37th Guards Rifle Division

The 37th Guards Rifle Division was formed by decree of the Deputy NPO of the USSR No. opg / 2/786742 of August 2, 1942 for states No. 04/314, on the basis of the command and personnel of the 1st Airborne Corps in Lyubertsy from 2 to 6 August 1942 ^[1] , immediately receiving the honorary title - Guards. The 1st Airborne Brigade was transformed into the 109th Guards Rifle Regiment, the 204th Airborne Brigade was converted into the 114th Guards Rifle Regiment, the 211st Airborne Brigade was converted into the 118th Guards Rifle Regiment . The 86th guards artillery regiment was formed in the city of Kolomna from the 229th howitzer artillery regiment.

As part of the army in periods:

• from August 16 to December 27, 1942;
• from 02/15/1943 to 05/09/1945.

On the night of August 14, 1942, it unloaded at Ilovlya station, with the task of taking up defensive positions in the small bend of the Don in the vicinity of the village of Trekhostrovskaya and the Khlebny and Zimoveisky farms, however, it did not have time to gain a foothold, went directly to the right bank of the river and held the defense there, foiling enemy attempts force Don to go. On August 17, she retreated behind the Don under heavy shelling, or rather, behind the Don and on the island of Fast Flows on the river. She held the defense there until September 16, launched an offensive with forcing the river, and established herself on a small bridgehead.

On September 28, 1942, the battered rifle division (sd) transferred the defense of the 24th rifle division and the 22nd rifle brigade marched to Stalingrad , crossed the Volga forty kilometers north of Stalingrad , near the village of Dubovka, and then arrived at the gypsy farm Dawn, a few kilometers east of Stalingrad. On the night of 10/02/1942, the first units of the division crossed back to the right bank of the Volga in Stalingrad, went to the river Mokraya Mechetka, and immediately went into battle. The intensity of the battles waged by the division is evidenced by the following fact from the memoirs of the division surgeon M.F. Gulyakin:

“Starting from the 3rd and especially from the 4th of October, the flow of the wounded increased sharply, and since then it has rarely been less than two hundred people a day. More often, the number of our patients approached three hundred, and during the period of battles from October 10 to October 15 and at the beginning of November it reached four hundred or more people. ”

So, by the evening of October 14, 1942, the remnants of the division were already surrounded in the shops of the Stalingrad Tractor Plant.

In mid-November 1942, the division officially transferred its defense line to another unit and was withdrawn to the left bank of the Volga, leaving in Stalingrad only a combined detachment based on the 118th Guards regiment (transferred to the 138th division ), a few days later and a combined detachment due to heavy losses was withdrawn from the battle. In other words, the division in the battles in the area of ​​the Stalingrad Tractor Plant, died almost completely, the remnants of the compound were reduced to a detachment, which was also almost completely destroyed. Losses of the division amounted to 95% of the personnel.

According to the directive of the High Command of the High Command, the commander of the troops of the Stalingrad Front on the withdrawal of formations to the reserve of the High Command from December 22, 1942, the NCO ordered by December 27 to withdraw the division from the Stalingrad Front to the reserve of the High Command. According to the plan, the division was supposed to be loaded at Zaplavnaya station from 18.00 on December 25 and sent by military train to Balashov , but left only on December 31.

On February 13, 1943, it was raised by alarm, and departed by trains through Borisoglebsk , Gryazi , on February 15, unloaded in Yelets , then made a heavy march in the direction of Livny . The divisions that arrived at that moment on the northern face of the Kursk Bulge almost all faced a difficult march, in very poor environmental conditions, the absence of proper (or complete absence) food, places for recreation, etc. After arriving in Livny, the division on a new march through Zolotukhino , Fatezh , Dmitriev-Lgovsky , Mikhailovka , arrived at the place of concentration on February 24 (the total length of the march was 283 kilometers). February 26, was drawn into offensive battles, from the region of Androsovo, Hlynino, Zorino struck the enemy in the direction of: Veretenino, Sborodnoye, Kamenets, Rastorog and then to Gladkoye, Karpeevsky. Offensive battles that continued during March 1943 were unsuccessful. On April 23, 1943, the division was withdrawn to the reserve in the villages of Luboshevo , Gavrilovka, Krasnaya Polyana, Petrovsky, Simple, Chernevka, Studenoksky, Koshkino, Krugly.

