Novorossisk - Ozereika - Combat Mission: Barbarossa to Berlin

By late 1942 the Axis advance in the South had ground to a halt at Stalingrad on the Volga and Tuapse in the Caucasus. The Soviet high command executed operations designed to surround and destroy the over-extended axis armies, with stupendous success on the Volga. Farther south in the Caucasus, operations were planned with the goal of bagging the Axis 17th Army currently withdrawing northwest from Tuapse. Operation Morsky (Sea) called for amphibious landings behind Axis lines west and south of Novorossisk on the Black Sea in conjunction with a land attack. These landings would constitute the largest Soviet amphibious operation to date, and the 2nd largest of the war.