Trappenjagd: Romanian 7th Corps, 7th Romanian Corps Details

Hello all,

Just wanted to say first that I came across this site and it is really awesome. I never knew there was a site (in English) just dedicated to Romanian during WWII.

Now to my question. I am going to the Crimea in August on a tour of the Sevastapol area battles and one of the places we are going is the site of the Trappenjagd Operation near Parpach. We are going to spend a 1/2 day in the area walking the ground of the operation.

I am trying to get up to speed on some of the more detailed aspects of the fighting and one area that I am unfamiliar with is the operations of the 7th Romanian Corps that held the northern part of the German line.

It is my understanding that the 7th Corps was made up of the 8th Cavalry Division, the 19th Infantry Division and (I think) the 10th Infantry Division. Can somebody confirm this? I am very sure the 8th and 19th were there but not so sure on the 10th.

I need some help understanding the strength of these divisions at the start of the fighting, what was the makeup of the division (i.e. regiments, battalions, attachments, etc) and how they were organized on the ground and what they did during the fighting through the month of May. Can anybody help in this area?

Finally, is there any English language books on the fighting of Trappenjagd from a Romanian point of view? Any German language books?

Thanks all,

Marty

Hello,

You actually found the forum. The site contains the info you asked for:

http://www.worldwar2.ro/operatii/?language=en&article=10
http://www.worldwar2.ro/oob/

Hello,

There is not really a book about Unternehmen Trappenjagd.
If you have any other questions about Unternehmen Trappenjagd from the German side please contact me, I will try to answer your questions.

Hi DennisB,

I sent you a PM.

Marty

Hi Victor,

Thanks for the links. They were very helpful.

A couple of questions if I could.

The link says that the 11th Army had 3 regiments in reserve at the start of the attack. Do you know which regiments these were? I did not know there were three regiments. Heck, that is really nearly a division in reserve.

The link mentions that there were two motorized infantry regiments assigned to the Korne Detachment. I was thinking they were the 10th Motorized Rosiori Regt - 6th Cavalry Division (which the article confirms) & the 6th Motorized Rosiori Regt - 5th Cavalry Division. Would this be correct? Any insight into how strong these regiments were at the start of the fighting? I have some other information that says they may of had up to 9 R-1 tanks.

The one thing I am still missing is how the Romanians were organized on the ground at the start of the attack. Was the 8th Cav Division next to the Sea and the 19th to its right? Any thoughts how the regiments of the divisions were organized at the start? Or how strong they were?

I guess where I am going is that we are going to be standing right on the ground and I want to be able to say more than just that a whole division was around here. I would like to be able to point to a map and a piece of ground and say with some confidence that the division was in this general area, but this regiment was right here and the other regiment was over there, etc.

Thanks again,

Marty

Hi,

The 3 regiments were 399th, 391st and 140th Infantry Regiments. The first two were part of the 170th Infantry Division, but the latter I do not know. The source is a synthesis of the 3rtd Operations Section of the Romanian General Staff on the Trappenjagd Operation. It is quite possible that some errors could have occured regarding German units.

Yes the two regiments of the Korne Detachment were the 10th and the 6th Motorized Rosiori Regiments. The 6th was Korne's own regiment. The R-1 tanks were part of the mechanized squadrons of the 5th and 6th Cavalry Divisions, but so far I haven't encountered a mention of these mechanized squadrons within the Korne Detachment during Trappenjagd. They were not organically subordinated to the rosiori regiments.

The 8th Cavalry Division was on positions near the Sivash marshlands, between Tulzlii and Seylih Eli and the marshlands North of Kiet. This was on the left wing of the 7th Corps, by the Azov Sea coast. There it was replaced by the 19th Light Infantry Battalion of the 19th Division.

More detailed information on troop movement may take a while to be made available. I am planning to expand the articles on Crimea on the webpage and break them up into several articles. There is time until August.

Hello Victor,

You are talking about 399th, 391st, and 140th Infanterie-Regiments.
If these are all from German side, you made a mistake; The German 170. I.D. existed of the 391st, the 399th and the 401st Infanterie-Division.

There was a 104th Schützen-Regiment, which was part of the 22.Panzer-divison.

It was my understanding by this point of the fighting that the 401st Regiment from the 170th was largely disbanded and consisted of only a cadre core. The remaining infantry was allocated back to the other two regiments (391 and 399). If the other two regiments (391st and 399th) were behind the lines as army reserves that would mean that almost all of the 170th was pulled off the line.

I could see that a regiment from the 22nd Pz Division would be assigned as an army reserve.

Thanks for the info on the 8th Cav Division. Any idea what its strength was at the start of the fighting?

Marty

As I already wrote, the source for the three regiments is a synthesis on the operation made by the Romanian General Staff after the battle. I did not make any mistake in copying it. This is what it is written in the report. There is a big difference in English between 140th and 401st, wouldn't you think?

I also wrote that it is possible that errors were made in the report or incomplete information might have been supplied by the German command to the Romanian General Staff, becaue I was unable to find a German regiment with the number 140.

What were German and romanian losses in operation trappenjagd?

It is not really known what the total losses where, some sources state it was around 7000.

This post has been edited by Dennisb on June 17, 2009 01:40 pm