Raid on Constanța

Part of the Black Sea Campaigns of the Eastern Front of World War II

Romanian destroyer Regina Maria

Date	26 June 1941
Location	Constanța, Romania
Result	Axis victory

Belligerents

Romania

Germany

Soviet Union

Commanders and leaders

Horia Macellariu

Filipp Oktyabrskiy

Strength

Defences of Constanța:
2 destroyers
1 minelayer
2 motor torpedo boats
1 anti-aircraft battery
1 coastal battery

In the Danube Delta:
2 marine battalions
2 river monitors
4 patrol boats
4 armed barges

Voroshilov Task Force:
1 cruiser
6 destroyers
Unknown aircraft

In the Danube Delta:
Unknown number of troops
3 river monitors
~20 armored patrol boats
2 troopships

Casualties and losses

Port facilities damaged

In the Danube Delta:
358+ casualties (mostly POWs)

1 cruiser damaged
1 destroyer sunk
1 destroyer damaged
9 aircraft destroyed
268+ killed
69 captured
4 submarines sunk after the raid

In the Danube Delta:
Unknown human losses
3 river monitors damaged
6 armored patrol boats sunk and 3 damaged (including 1 captured)

The Raid on Constanța was an attack of the Soviet Black Sea Fleet on the Romanian port of Constanța on 26 June 1941, resulting in the only encounter between major warships during the naval war in the Black Sea in World War II.

After Romania joined the Tripartite Pact in November 1940, the Germans agreed to construct five coastal batteries to bolster obsolete Romanian coastal defences, including the Tirpitz battery south of Constanța, armed with three spare World War I-vintage model 28 cm SK L/45 guns and protected by 75 mm and 20 mm AA guns. The battery was completed and tested in April 1941 and was operated by 700 Kriegsmarine personnel, although it was nominally under Romanian control like all Axis forces in Romania.

Between 16 and 19 June 1941, in preparation for Operation Barbarossa, the Romanian minelayers Amiral Murgescu, Regele Carol I and Aurora laid 1,000 mines between Cape Midia and Tuzla to protect Constanța.

On 22 June 1941, as part of Operation Barbarossa, Romania launched attacks against Soviet airfields in Bessarabia, destroying many Soviet aircraft on the ground. A retaliatory Soviet bombing raid on Constanța, probably in an attempt to damage the port, was repelled by Horia Agarici and the Romanian Air Force. With the failure of the initial air attacks, Soviet Admiral Filipp Oktyabrsky decided to launch a combined aerial and naval attack on Constanța and a seaborne assault on the Danube Delta.

Two Soviet destroyer leaders of the Leningrad class, Moskva and Kharkov, supported by the cruiser Voroshilov, the Soobrazitelnyy-class destroyers Soobrazitel'ny and Smyshlyonyi, and two other destroyers, were organized into a task force for the attack. The Soviets also had the battleship Pariskaya Komuna kept 100 miles (160 km) offshore to exploit any initial success, and surviving Soviet bombers also joined in the attack.

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Wikipedia