The Wehrmacht was able to successfully hold on to the Crimea even after it had been cut off by land due to their ability to supply it via the Black Sea.

Holding the Crimea was considered important as its loss would negatively affect the attitude of Turkey and put Romanian oilfields under risk of Soviet air attacks.

An assault across the Perekop Isthmus was launched on 8 April by elements of the 4th Ukrainian Front's 2nd Guards and 51st Armies.

Kerch was reached by the Separate Coastal Army on 11 April; Simferopol, about 37 mi (60 km) northeast of Sevastopol, followed two days later.

The scale and importance of the operation can be attested by the usage in combat of all four Romanian destroyers, the largest Axis warships in the Black Sea.

The last phase of the evacuation (10–14 May) saw the fiercest combat, as Axis ships transported, under constant attacks from Soviet aircraft and shore artillery, over 30,000 troops.

On 11 May, the German tanker Friederike was torpedoed and heavily damaged by Soviet submarine L-4, preventing her participation.

During the night of 27 April, a convoy escorted by the Romanian gunboat Ghiculescu, the German submarine hunter UJ-115, one R-boat, two KFK naval trawlers and 19 MFPs (including the Romanian PTA-404 and PTA-406) engaged the Soviet G-5-class motor torpedo boats TKA-332, TKA-343 and TKA-344, after the three attacked and damaged the German submarine hunter UJ-104.

Over 12 Soviet aircraft were also shot down during the evacuation, including two by the minelaying destroyer escort Amiral Murgescu.

Between April 14 and May 13, 1944, a total of 120,853 men and 22,548 tons of cargo were evacuated by sea from the Crimea: - 36,557 Romanians, of whom 4,262 were wounded - 58,486 Germans, of whom 12,027 were wounded - 723 Slovaks - 15,391 Soviet volunteers - 2,581 prisoners of war - 7,115 civilians[18] In Soviet propaganda, this offensive was listed as one of Stalin's ten blows.