Kerch and the Sea of Azov

24 May – June 1855, Kerch Strait and the Sea of Azov

Allied victory; Russian shipping in the Sea of Azov destroyed

An allied expedition landed at Kerch on 24 May; the Russians blew up their batteries and scuttled or burned their ships, and the allies took the strait without a fight. A flotilla of shallow-draught steamers and gunboats under Captain Edmund Lyons of Miranda then went into the Sea of Azov, which fed the army in the Crimea. In four days they destroyed four warships and hundreds of supply ships, and through June they burned grain stores at Berdyansk, Genichesk and Taganrog. The Russian army at Sevastopol lost one of its main supply routes.

Map

• The flotilla enters the Sea of Azov May – June 1855