The 254th Motor Rifle Division was a motorized infantry division of the Soviet Army during the Cold War and later the Ukrainian Army. It was formed in June 1941 from NKVD Border Troops and reservists as part of the Northwestern Front and fought against the German invasion of Russia. In 1944 the division was the first Soviet unit to enter Romanian territory and in 1945 fought in the Battle of Bautzen. The division, briefly renumbered as the 27th Mechanized Division, was part of the Soviet forces that put down the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and was afterwards stationed in Hungary. The unit participated in the 1968 Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia, after which it returned to Hungary.
The division was formed beginning 26 June 1941 in the Moscow Military District in the Tetnitsky camps 25 kilometers north of Tula. It was one of fifteen divisions in the 240-250 series formed on cadres of 1,500 officers and men from the NKVD Border Troops; most of the remaining personnel of the division were reservists. The order of battle of the 254th was as follows:
929th Rifle Regiment
933rd Rifle Regiment
936th Rifle Regiment
791st Artillery Regiment
130th Antitank Battalion (later 311th)
421st Sapper Battalion
673rd Signal Battalion (later 455th Signal Company)
It was commanded by Major General Pyotr Pokhaznikov from its formation until 15 October.[3] The division was fully formed by 12 July and on that day was loaded into trains despite not yet being armed and sent to the Staraya Russa area, assigned to the 11th Army in the Northwestern Front.[4] On 15 July the unloading had been completed.[5]
Staraya Russa
On 16 July, the division received orders to reach the line of Evanovo, Tuleblya, Zabolote, Vnuchkovo, Utoshkino, and Nogatkino. The line was 8 to 10 kilometers to the west, southwest, and south of Staraya Russa. The division was to fortify the line to prevent a German breakthrough to the east. On the left flank of the line there were forests and swamps, but the line's right flank was open. The division immediately began building fortifications, creating strongpoints in the area of settlements. The 15 kilometer length of the line did not allow for a second echelon of the division.[6]
Soviet soldiers near Staraya Russa in summer 1941
On 22 July, the division became part of the 11th Army, ordered to cover the army's retreat and stop the German attack. By 28 July, the 180th Rifle Division had advanced to the northwest of Staraya Russa and was defending on the right of the 254th. The German 290th Infantry Division advanced along the highway towards Tuleblya, on the 254th's right flank. At this time the 254th still did not have guns for the regimental artillery and half of its assigned machine guns. The division's fire system was not ready to repel the advance of the 290th Infantry Division. As a result, the 202nd Motorized Division marched 70 kilometers to the Tuleblya area, a position from which it could counterattack the 290th. On 28 July the 202nd Division began its attack and held the German advance for two days. This was enough time to fully arm the 254th and enable it to repel the German attacks. On 30 July, the forward units of the division's defenses were attacked by the 290th, which although it had suffered losses, was still twice the size of the 254th. For five days the 254th resisted the advance of the German forces.[6]
The 290th and the reserve 30th Infantry Division then shifted their attacks to the 180th Rifle Division on 4 August. Suffering heavy losses, the 30th Infantry Division broke through and captured the southern part of Staraya Russa. The 30th attacked southwards, towards the rear of the 254th, cutting off its supply and evacuation routes. The 254th now had to fight on two fronts at once: the 290th still attacking from the west, and parts of the 30th from the northeast. The situation threatened the division with encirclement, and on 6 August it was ordered to pull back to the eastern bank of the Lovat River. The division retreated 13 to 17 kilometers and finished on a seven kilometer long line near Pleshakovo and Prismorzhye.[6]