At the end of May 1943, the formation occupied defensive lines in the area of ​​the village of Luboshevo, Dmitrievsky District, Kursk Region. The division did not participate in the defensive part of the Battle of Kursk, since it was not in the main strike zone. It launched an attack from its current positions only on August 7, 1943, breaks through the enemy’s defenses and fights for Dmitrovsk-Orlovsky , took part in its liberation, having lost 512 people killed and 1996 wounded in only 5 days of fighting, then it was relocated to the Sevsk area, arrived August 14, then advanced along the route Seredina-Buda , Yampol , Shostka . On September 08, the division reached Desna , two to three kilometers below Novgorod-Seversky , forced it on September 12, fought for the bridgehead , then advanced in the direction of Loev , crossed Sozh , and then, in mid-October 1943, the Dnieper , during October-November 1943 conducts battles on the bridgehead and in the vicinity of Loev , then took part in the Gomel-Rechitsa operation, distinguished herself during the liberation of Rechitsa , reached the line of Ozarichi , Parichi in a ledge in the Polesie swamps towards Bobruisk . At the end of December 1943 she was assigned to the reserve, then she took part in the January Kalinkovich-Mozyr operation, on January 20, 1944 she took part in the liberation of the Ozarichs .

Since June 23, 1944, during the offensive during the Bobruisk operation, it advanced south of Bobruisk on Osipovichi , on June 27 reached the Osipovichi , participating in consolidating the encirclement around the Bobruisk enemy grouping, continued the offensive towards the western border of the USSR, during the offensive it participates in the liberation of the Baranavichy (08.07 .1944), Slonima (07/10/1944), Cheremkhi (07/20/1944).

On September 5, 1944, the advanced divisions of the division crossed the Narev River, captured a bridgehead in the Pultusk area, and fought on the bridgehead until January 1945. The fights in September and October 1944 were especially severe, which the division waged, including with the SS Viking division .

January 13, 1945 went on the offensive from the bridgehead, by the end of January with the battles reached Graudenets , fought fierce battles, besieging the city. On February 16, it again launched an attack on the city, in two days it was possible to overcome the entire field system of enemy fortifications around the city, the division advanced significantly and took control of a number of settlements. On the night of February 18, soldiers of the compound broke into the city several times, but, meeting strong resistance from the enemy, retreated to the outskirts. Drawing on the enemy’s forces, she ensured the capture of the city by units of the 142nd Infantry Division .

Since the beginning of March 1945, at the final stage of the East Pomeranian operation, she was returned to her army, passed about 150 kilometers in a few days with battles, and advances on Danzig .

After the liberation of Danzig on March 28, 1945, the division was transferred west to participate in the Berlin operation, during which it forced the Oder , fights near Stettin , ended the war in Rostock .

During the war, the division marched 2800 kilometers with battles, forcing 39 river barriers, liberating 50 cities and more than 1,500 other settlements; destroyed and captured about 60 thousand enemy soldiers and officers . Six thousand division soldiers were awarded military orders and medals, twenty were awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union.

The division is one of the four formations of the Red Army , awarded the highest degree of the Order of Kutuzov.

1945

• control
• 109th Guards Rifle Gdansk Order of the Suvorov Regiment
• 114th Guards Rifle Red Banner Order of the Suvorov Regiment
• 118th Guards Rifle Red Banner Order of the Suvorov Regiment
• 86th Guards Artillery Order of the Suvorov and Kutuzov Regiment
• 42nd Separate Guards Fighter Anti-Tank Stettin Order of Kutuzov Division
• 50th guards anti-aircraft battery (until 04/15/1943)
• 40th Separate Guards Reconnaissance Company
• 39th Separate Guards Sapper Stettin Order of the Red Star Battalion
• 53rd Separate Stettinsky Guards Order of Alexander Nevsky Communications Battalion (until 25.11.1944 - 53rd Guards Communication Company)
• 505th (38th) Health Battalion
• 40th Separate Guards Chemical Defense Company
• 594th (35th) motor transport company
• 627th (41st) field bakery
• 629th (36th) Division Veterinary Infirmary
• 2150th Field Post Station
• 339th box office of the State Bank

List No. 5 Rifle, mountain rifle, motor rifle and motorized divisions that were part of the army during the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945. Gylev A. - M .: Ministry of Defense. - 218 p.

