Page 234 - The Chief Culprit

All the Way to Berlin! y 195

e Kremlin paid special attention to the joint exercises of the fleet and the troops of
the 9th Special Rifle Corps. ese exercises were observed by high-ranking commanders who
had specially arrived from Moscow. One of them, Vice Admiral I. I. Azarov, said that all the
participants of the exercises felt that the training was not being conducted without reason,
and that soon they would have to use in war what they had learned. If the war began and
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the Soviet command sent the 9th Special Rifle Corps into action in accordance with its battle
profile and designation of its preparations, where could it land? It was unlikely that it would
land on Soviet shores, but possibly in Romania, Bulgaria, or Turkey. No matter where the
troops landed, they would have to be supplied, which required either additional landing
of troops or the advance of other Soviet troops through Romania to connect with the 9th
Special Rifle Corps. During those same days, the 3rd Paratroops Corps, also in the Crimea,
conducted grandiose training exercises with the landing of corps and brigade staff.
Soviet historians never connected these three events: the training of the 14th Rifle
Corps for landing from ships of the Danube flotilla; the 3rd Paratroops Corps exercising in
the Crimea (a short flight to the Danube’s mouth); the training of the 9th Special Rifle Corps
to land from warships of the Black Sea fleet. But these events were linked in time, place, and
objective. ey were the final stages of preparation for aggression on a grand scale.