Hello and thank you for listening to the history of World War II podcast episode 466 Odessa has

fallen. Last time we watched as the last two weeks of September

turned from the Siege of Odessa

to the Slaughterhouse of Odessa.

Both sides went on the offensive.

The access because more German troops had been brought in

and for the Russians, simply because there was nothing good coming from having the enemy so close.

Smashed bodies and guns lay around the contested defensive perimeter.

Many of those bodies that had been Soviet fighters had come from the Navy or Crimea and they had

played their part in this atritional war.

But when the smoke cleared, the enemy was still there,

closing in from the north and south,

while the Western approaches were held back, but a great cost.

And though other Germans were at the gates of Leningrad by this point and other Germans were

threatening the approaches to Moscow itself, the Stavka still found the means to send

to this beleaguered city Odessa just over 12,000 soldiers, 70 large guns, 15 tanks,

and a battalion of Cayushka rocket launchers.

The last item impressed the defenders and knowing that Stalin himself approved the shipment,

the arrival of such weapons ran through the ranks faster than diarrhea.

Still, as the Germans were pouring more men in, the Soviet reinforcements did not alter the fact

that there was still a 4 to 1 ratio in terms of fighting personnel.

When these reinforcements landed at Odessa, they were cheered by the old and young, but no one else.

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