 | This article includes a list of general references, but it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations .(October 2013) |
| 2nd Guards Army | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Active | 1942–1945 |
| Country | Soviet Union |
| Branch | Red Army, |
| Size | two or more Rifle Corps |
| Engagements | Operation Little Saturn |
| Commanders | |
| Notable commanders | Rodion Malinovsky Georgy Zakharov Porfiry Chanchibadze |
The 2nd Guards Army was a field army of the Soviet Union's Red Army that fought in World War II, most notably at Stalingrad.
The 2nd Guards Army was formed according to the order of the Staff of the Supreme High Command (Stavka) from October 23, 1942, on the basis of the 1st Reserve Army. Formation and training took place in Tambov, Michurinsk and Morshansk areas. On 1 November 1942 the Combat composition of the Soviet Army lists 1st Reserve Army with the 1st Guards Rifle Corps – 24th Guards, 33rd Guards and 98th rifle divisions [under Guards General-Major I. I. Missan], and the 13th Guards Rifle Corps with the 49th Guards, 3rd Guards and 387th divisions. [1]
By the time of the Battle of Stalingrad, the 2nd Guards Army had become one of the most powerful units in the Red Army. The 2nd Guards Army appeared on the scene after the Soviet Operation Uranus had successfully encircled the German Sixth Army at Stalingrad in November 1942. In December 1942, as preparations started for Operation Saturn, the 2nd Guards Army was ordered by Joseph Stalin to prepare for an attack on Rostov. The assault and capture of Rostov was the ultimate goal of the Red Army for Operation Saturn.
In December 1942, plans for Operation Saturn had to be altered. The German Operation Wintergewitter, led by Field Marshal Erich von Manstein's Army Group Don, made an attack on the Stalingrad Front in an effort to relieve the Sixth Army in Stalingrad. Thus, Operation Saturn was changed to Operation Little Saturn, which was to be a counter-attack that would be launched as soon as Operation Wintergewitter ended. The German forces, spearheaded by Army Group Hoth, made rapid initial advances but was stalled at the Myshkova River. Colonel-General Hermann Hoth's panzer divisions were at a standstill and were suffering heavy casualties, even before the bulk of the 2nd Guards Army had arrived. By this time, Manstein realized that the operation was a failure. The 2nd Guards Army, under General Rodion Malinovsky, had been transferred to the Stalingrad Front to halt the offensive. Stalin had agreed to this decision.
After Operation Wintergewitter had ended, Soviet forces in the South-West Front led by the First Guards Army successfully launched Operation Little Saturn against the Italian Eighth Army. Following this, the 2nd Guards Army and the 51st Army launched another counter-offensive, this time against Army Group Hoth, in the days before Christmas 1942. Not only had Operation Wintergewitter been halted, the Red Army had made substantial gains against Army Group Hoth, Army Group Don, and also Army Group A in the Caucasus region that month.
Until late 1943, the 2nd Guards Mechanised Corps was operating as part of the army.
The 2nd Guards Army made a very significant contribution to the Soviet halt of Operation Wintergewitter and the successful counter-attacks that followed.
In February 1944, the Army relocated to the area of the Perekop Isthmus. The Crimean Offensive was launched across the Perekop Isthmus on 8 April 1944 by elements of the 2nd Guards Army and 51st Army, under the 4th Ukrainian Front. [2] On 1 May 1944 the army comprised the 13th Guards Rifle Corps (3rd, 24th and 87th Guards Rifle Divisions); 54th Rifle Corps (126th, 315th, and 387th Rifle Divisions); 55th Rifle Corps (33rd Guards, 87th, and 347th Rifle Divisions); and the 78th and 116th Fortified Regions. [3] In cooperation with other troops of the 4th Ukrainian Front and the Black Sea Fleet, Sevastopol was liberated on May 9, 1944. In May and June the 2nd Guards Army was relocated to the area of the cities Dorogobuzh Elnya. On May 20, was moved to the Reserve of the Supreme High Command and on July 8 the unit was a part of the 1st Baltic Front. By that time, it consisted of the 11th and the 13th and 54th Guards Rifle Corps. In this structure, on 5–20 July 1944 took part in the Vilnius Offensive/operation at the end of July, and in the Siauliai offensive reflect enemy counterattacks west and north-west of Siauliai. In October, the 2nd Guards Army participated in the Memel offensive. On December 20 it was reassigned to the 3rd Belorussian Front.