On 6 August it was reassigned to 34th Army in the same front,[7] but this was temporary, and it was soon back in 11th Army.[8]
The 11th and 34th Armies counterattacked south of Lake Ilmen on 12 August. Advancing more than twenty kilometers, the division captured the southern outskirts of Staraya Russa and reached the line of the Polist River by 18 August. However, German counterattacks drove the two armies back to the Lovat, and the 254th reoccupied its former positions there. To its north was the 22nd Rifle Corps, and in the south there was a gap of twelve kilometers between the nearest Soviet unit. On 24 August the German 3rd SS Panzer Division Totenkopf attacked through the gap towards the 254th's left flank and rear. The 254th withdrew northeast of the Pola River, where by 31 August it hurriedly took up defensive positions at Zaostrovye and Vystova, on a twelve kilometer front. At this time, German troops broke through the defenses of the divisions on the flanks of the 254th and it was forced to retreat five to eight kilometers southeast. The division took a line northwest of Pozhaleyevo and west of Nora and Pustynya.[9]
The 202nd Rifle Division (the former 202nd Motorized Division) defended on the right of the division, and the 163rd Rifle Division on its left.[10]
First Jassy-Kishinev Offensive
In April, 1944, the 254th was the first Red Army unit to cross the Prut River and enter Romanian territory. Despite the accumulated losses of the past month's campaigning and the difficulties of supply during winter, the Front's obvious next objectives were the cities of Jassy and Kishinev. On 13 April, Gen. I.S. Konev ordered Lt. Gen. K.A. Koroteev to probe the defenses of German IV Corps north of Jassy. He, in turn, ordered Mjr. Gen. Batitsky, who now commanded 73rd Rifle Corps, to organize an assault with the 254th and 294th Rifle Divisions, backed by a handful of tanks from 6th Tank Army. These defenses were held by a 4-battalion battlegroup of the 24th Panzer Division, on a sector anchored on the village strongpoint of Vulturi, 10km due north of Jassy. The fighting continued for two full days, and despite reinforcements from 116th Rifle Division, the attack made no progress and was shut down.[11]
By the end of May, the front on this sector had been stagnant for more than six weeks. 52nd Army had its three rifle corps spread on a 40km frontage east of the Prut as far as the village of Horlesti. The 254th was directly under army command as its second echelon. Meanwhile, the Axis forces were preparing a further effort to drive the Soviets back from the approaches to Jassy. Called Operation "Sonja", it was launched on 30 May by Group Mieth (IV Corps), with three panzer divisions, backed by German 79th Infantry and Romanian 11th Infantry Divisions. The attack found the boundary between 294th and 373rd Rifle Divisions and drove northwest about 8km towards the Jijia River and the town of Cirpiti, capturing the village of Stanka by 2000 hours. The 254th was ordered from its reserve positions to reinforce the shattered defenses of the 373rd, and it also offered effective resistance to the German 79th Infantry throughout the day. On the second day the Red Army forces had regained their balance and held their ground, again with armored assistance from 6th Tank. After regrouping on 1 June, the 254th was preparing to help lead a counterattack to retake Stanka on the 2nd when news came of yet another Axis attack some distance to the west, which the Germans called Operation "Katja". All efforts over the next few days were needed to shore up the defenses, and it became clear that any further Soviet offensive efforts were going to require time to prepare.[12]
When the fighting was finished, the men and women of the division shared the honorific title of 254th Rifle, Cherkassy, Order of Lenin, Order of the Red Banner, Orders of Suvorov, Kutusov, and Bogdan Khmelnitsky Division (Russian: 254-я стрелковая Черкасская ордена Ленина Краснознамённая орденов Суворова, Кутузова и Богдана Хмельницкого дивизия),[14] and no fewer than 56 of its personnel had been decorated as Heroes of the Soviet Union.
