day defensive battle, and the only heavy weapons were also lost, so that the division commander Mosenov had to call the commander of the army group with tears: "Comrade commander, please do your best to support us with some heavy weapons, especially anti-tank weapons, The boys are fighting the enemy's tanks with their flesh and blood, and the casualties are too heavy! ”

However, the commander of the Separate Primorsky Army, Major General Petrov, was also helpless, because it was not only the 9th Motorized Rifle Division that suffered heavy casualties, but the situation of the other two infantry divisions was not much better. As for heavy weapons. It's not just the 9th Motorized Rifle Division that is lacking. As a second-line army, the independent Primorsky Army is equipped with very few heavy weapons, especially anti-tank weapons!

In desperation, Major General Petrov could only complain to his superiors, almost begging the higher authorities to quickly allocate a little anti-tank weapons to them, even if it was an old-fashioned anti-tank gun!

The difficult situation in Odessa finally attracted the attention of the command of the Ukrainian Front, as well as the leadership of the Central Military District in Moscow, and soon with the personal intervention of the head of the General Armament Ubolevich, the Air Force urgently airlifted part of the mothballed anti-tank guns from Moscow and Leningrad to the front, which, of course, was too limited in effectiveness. What can really solve the urgent needs of the independent Primorsky Army is that the Air Force also urgently airlifted a batch of armor-piercing shells for RPG-2.

In the following days, although the independent Primorsky Army had to constantly shrink its line in the face of the superior enemy, it also inflicted as many casualties as possible on the enemy and succeeded in delaying a large number of enemies.

Especially after the battle reached the city of Odessa, the Red Navy was finally able to come in handy, and the battleships and cruisers of the Red Banner Black Sea Fleet taught the invincible German Viking division a hard lesson with heavy artillery bombardment, and blasted the Romanians to the point of howling wolves.

However, on this day, there was also a vicious event of considerable influence, in order to capture Odessa, but also to annihilate the Red Banner Black Sea Fleet, the Romanian Navy poured out. A naval assault was launched on Odessa.

Of course, this naval attack is honestly just like that. After all, the Romanian Navy was too weak, and even if it was fully dispatched, it would not be enough to tickle the Red Banner Black Sea Fleet, and what really annoyed the Red Army was that in this attack, the shadows of the German Navy and the Italian Navy appeared.

The U-19 submarine attacked the Soviet patrol ships off the port of Odessa, while four Mistral-class destroyers of the Italian Navy, together with the Romanian Navy, rushed into the port area of Odessa and launched a torpedo attack, only to be repulsed by the Red Navy.

Some comrades may feel that since both Germany and Italy have declared war on the Soviet Union, is it not normal to participate in naval warfare? If the German and Italian navies did not appear in the Black Sea, then this is not unusual, but the problem is that they did appear in the Black Sea.

The relevant international conventions on the Bosphorus have been introduced before, and in time of war, Turkey, as a neutral country, should block the straits and refuse to allow the warships of any belligerent countries to pass guò. And now that the Italian Navy and the German Navy have just appeared in the Black Sea, this is a lot of fun!

Litvinov immediately lodged solemn representations with the Turkish Government, demanding that the Turkish Government immediately explain what was going on. So how did the Turks explain it? They say that after the Soviet Union was at war with Germany and Italy, none of the ships of the belligerent countries could pass through the Guò Bosphorus.

In other words, the Turks meant that these German submarines and Italian destroyers were in the Black Sea before the war, and the Turkish government was completely unresponsible. So is this really the case?

It is clear that the Turks lied, the German and Italian navies did not enter the Black Sea before the war, and on this issue, the KGB attaches great importance to it, and sends people to monitor the straits almost all the time, according to the KGB's records, both German submarines and Italian destroyers entered the Black Sea after the declaration of war on both sides!

"I don't think it's time to overdo it," Sverdlov said, "Turkey is lying, but I don't think they deliberately violated international conventions, and it was the German and Italian sides that exerted tremendous pressure to force Turkey to make concessions." I think we should learn the lessons of the First World War and not over-stimulate Turkey, after all, we are already facing the problem of fighting on two fronts, and it is really not appropriate to have any more friction with Turkey! ”

Trotsky agreed: "Comrade Yakov is right, and although the Turkish Government is acting in a bad way, it must be seen that only a small number of German and Italian ships have entered the Black Sea, which is not enough to completely affect the situation in the region. We should exercise restraint and a certain warning to the Turkish government is enough! ”

The only one who objected was Li Xiaofeng, who said: "I don't think this incident is so simple, which fully shows the attitude of the Turkish government, they are inclined to the fascists, and this must be highly vigilant!" Yes, there are not many enemy ships entering the Black Sea and they are not strong, but I think that this time is just a temptation, and if we do not express our indignation in the strongest possible terms and do not give the Turks a stern warning, soon more German and Italian ships will enter the Black Sea, and Turkey will not take us seriously at all! ”

Trotsky was a little angry: "Then according to your meaning, we should declare war on Turkey now?" Comrade Andrei, I must remind you that the current situation in the war is not ideal, we are under great pressure on the Western Front, and the Japanese on the Eastern Front are also launching rounds of offensives, only the Caucasus and Central Asia are temporarily calm, we urgently need to withdraw troops from this region, we must exercise restraint! ”

There is no doubt that Li Xiaofeng is in the minority, and his proposal was ruthlessly vetoed by the Politburo, and the Soviet government only paid lip service to Turkey...... (To be continued......)

PS: Bow and thank you Pig Chic 2, Orpheum, Old School, hzwangdd, Southern Wanderers, Kamen Angel 555 and Comrade Juventus!