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Stalin put the pipe on the table and looked around at the assembled officers.
“Who else has something to say, comrades?”
Zhukov took the floor.
“In my opinion, Lev Zakharovich paints the devil blacker than he really is. I am not talking now about the situation in Crimea, but about the actions of Major General Nagulin. This man would not sound the alarm in vain. I saw how he acted near Leningrad. Any other commander in his position would have long ago cried out for reinforcements and reserves, but Nagulin solved the problem with the forces available, although even I had the feeling for a moment that he would not make it. When such a commander speaks of the urgent need to go on the defensive and demands that the air force be transferred to him immediately, I have an irresistible urge to give him twice as many planes as he asks for.”
“I totally agree,” Shaposhnikov supported Zhukov.
“ Is that so?” Stalin grinned, “This is a commendable unanimity, but I would like to remind you, comrades, that if we had the ability to immediately send twice as many tanks, planes, and artillery to each front commander or Headquarters of the Supreme High Command representative than he asks for, we would already be having tea in Berlin, or even on the shore of the English Channel.
Comrade Zhigarev, Major General Nagulin's telegram gives justification for the number of planes we can send him without critical damage to other sections of the front. The Headquarters of the Supreme High Command is interested in your opinion as to whether we can really remove and redeploy to the Crimea some of the fighters from these frontal air groups and not have irreparable consequences for ground troops as a result.”
Zhigarev didn't answer right away. The commander of the Red Army Air Forces gave everyone at the meeting an attentive look and said softly:
“Comrades, don't you think that Major General Nagulin, who recently received a high rank and was first sent by the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command to one of the fronts, knows too much about the size of our Air Force, its structure and distribution across fronts and armies? Honestly, judging by his telegram, he knows as much as I do.”
There was a pause. No one was in a hurry to respond to what the Air Force Commander had said.
“This is really an important question, Comrade Zhigarev,” Stalin said slowly at last, “and we will come back to it later, but right now the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command is not interested in Major General Nagulin's knowledge of the Air Force's affairs, but in your opinion about the feasibility of his proposals. Your honest and objective opinion.”
Like most German generals, Wolfram von Richthofen was not optimistic about events on the Eastern Front. Only a month ago he had been appointed commander of the 4th Air Fleet that supported Army Group South, but to his own surprise, the Colonel-General felt no satisfaction from the promotion.
During the Polish campaign he commanded a special-purpose air unit and then the 8th Luftwaffe Air Corps. His corps supported ground troops in the war with France, took part in the Battle of Britain, the Balkan operation and the capture of Crete. Not everything and not always went smoothly, but these were the normal realities of warfare against strong or not-so-strong opponents.
Here in Russia, at first everything was going just fine. It was not without losses, of course, but from the first day of the invasion of the USSR the Luftwaffe firmly held dominance in the air, and the combat score of the best German pilots was growing rapidly, reaching three-digit numbers. Bialystok, Minsk, Vitebsk, Lepel, Smolensk… The Russians retreated, losing many hundreds of thousands of soldiers killed and captured, abandoning their equipment, burning their many tanks in unprepared and poorly coordinated counterattacks. He acknowledged that sometimes the Russians did get something right, and when the Wehrmacht's ground units started to stall, his corps would step in, solving problems for the tankers and infantrymen from the air.
Support for the offensive on Leningrad… Here things became more complicated, losses increased, but all this was still quite in line with Richthofen's ideas, how the campaign in the east should go. And then, in October 1941, his air corps was transferred to Moscow, and here a completely different war began. On this frozen ground he learned what it was like to lose dozens of planes in a single flight.
A certain colonel from the Abwehr told him about a Russian spotter, capable of shooting at aerial targets with murderous precision, at one of the meetings at the headquarters of Army Group Center. Richthofen found it hard to believe what he heard, but soon he was personally convinced that the Abwehrman was not exaggerating.
The catastrophe at Moscow had undermined the Luftwaffe's forces. The operation to supply the encircled armies with transport planes began well, but it ended quite unexpectedly with the defeat of the air bridge and the failure of all attempts to suppress the Russian air defense position areas, which inflicted heavy losses on the air convoys that tried to break into the Moscow Pocket.
And then… Then there was a massive raid on Leningrad, the memories of which each time spoiled the Colonel-General's mood for a long time. He was not in command of the operation, but 50 bombers were taken from his corps for it, with the promise that they would soon return. They did not. Richthofen knew to whom the Luftwaffe owed the complete failure of the "chemical" raid on the city, clenched by the ring of blockade, and now, planning his actions to support Manstein's troops in the Crimea, he had no doubt what, or rather who, he would have to deal with.
Then, at Moscow, Richthofen remembered well the words of Colonel Richtengden, and subsequent events did not let him forget them. Upon learning of the impending attack in the Crimea, the Colonel General sent a request to the Abwehr. Richtengden could not fly to Crimea at once. He needed to finish some urgent business in Berlin, but eventually he did arrive in Simferopol, and he was soon to reach the headquarters of the commander of the 4th Air Fleet.
An urgent business trip to the Crimea was a complete surprise to Richtengden, and not a very pleasant one at that. He absolutely did not want to let control over the preparation of von Tresckow's operation out of his hands. Nevertheless, upon learning of the reason for the summons, Richtengden left matters to Major Schliemann and flew to Simferopol.
Colonel General Richthofen looked tired and tense. Preparations for the counterattack on Feodosia and Kerch required full commitment from the commander of the 4th Air Fleet, so he seemed to sleep four hours a day. Richthofen valued time and got right to the point.
“Colonel, as far as I know, you've been working on the Russian spotter for six months now?”
“Yes, Herr Colonel General,” confirmed Richtengden, “and, unfortunately, I can't boast of much success in this case.”
“I'm aware of that,” the General nodded, “If it were otherwise, our conversation would make no sense. I am interested in your opinion as to how likely it is that this Russian will be in the Crimea when our offensive begins.”
“I think he's already here,” Richtengden answered calmly.
“Is this just a guess, or do you have specific information?”
“This is an assumption, but I estimate its credibility as very high. Crimea is now the most tense part of the Eastern Front. From here the Russians can threaten the entire southern flank of our troops, as well as raid the oil fields in Romanian Ploiesti. As far as I know Major General Nagulin, such places attract him like a magnet.”
“Major General?”
“Well, at any rate, our employee met him with those insignia a couple of months ago. However, six months earlier he had seen Nagulin in a junior lieutenant's uniform, so it is difficult to be completely sure about this matter.”
“Did your man meet this Russian twice? And why is Nagulin still alive?”
“It is difficult to kill an enemy general while being a prisoner, Herr Colonel General,” replied Richtengden softly.
“I see,” Richthofen turned his gaze to the steppe landscape