Postwar
In the summer of 1945, the division was withdrawn to Stryi as part of the 73rd Rifle Corps of the 52nd Army. On 25 July 1946, the 254th Rifle Division became the 27th Mechanized Division. After 52nd Army was used to form the 8th Tank Army, the division and its corps were transferred to the 13th Army.[15] The division became part of the 38th Army for Operation Whirlwind, the suppression of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. The division's 97th Mechanized Regiment reinforced the Special Corps, fighting in Budapest. The division and other troops from the 38th Army covered the right bank of the Danube on the Austrian and Yugoslavian borders. After the end of Operation Whirlwind, the division became part of the new Southern Group of Forces in Hungary. The division was located at Székesfehérvár. On 20 April 1957, the division became the 27th Motor Rifle Division. On 11 January 1965, the division was renumbered the 254th Motor Rifle Division, restoring its World War II designation.[16][17]
In 1968, the division participated in Operation Danube, attached to the Carpathian Front.[18] By the late 1980s, the division included the 5th Guards Motor Rifle Regiment at Kiskunmajsa, the 78th Guards Motor Rifle Regiment at Pápa, the 95th Motor Rifle and 66th Tank Regiments at Hajmáskér, the 297th Self-Propelled Artillery Regiment at Fertőd, and the 1092nd Anti-Aircraft Rocket Regiment at Székesfehérvár.[17] In January 1990, the division was withdrawn to Artemivsk and became part of the Kiev Military District. It replaced the recently disbanded 36th Motor Rifle Division there.[19]
Ukrainian Ground Forces
Shoulder Sleeve Insignia of the 52nd Brigade
After the Dissolution of the Soviet Union, the division became part of the Ukrainian Ground Forces. In February 1992, Colonel (promoted to Major General) Viktor Kovalov commanded the division.[20] Between 1992 and 1993 it became the 254th Mechanized Division. In December 1993 Colonel (promoted to Major General) Volodymyr Polyvody commanded the division.[21] In August 1997 Colonel (promoted to Major General) Anatoliy Sobory commanded the division.[22] On 1 January 2001 the division included the 78th and 561st Mechanized Regiments, the 425th Self-Propelled Artillery Regiment, the 1215th Anti-Aircraft Rocket Regiment, and smaller units.[23]
It was downsized into the 52nd Separate Mechanized Brigade and became part of the 6th Army Corps. In March 2003, a stray 7.62mm round fired by a soldier of the brigade from a machine gun injured a local welder. At this time the brigade commander was Colonel Oleksandr Shinkarenko.[24] On 10 October 2003, a spark from a nearby unauthorized welder started a fire which destroyed ten of seventeen ammunition storage warehouses.[25] The explosions resulted in the evacuation of 1,500 residents of Artemivsk. The brigade command was also reported to have illegally contracted several companies for services and made a 435,000 Hryvnia profit.[26][27] The brigade was disbanded in October 2004, and its battle flag given to a museum.[28]
Notes
↑ Charles C. Sharp, "Red Tide", Soviet Rifle Divisions Formed From June to December 1941, Soviet Order of Battle World War II, Vol. IX, Nafziger, 1996, p 48.
↑ Temirova, Inna (21 March 2003). "Соседство с военными опасно для жизни"[Military proximity life threatening]. Donetsky Novosti (in Russian). Retrieved 24 September 2016.
↑ Zinenko, Yury (30 October 2015). "Хроника взрывов военных складов в Украине за 15 лет"[Timeline of Military Warehouse Explosions in Ukraine in the last 15 years]. Komsomolskaya Pravda in Ukraine (in Russian). Retrieved 24 September 2016.
↑ Shirokov, Yevgeny (11 March 2004). "Эхо артемовской катастрофы"[Echoes of the Artemovsk Catastrophe] (in Russian). Donetsky Novosti. Retrieved 24 September 2016.
The Second Battle of Târgu Frumos was a military engagement primarily between the Wehrmacht and Red Army forces in May 1944, near Iași, Romania. The battle was the main engagement of the Târgu Frumos Operation, and is often referred simply as the Battle of Târgu Frumos.
The second Jassy–Kishinev offensive, named after the two major cities, Iași ("Jassy") and Chișinău ("Kishinev"), in the staging area, was a Soviet offensive against Axis forces, which took place in Eastern Romania from 20 to 29 August 1944 during World War II. The 2nd and 3rd Ukrainian Fronts of the Red Army engaged Army Group South Ukraine, which consisted of combined German and Romanian formations, in an operation to reoccupy Bessarabia and destroy the Axis forces in the region, opening the way into Romania and the Balkans.
