137th Rifle Division (Soviet Union)

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137th Rifle Division
ActiveSeptember 1939 – August 1945
Country 
Order of Suvorov 2nd class
Battle honoursBobruisk
Commanders
Notable
commanders		 Mjr. Gen. Ivan Grishin
Mjr. Gen. A. I. Alferov
Mjr. Gen. F. N. Zhabrev

The 137th Rifle Division was an infantry division of the

Bobruisk during Operation Bagration
, and ended the war in the conquest of East Prussia.

Formation

The division was organized at Gorkiy in the Moscow Military District in September 1939, based on a cadre from the 51st Rifle Regiment of the 17th Rifle Division, as part of the major pre-World War II mobilization of the Red Army.[1] On June 22, 1941, its order of battle was as follows:

  • 409th Rifle Regiment
  • 624th Rifle Regiment
  • 771st Rifle Regiment
  • 278th Light Artillery Regiment
  • 497th Howitzer Regiment[2]
  • 169th Sapper Battalion[3]
  • 238th Antitank Battalion
  • 176th Reconnaissance Company
  • 122nd Signal Company
  • 179th Medical-Sanitation Battalion

Kombrig Sergei Evlampeivich Danilov, who had been the commanding officer of the 97th Rifle Regiment, served as commander of the division until he was promoted and succeeded by Col.

49th Army
.

On June 25, the division was subordinated to

Krichev, and later joined the 7th Airborne Brigade (4th Airborne Corps). The division's antiaircraft artillery battalion was heavily bombed by German aircraft and ceased to exist as an effective combat unit. The medical battalion reached Roslavl and was attached to a different unit.[1]

Battle of Smolensk

On July 10, German troops of the

2nd Panzer Group crossed the Dniepr and seized a bridgehead. The 137th Rifle Division was ordered to counterattack and eliminate the bridgehead, beginning its involvement in the Battle of Smolensk. On July 11, the division began the march westward to the line of Dubrovka, Volkovichi and Usushek. The division was re-subordinated to the 45th Rifle Corps. By July 13, the division was at the starting line for the attack. The immediate objective was to capture Seredyna-Buda, Pustoy Osovets, Chervonny Osovets and Davidovichi. On the right flank, the 132nd Rifle Division was also attacking. The 148th Rifle Division moved forward on the 137th's left. The German troops repulsed the division's attack and soon moved forward themselves. The 771st Rifle Regiment had captured Chervonny Osovets, but was forced to retreat under pressure from German tanks. The division did not retreat beyond its jumping-off line but was bypassed on the flanks by German armor.[1]

After six weeks of heavy fighting around Smolensk, the 137th was reduced to the equivalent of only two or three rifle battalions. On or before August 21, the division was again transferred, now to

XXIV Motorized Corps and were in no shape to continue active operations. What remained of the division, described as a "composite battalion" on Aug. 29, was tasked with protecting the approaches to Trubchevsk, in the army's third line of defense. By Sept. 3 its strength was reported as "one regiment, with its remaining forces and headquarters", still in the same positions. Ordered into an attack against elements of 17th Panzer Division on the 5th, the remnants of the division made no gains and, in fact ended up ceding ground. On September 7, an attack by a German motorized regiment with tanks was beaten off.[6]

The division continued to hold in these positions until early October as the German forces carried out their

Army Group Center on Dec. 6.[8] The counteroffensive ended in late winter with the 137th and its army well to the east of Oryol
; it would hold these positions for nearly a year.

Second Winter Counteroffensive and Battle of Kursk

In the winter of 1943 the 137th took part in the

Hungarian 2nd Armies to the west of Voronezh as part of the northern pincer of the operation. After capturing several villages on February 3, the division reached a line between Novofedorovka and Pavlovka. At around this time the division was reassigned to 48th Army; it would remain in this army for the duration,[5] apart from a brief reassignment to Western Front in April 1944. By Feb. 9, 48th and 13th Armies were splitting German 2nd Army and 2nd Panzer Army apart; the 137th had taken the southwestern outskirts of Smirnye. The offensive slowed in late February due to German forces being evacuated from the Rzhev salient, as well as lax practices on the part of lower-level commands. On February 17, Bryansk Front reported about the 48th Army operations east of Maloarkhangelsk, admonishing lower level HQs against concentrating in the relative warmth and comfort of villages:

"On 11–12 February, the headquarters of 137th Rifle Division, the headquarters of the 12th Artillery Division, and the headquarters of a guards-mortar regiment gathered in the village of Markino... On 12 February enemy aircraft bombed the village of Markino... We had intolerable losses in men and equipment."