1990

• Division Management (1 PRP-4 )
• 38th Guards Tank Gdansk Regiment, Polotsk (67 T-72 , 8 BMP-2 , 2 BRM-1K , 2 BTR-70 )
• 252nd Panzer Minsk-Gdansk Red Banner, Order of the Suvorov Regiment, Polotsk (65 T-72 , 8 BMP-2 , 2 BRM-1K , 3 BTR-70 )
• 263rd Guards Tank Red Banner, Order of the Suvorov Regiment, Polotsk (67 T-72 , 8 BMP-2 , 2 BRM-1K , 2 BTR-70 )
• 298th Guards Motorized Rifle Red Banner, Order of the Suvorov Regiment, Borovukha-2 (24 T-72 , 4 BMP-2 , 2 BRM-1K , 6 BTR-70 )
• 854th Guards Self-propelled Artillery Stettinsky Red Banner, Order of the Suvorov Regiment, Polotsk (12 BM-21 Grad )
• 740th Anti-aircraft Missile Regiment, Polotsk
• 53rd separate reconnaissance battalion, Polotsk (10 BMP-2 , 7 BRM-1K , 10 BTR-70 )
• 53rd separate communications battalion, Borovukha-2
• 359th Separate Engineer Battalion, Polotsk
• 1020th Separate Logistics Battalion
• 107th separate repair and restoration battalion

Total: 224 T-72 tanks, 52 BMPs (38 BMP-2s, 15 BRM-1Ks), 24 BTR-70s, 3 self-propelled guns 2S1, 12 Grad MLRS ^[2]

•   Zholudev, Victor G. (from 06/06/1942 to 04/08/1943), Major General
• Vishnevsky, Timofey Naumovich (from 09/09/1943 to 06/07/1943), Colonel
• Ushakov, Evgeny G. (from 08/08/1943 to 04/29/1944), Colonel, from September 25, 1943, Major General
• Brushko, Ivan Kuzmich (November 1943), Colonel
• Sankovsky, Joseph Iustinovich (November 1943), Major General
• Morozov, Vasily Lavrentievich (from 04/30/1944 to 11/15/1944), Colonel, from 02/02/1944 Major General
•   Rakhimov Sabir Umar-Ogly , (from 11.16.1944 to 03.26.1945), Major General (died on March 26, 1945 near Danzig from a direct hit by a mine at the division command post)
• Onoprienko, Nikolai Nikolaevich (from March 28, 1945 to March 29, 1945), Colonel
•   Grebennik, Kuzma Evdokimovich (from 03.30.1945 to 11.1945), Major General

February to March and September to November 1943

Division Awards:

• 109th Guards Rifle Gdansk ^[3] Order of the Suvorov Regiment
• 114th Guards Rifle Order of the Suvorov Regiment
• 118th Guards Rifle Red Banner Order of the Suvorov Regiment
• 86th Guards Artillery Order of the Suvorov and Kutuzov Regiment

• Secondary school number 2 of the city of Lyubertsy bears the name of the division
• Boarding school in Volzhsky bears the name of the division
• Secondary school number 17 of the city of Volgograd bears the name of the division, there is a school museum
• radi-zhizni.blogspot.ru Materials and information from the personal archive of a WWII veteran who fought in the said division R. G. Latypov, as well as information previously provided by him and his front-line friends to the Museum of Military Glory of school No. 3 in Ufa

• Gulyakin M. F. “He will live! ..” Fomin A. I. On seven fronts. - M .: Military Publishing, 1989.
• Volostnov N.I., “Guard on Fire”, 3rd ed., Gorky, 1979.
• Chapters from the book of A. M. Dorokhov “I ask you for words” Moscow: INES, 2007.- 176 p.
• Rechitsa Rifle Division // WWII 1941-1945: Encyclopedia / Editor-in-Chief of the Army General, Professor M. M. Kozlov . - M.: Soviet Encyclopedia, 1985.- P.610.
• Rechitsa Rifle Division // Soviet Military Encyclopedia in 8 volumes. - M .: Military Publishing House, 1976-1980, - Volume 7, P.112.113.
• Book of Memories: On the combat route of the 37th Guards Rifle Rechitsa twice of the Red Banner Orders of Suvorov, Kutuzov and Bogdan of the Khmelnytsky Division. - M., 1995 .-- 110 s.

• Directory on the website of the club "Memory" Voronezh State University
• List No. 5 of the rifle, mountain rifle, motor rifle and motorized divisions that were part of the army during the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945
• Forum on Soldier.ru
• THIRTEENTH OUR SEPARATE BATTALION. The assignee of the 37th guards Rechitsa twice the Red Banner, orders of Suvorov, Kutuzov and Bogdan Khmelnitsky motorized infantry division
• "Military Literature" Memoirs. Guards go west
• Memory of the people :: The military way 37 guards. sd