On 1 December 1944 the 2nd Guards Army, part of the 1st Baltic Front, consisted of the 11th Guards Rifle Corps (2nd, 32nd and 33rd Guards Rifle Divisions), 13th Guards Rifle Corps (3rd, 24th, 87th Guards Rifle Divisions and 16th Rifle Division), 1st Rifle Corps (145th, 306th, and 357th Rifle Divisions), artillery (including 21st Artillery Breakthrough Division and 2nd Anti-Aircraft Artillery Division), tank forces, and other formations and units. [4]
During the East Prussian Offensive in January–April 1945, the army broke through long-term German strategic defenses, eliminated in conjunction with other troops surrounded the front of its group (south-west of Königsberg and Samland group).
After the war ended, 2nd Guards Army, numbering six rifle divisions in two corps, was withdrawn to the Moscow Military District where it was disbanded in September 1945.
The 1st Guards Army was a Soviet Guards field army that fought on the Eastern Front during World War II.
The 3rd Guards Army was a field army of the Soviet Red Army that fought on the Eastern Front in World War II.
A rifle corps was a Soviet corps-level military formation during the mid-twentieth century. Rifle corps were made up of a varying number of rifle divisions, although the allocation of three rifle divisions to a rifle corps was common during the latter part of World War II.
The 51st Army was a field army of the Red Army that saw action against the Germans in World War II on both the southern and northern sectors of the front. The army participated in the Battle of the Kerch Peninsula between December 1941 and January 1942; it was destroyed in May 1942 with other Soviet forces when the Wehrmacht launched an operation to dislodge them from the peninsula. The army fought in the Battle of Stalingrad during the winter of 1942–43, helping to defeat German relief attempts. From late 1944 to the end of the war, the army fought in the final cutting-off of German forces in the Courland area next to the Baltic. Inactivated in 1945, the army was activated again in 1977 to secure Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands. Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the army continued in existence as a component of the Russian Ground Forces. The army was active during two periods from 1941 until 1997.
The Red Army's 33rd Army was a Soviet field army during the Second World War. It was disbanded by being redesignated HQ Smolensk Military District in 1945.
The 31st Rifle Division was an infantry division of the Soviet Union's Red Army during the interwar period and World War II.
The 11th Tank Division was a Soviet tank division initially formed in 1940 at Tiraspol and destroyed in 1941; it was then formed as a tank corps in May 1942. This unit was subsequently reorganized as the second formation of the 11th Tank Division in 1945.
The 8th Air Army was a military formation of the Soviet Air Forces, active from around 1942 to 1949.
The 300th Rifle Division began service as a standard Red Army rifle division shortly after the German invasion, and fought in the southwestern part of the Soviet-German front for nearly two years following. It was able to escape the encirclement east of Kiev in September, 1941, and then fought to defend, and later to try to liberate, the city of Kharkov during 1941-42. After falling back under the weight of the German 1942 summer offensive, the division began distinguish itself during Operation Uranus in late 1942, when it helped defeat the German attempt to relieve Sixth Army and later in the pursuit of the defeated Axis forces and the second liberation of Rostov-na-Donu. In recognition of these successes it was raised to Guards status as the 87th Guards Rifle Division. A second 300th Rifle Division was raised a few months later and fought briefly but very successfully against the Japanese in Manchuria in August 1945. The second formation became the 3rd Tank Division in the Far East postwar and was redesignated as the 46th Tank Division in 1957 before disbanding in 1959.
The 87th Guards Rifle Division was created on 16 April 1943 from the veterans of the 300th Rifle Division, in recognition of that division's leading role in the penetration of the German/Romanian defenses south of Stalingrad in the opening stages of Operation Uranus, its subsequent defense against Army Group Don's attempt to relieve the German Sixth Army at Stalingrad, and later for its pursuit of the defeated German forces along the Don River to Rostov-na-Donu as far as the Mius River. The 87th Guards continued a record of distinguished service through the rest of the Great Patriotic War, first in the southern sector of the front, where it participated in the liberation of the Donbas region and the Crimea, and then, after a major redeployment, in the north-central sector, advancing through the Baltic states and into East Germany. After the war it was restructured into a rifle brigade, before being reestablished as 87th Guards Rifle Division in October 1953. In June 1957, it was reorganized as a motor rifle division, but appears to have been disbanded in 1959.
The Red Army's 54th Army was a Soviet field army during the Second World War. It was first formed in the Leningrad Military District in August, 1941, and continued in service in the northern sector of the Soviet-German front until the end of 1944. It spent much of the war attempting to break the German siege of Leningrad, in which it helped to achieve partial success in January, 1943, and complete success one year later. During these operations the soldiers of the 54th served under five different commanders, most notably Col. Gen. Ivan Fedyuninsky in the winter of 1941–42. After helping to drive Army Group North away from Leningrad and into the Baltic states in the first nine months of 1944, the army was deemed surplus to requirements on the narrowing front, and was officially disbanded on the last day of the year.