On March 6 the division was combined with the 143rd Rifle Division to form a shock group, supported by the 28th and 30th Guards Tank Regiments, in a supporting attack along the Pokrovskoe–Oryol road, but after two days of fighting did not manage to dent the German defenses, while suffering considerable losses. The front soon went over to the defense.[9]

Later in March the 48th Army was reassigned to Gen.

Central Front.[10] At the outset of the Battle of Kursk the 137th was a separate division, although still alongside the 143rd.[11] 48th Army was on the right flank of its front, on the north shoulder of the Kursk salient. The main blow of the German 9th Army attack fell on the 13th Army to the west. When the German assault ran down by July 12, 48th Army was in good shape to take part in the counteroffensive towards Oryol, which continued into August.[12]

Advance

During September and October the 137th advanced, along with the rest of its army, in the direction of

Pripet Marshes
. At around this time the division, by order of the front command, formed a separate Submachine Gun Battalion for "assault and... counterattack duties". This unit was organized as follows:

  • 2 submachine gun companies (110 men each)
  • 1 mortar company (9 82mm mortars)
  • 1 light machinegun platoon (24 men, 8 LMGs)
  • 1 reconnaissance platoon (armed with SMGs)
  • 1 antiaircraft platoon (4 AAMGs)
  • 1 antitank platoon (9
    ATRs
    )

This battalion was formed from experienced "young men... from 19 to 33 years old", and was placed under command of the 771st Rifle Regiment. During the winter of 1943-44 the division also formed its own ski battalion, but this was disbanded at the end of the winter.[13]

In January 1944, the division became part of the

Army Group Center
shattered, the division trekked westward towards Poland.

48th Army was transferred to

East Prussian Offensive, and ended the war near Elbing.[15]

Ten men of the division were named as Heroes of the Soviet Union, five of them posthumously. At the end of the war the men and women of the division carried the full title 137th Rifle, Bobryusk, Order of Suvorov Division. (Russian: 137-я стрелковая Бобруйская ордена Суворова дивизия.) The division was part of the 42nd Rifle Corps, 48th Army of the 3rd Belorussian Front in May 1945.[16]

On 12 May, the division was moved to Elbing for garrison duty. In late May, the older personnel of the division were demobilized. The division was ordered to disbanded in August 1945. Remaining personnel were demobilized or transferred to other units.[1] The division was disbanded in the Baltic Military District on August 31, 1945.[17]

References

Citations

  1. ^ a b c d e Kiselyov, Valeriy (2005). Однополчане: документальное повествование [Odnopolchane: A Documentary History] (in Russian). Nizhpoligraf.
  2. ^ At some point later in 1941 these two artillery regiments were removed and the 17th Artillery Regiment took their places. http://www.cgsc.edu/CARL/nafziger/943RGCC.PDF Archived 2016-03-04 at the Wayback Machine, p 39.
  3. ^ Charles C. Sharp, "Red Legions", Soviet Rifle Divisions Formed Before June 1941, Soviet Order of Battle World War II, Vol. VIII, Nafziger, 1996, p 69
  4. ^ 137 sd - 137-я стрелковая дивизия [137th Rifle Division]. samsv.narod.ru (in Russian). Archived from the original on April 4, 2015. Retrieved January 30, 2016.
  5. ^ a b Sharp, p 69
  6. ^ David M. Glantz, Barbarossa Derailed, Vol. 2, Helion & Co., Ltd., Solihull, UK, 2012, pp 74, 369, 391, 449, 472, 494
  7. ^ David Stahel, The Battle for Moscow, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 2015, map on p 220
  8. ^ Michael Jones, The Retreat, John Murray (Publishers), London, 2009, p 142
  9. ^ Glantz, After Stalingrad, Helion & Co., Ltd, Solihull, UK, 2009, p 235, 237, 245, 307, 345, 381
  10. ^ Dr. Boris Sokolov, Marshal K.K. Rokossovsky, trans. and ed. S. Britton, Helion & Co., Ltd., Solihull, UK, 2015, p 239
  11. ^ http://www.cgsc.edu/CARL/nafziger/943RGCC.PDF Archived 2016-03-04 at the Wayback Machine, p 39
  12. ^ Sokolov, p 266
  13. ^ Sharp, pp 69-70
  14. ^ Walter S. Dunn, Jr., Soviet Blitzkrieg, Stackpole Books, Mechanicsburg, PA, 2008, p 182, 185-89, 199
  15. ^ Sharp, p 70
  16. Combat composition of the Soviet Army
  17. ^ Kasyanov & Maltsev 1946, p. 2.

Bibliography

Further reading

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