A mechanised corps was a Soviet armoured formation used prior to the beginning of World War II and reintroduced during the war, in 1942.
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The 6th Guards Airborne Division was a Red Army airborne division that fought as infantry during World War II.
The 304th Rifle Division had its roots in the 109th Mechanized Division, which served before the Great Patriotic War as a mixed armor and infantry formation. Soon after the German invasion it was reorganized as a standard rifle division and renumbered as the 304th. It served in the southwestern part of the Soviet-German front for more than a year and a half, fighting under difficult conditions, including the German summer offensive of 1942. The division did not distinguish itself until Operation Uranus in late 1942 and the subsequent Operation Ring, in which it helped defeat the encircled German Sixth Army. In recognition of these successes, even before the German surrender at Stalingrad, it was raised to Guards status as the 67th Guards Rifle Division. A second 304th was raised six months later, based on a pair of rifle brigades, facing the German 17th Army in the Kuban. After helping to liberate this region the division continued in combat through Ukraine and Poland, winning its own distinctions at Zhitomir and an Order of the Red Banner, before ending the war near Prague.
The 7th Mechanized Corps was a mechanized corps of the Red Army, formed three times. The corps was first formed in 1934 in the Leningrad Military District and was converted into the 10th Tank Corps in 1938. The corps was reformed in the summer of 1940 in the Moscow Military District and fought in the Battle of Smolensk, after which its headquarters became part of Group Yartsevo's headquarters. The corps was formed a third time in August and September 1943. The third formation fought in the Dnieper–Carpathian Offensive, Uman–Botoșani Offensive, Second Jassy–Kishinev Offensive, Battle of Debrecen, Budapest Offensive, Bratislava–Brno Offensive, Prague Offensive, and the Soviet invasion of Manchuria. Postwar, the corps' third formation became a division and was disbanded in 1957.
The 81st Guards Rifle Division is an infantry division of the Russian Ground Forces, previously serving in the Red Army and the Soviet Army. It was formed after the Battle of Stalingrad from the 422nd Rifle Division in recognition of that division's actions during the battle, specifically the encirclement and the siege of the German forces in the city. The 81st Guards continued a record of distinguished service through the rest of the Great Patriotic War, and continued to serve postwar, as a rifle division and later a motor rifle division, until being reorganized as the 57th Separate Guards Motorized Rifle Brigade in 2009 in the Russian Ground Forces. Most of its postwar service was in the Soviet (Russian) far east, where it was originally formed as the 422nd.
The 337th Rifle Division was first formed in August 1941, as a standard Red Army rifle division, at Astrakhan. Like the 335th Rifle Division, this formation was assigned to the southern sector of the Soviet-German front during the winter counteroffensive, but was encircled and destroyed during the German spring offensive that formed the Izium Pocket. The division was formed again from July until August 13, 1942, serving in the Caucasus and along the coast of the Black Sea before being moved to the central part of the front to take part in the Soviet counteroffensive following the Battle of Kursk. As the front advanced towards the Dniepr River the 337th was recognized for its role in the liberation of the Ukrainian city of Lubny and was granted its name as an honorific. As the division continued to advance through northern and western Ukraine and into Hungary, it earned further honors before ending its combat path in western Austria.
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The 7th Guards Tank Division was a tank division of the Soviet Army during the Cold War.
The 4th Guards Motor Rifle Division was a motorized infantry division of the Soviet Army during the Cold War.