The 315th Rifle Division was a standard Red Army rifle division formed for the first time on February 12, 1942, in the Siberian Military District before being sent to the vicinity of Stalingrad, where it was engaged in the futile efforts to break through to the besieged city from the north near Kotluban. After rebuilding, it was part of the southern thrust of Operation Uranus in November, helping to encircle the German 6th Army and also to hold off its would-be rescuers. During 1943 and early 1944 the division advanced through the southern Donbas and into Ukraine, where it was honored for its role in the liberation of Melitopol, before taking part in the liberation of the Crimea in April and May 1944. The men and women of the 315th ended their war on an anticlimactic note, serving for the last year as part of the garrison of the Crimea. However, the unit, and its successors, continued to serve well into the postwar era.
The 5th Guards Anti-Aircraft Artillery Division was an anti-aircraft artillery division of the Soviet Union's Red Army during World War II.
The 3rd Anti-Aircraft Artillery Division was an anti-aircraft artillery division of the Soviet Union's Red Army during World War II.
The 4th Anti-Aircraft Artillery Division was an anti-aircraft artillery division of the Soviet Union's Red Army during World War II and the Soviet Army in the early postwar years.
The 4th Guards Motor Rifle Division was a motorized infantry division of the Soviet Army during the Cold War.
The 387th Rifle Division was raised in 1941 as an infantry division of the Red Army, and served for the duration of the Great Patriotic War in that role. It began forming on September 1, 1941, in the Central Asia Military District. It first served in the winter counteroffensive south of Moscow, then spent the spring and summer of 1942 on the relatively quiet fronts southwest of the capital in the area of Kaluga and Tula. In September it was withdrawn to the Reserve of the Supreme High Command where it joined the 1st Reserve Army. This became the 2nd Guards Army and the division fought south of Stalingrad against Army Group Don during the German attempt to relieve their encircled 6th Army in December. During January and into February, 1943, 2nd Guards advanced on both sides of the lower Don River towards Rostov in a race to prevent Army Group A from escaping being trapped in the Caucasus region. The division was now part of Southern Front and it would remain in that Front until May, 1944. During the summer advance through the Donbas and southern Ukraine the 387th served under several different army commands before returning to 2nd Guards for the Crimean Offensive in April, 1944, during which it won a battle honor. After the Crimea was cleared the division remained there as part of the Separate Coastal Army until it went back to the Reserve in March, 1945. It then was assigned to the 2nd Ukrainian Front as a separate rifle division, and spent the last weeks of the war in Hungary and Austria. It continued to serve briefly into the postwar period.
The 36th Guards Rifle Division was a Guards infantry division of the Red Army during World War II. It was formed from the 9th Airborne Corps in August 1942 as a result of the Soviet need for troops to fight in the Battle of Stalingrad. The division was awarded the honorific Verkhnedneprovsk for its crossing of the Dnieper in September 1943 near that town, later receiving the Order of the Red Banner and the Order of Suvorov, 2nd class, for its actions in the Uman–Botoșani Offensive in March 1944. It fought in the siege of Budapest during late 1944 and early 1945, receiving the Order of Kutuzov, 2nd class, for its actions. In late 1945, it was converted into the 24th Guards Mechanized Division. Stationed in Romania, it was disbanded in early 1947.
The 51st Air Defense Division, abbreviated 51 dpvo, is an air defense formation of the 4th Air and Air Defence Forces Army of the Russian Aerospace Forces, which in turn is operationally subordinate to the Southern Military District. The headquarters is located in Novocherkassk.
The 231st Rifle Division was an infantry division of the Red Army, originally formed out-of-sequence in the Ural Military District in February 1942. It continued training and forming until late May when it was assigned to 8th Reserve Army and began moving toward the Stalingrad area. By the end of August it had reached the fighting front as part of 66th Army in Stalingrad Front and was almost immediately committed to the first of the Kotluban offensives, attempting to cut off the XIV Panzer Corps that had penetrated to the Volga River north of Stalingrad about a week earlier. The division suffered heavy casualties from the outset of these efforts, attacking across flat and open terrain against well dug-in opposition. Devastated in these attacks the 231st was soon relegated to second-echelon duties until, with only about 600 infantry and sappers still on strength, it was officially disbanded on November 2.
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