Red Army troops as they advanced North. During the ensuing aerial battle, which lasted ten hours, numerous bombing and strafing attacks were carried out against the Soviet bridgehead, as well as numerous dogfights with the Soviet Air Force. The bridgehead was pulverized, with all Soviet troops withdrawing from the area during the night of 4/5 October. Axis air forces destroyed over 20 Soviet aircraft (nine or ten of them during air battles) while losing one Romanian fighter during air combat plus four more either shot down by Soviet flak or destroyed on the ground. One Italian Savoia-Marchetti bomber was also lost. With the advance of Axis forces into the Soviet Union, Stavka decided to evacuate the defenders of Odessa. On the night of 14–15 October 1941, the Black Sea Fleet evacuated the garrison to Sevastopol where most of the units were later destroyed in the bitter fighting that took place there during the defence of Sevastopol. The Black Sea Fleet also managed to evacuate 350,000 soldiers and civilians. Naval warfare In support of the land offensive, the Romanian Navy dispatched motor torpedo boats to the recently occupied port of Vylkove (Vâlcov in Romanian). During the night of 18 September, the motor torpedo boats NMS Viscolul and NMS Vijelia attacked a Soviet convoy south of Odessa, each boat launching her two torpedoes at the closest enemy destroyer. Three of the four torpedoes missed. The fourth torpedo struck and damaged the Soviet destroyer, but failed to detonate. It was one of the few actions the Romanian Navy undertook to support the siege, generally limiting itself to patrols of the submarine Delfinul. No Western source could be found to confirm this claim. On 20 August, Delfinul fought the only submarine vs submarine engagement of the siege. At 12:08 pm, the Soviet M-class submarine M-33 launched a torpedo at her, which missed. Delfinul swiftly counterattacked with her twin 13 mm machine gun, causing the Soviet submarine to submerge and retreat. During the October evacuation, Heinkel He 114 seaplanes of the Romanian Naval Aviation captured a Soviet armed merchantman. Aftermath The operations at Odessa highlighted significant weaknesses in the Romanian Army, leading both military and political leaders in the country to call for a discontinuation of military operations against the Soviet Union. Antonescu ignored such objections, regarding continued participation and eventual victory on the Eastern Front as necessary for the restoration of Romania's territorial integrity.