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The 56th Guards Rifle Division was formed as an elite infantry division of the Red Army in June 1943, based on the 2nd formations of the 74th and 91st Rifle Brigades, and served in that role until after the end of the Great Patriotic War. Along with its "sister", the 65th Guards Rifle Division, the 56th was formed "out of sequence", that is, many Guards rifle divisions were higher numbered and formed earlier than the 56th. The division was immediately assigned to the 19th Guards Rifle Corps of the 10th Guards Army and remained under those headquarters for the duration of the war. It first saw action in Western Front's summer offensive, Operation Suvorov. On September 8 the 254th Guards Rifle Regiment was given the honorific title "in the name of Aleksandr Matrosov" and on September 25 the division as a whole was awarded the honorific "Smolensk" for its role in the liberation of that city. During the winter of 1943-44 it took part in the stubborn fighting north and east of Vitebsk, first in Western and later in 2nd Baltic Front. During the following summer offensives it helped break through the defenses of the German Panther Line and advanced into the Baltic states, eventually being decorated with the Order of the Red Banner after the liberation of Riga. For the rest of the war it was part of the forces blockading the remnants of German Army Group North in the Courland Pocket in Latvia, eventually in Leningrad Front. After the war the 56th Guards was moved to the town of Elva in Estonia where it was disbanded in 1947, although the successor formations of the 254th Guards Regiment exist into the present day.
The 202nd Rifle Division was an infantry division of the Red Army, originally formed as a motorized division as part of the prewar buildup of forces, and from September 1941 serving as a regular rifle division. As with most pre-war motorized divisions it lacked most of its authorized motor vehicles and shortly after the German invasion had most of its tanks reassigned. Despite this it fought well in actions near Soltsy and Staraya Russa in July and August, gaining time for the defenders of Leningrad at significant cost to itself.
The 245th Rifle Division was formed in the Moscow Military District as a reserve infantry division of the Red Army just days after the German invasion of the USSR. It was based on the shtat of April 5, 1941 with modifications due to the emergency. Initially assigned to 29th Army in Reserve Front it was soon reassigned to 34th Army in Northwestern Front and took part in the fighting around Staraya Russa in mid-August before retreating eastward, where it was involved in the dismal battles around Demyansk through 1942 and into early 1943. After the German II Army Corps evacuated the Demyansk salient in February the division advanced with 34th Army back to Staraya Russa, planning to take it by storm, but this effort failed and the 245th was again faced with siege warfare that continued into October when it was moved west to join the 22nd Army and soon after the 3rd Shock Army in the fighting west of Nevel. Following a brief period for restoration in the Reserve of the Supreme High Command it was reassigned to 42nd Army in the last stages of the Leningrad–Novgorod offensive and served along the east shores of Lake Peipus during the spring of 1944. When the summer offensive into the Baltic states began the 245th was part of 3rd Baltic Front and advanced through Latvia and Estonia under several commands, winning a battle honor in the process. After the liberation of Riga in mid-October the Front was disbanded and the much-depleted division was available for deployment elsewhere. Prior to the invasion of Poland and Germany it was transferred to the 59th Army of 1st Ukrainian Front, where it took over the men, materiel, and battle honor of the 379th Rifle Division. In January 1945 it took part in the Vistula-Oder Offensive as part of 115th Rifle Corps, and later in the Lower and Upper Silesian Offensives. During the latter it was distinguished for its part in the capture of the Upper Silesian Coal Basin with the Order of the Red Banner, while two of its rifle regiments received decorations for their part in the fighting near Oppeln. The 245th ended the war near Prague; it would be disbanded during the summer.
References
Andrianov, Vladimir Vladimirovich (2006). 254 Черкасская стрелковая дивизия[254th Cherkassy Rifle Division] (in Russian). Cheboksary.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
Feskov, V.I.; Golikov, V.I.; Kalashnikov, K.A.; Slugin, S.A. (2013). Вооруженные силы СССР после Второй Мировой войны: от Красной Армии к Советской[The Armed Forces of the USSR after World War II: From the Red Army to the Soviet: Part 1 Land Forces] (in Russian). Tomsk: Scientific and Technical Literature Publishing. ISBN9785895035306.
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Red Army (1941-1946)
Soviet Army (1946-1991)
Russian Ground Forces (1991-1992)
Order of Lenin 
Order of Bogdan Khmelnitsky 
