April 1944

Eastern Front

Odessa falls, cutting one escape route for the German 17th Army. In the Crimea the XLIX Mountain Corps begins to give on the Perekop Isthmus as 2nd Guards Army bludgeons its way to the Ishun Narrows. Armyansk falls. On the Zivash sector the 10th Rumanian Division collapses after hart fighting with the 51st Army. The right flank of the XLIX Mountain Corps quickly crumbles, enabling the 51st Army to widen the penetration and threaten the rear of the Perekop defenses. Farther east V Corps is similarly overwhelmed and begins a slow withdrawal. Tolbukhin now launches his armor into the attack, smashing through the thin rearguards left by the XLIX and V Corps. Against the highly mechanized Soviet divisions the 17th Army is stranded, its infantry divisions having to fight their way back to Sevastopol.