26th Rifle Division

26th Rifle Division
Active	3 November 1918–1952
Country	Soviet Union
Branch	Red Army (1918–1946) Soviet Army (1946–1952)
Type	Rifle Division
Nickname(s)	26th Zlatoust Red Banner Order of Suvorov Rifle Division^[1]
Engagements	Russian Civil War World War II Demyansk Pocket Leningrad-Novgorod offensive Riga offensive East Prussian Offensive Battle of Königsberg Samland Offensive
Decorations	Honorary Revolutionary Red Banner Order of Suvorov
Battle honours	Zlatoust Stalin
Commanders
Notable commanders	Vasily Shorin Mikhail Matiyasevich Yan Gaylit Genrich Eiche Kornily Cherepanov

Military unit

The 26th Rifle Division was a rifle division in the Soviet Red Army during the Russian Civil War, World War II and the Cold War. The division was formed on 3 November 1918 on the Eastern Front (China Border), sent to the Soviet-German Front in August 1941. Ended the war in Poland, where it was assigned to the Northern Group of Forces. It was disbanded in 1952.

Russian Civil War

The division was formed on the Eastern Front in November 1918. It fought the entire civil war period on the eastern front and ended the war on the Chinese border. The division remained there until 1929 when it moved to the coastal region.^[1]

Composition

76th Rifle Regiment
77th Rifle Regiment
78th Rifle Regiment
26th Artillery Regiment

World War II

Assigned to the 1st Red Banner Army at the start of the World War II, the division was ordered west in August 1941. Assigned to the Northwestern Front's 11th Army upon arrival. The division spent 1942 through September 1944 assigned to Northwestern or 2nd Baltic Fronts 11th, 27th, 34th, 1st Shock, and 22nd Armies. During this time the division took part in the Demyansk Army Group offensive operation (1st phase) from 7 January to 20 May 1942 and second phase from 15 to 28 February 1943. It also fought in the Leningrad-Novgorod Strategic Offensive's Staraya Russa-Novorzhev Offensive from 18 February 1944 to 1 March 1944.

In September 1944 the division was reassigned to the 43rd Army's 90th Rifle Corps of the 1st Baltic Front. The army was reassigned to the 3rd Belorussian Front in January 1945 where it remained assigned for the remainder of the war. In the last part of the war the division participated in the Baltic Strategic Offensive's Riga Army Group offensive from 14 September to 24 October 1944 and the East Prussian Offensive's Insterburg–Königsberg Offensive, Königsberg Offensive, and Zemland Offensive.

Composition

87th Rifle Regiment (formerly the 76th Rifle Regiment)
312th Rifle Regiment (formerly the 77th Rifle Regiment) (awarded the Honorific Designation “Novgorod”)
349th Rifle Regiment (formerly the 78th Rifle Regiment)
19th Artillery Regiment (formerly the 26th Artillery Regiment)
62nd Separate Antitank Artillery Battalion
459th Mortar Regiment (from 27.10.1941 to 19.10.1942)
67th Reconnaissance Company
9th Sapper Battalion
70th Separate Signals Battalion (formally 820th Sep. Signals Company)
30th Medical Battalion
29th Decontamination Company
52nd Auto-Transport Company (formally 150th and 479th Auto-Transport Company)
78th Field Bakery
59th Veterinary Field Hospital (formally 196th Veterinary Field Hospital)
20th Divisional Artillery Workshop Battalion
171st Field Postal Station (formally 8812th Field Postal Station)
261st Field Cash Office of the State Bank

Post war

The division was assigned to the Northern Group of Forces after the war and remained in Poland. In June 1946 it became part of the 132nd Rifle Corps, replacing the disbanded 18th Rifle Division. It became part of the 18th Rifle Corps and was based at Wrocław between 1946 and 1948. The division disbanded along with its corps in 1952.^[2]

Commanders

Mikhail Matiyasevich (3.11.1918 — 26.03.1919)
Yan Gaylit (26.03.1919 — 16.04.1919)
Genrich Eiche (16.04.1919 — 10.08.1919)
S. M. Beliitsky (10.08.1919 - 8.09.1919)
I. F. Blazevich (8.09.1919 - 10.09.1919), acting
S. M. Beliitsky (10.09.1919 - 21.09.1919)
Genrich Eiche (21.09.1919 - 23.11.1919)
A. M. Volpe (23.11.1919 - 25.11.1919), acting
Yan Gaylit (25.11.1919 - 26.10.1921)
Pyotr Filatov (November 1925–February 1927)

Konstantin Pashkovsky (1929-1931)
Grigory Iusstinovich (1931-1937)
Nikolai Glovatsky (1937-1938)

Colonel Pavel Grigoryevich Kuznetsov, 14 April 1941 - 22 February 1943
Colonel Kornily Cherepanov, 23 February 1943 - 25 September 1944
General-major Vasilii Andreevich Belonogov, 26 September 1944 - 21 April 1945
Colonel Nikolai Ivanovich Krasnov, 22 April 1945 - 9 May 1945^[1]

References

^ ^a ^b ^c Avanzini and Crofoot (2004), p 5.
^ Feskov et al 2013, pp. 408–410.

Sources

Michael Avanzini; Craig Crofoot (1 October 2004). Armies of the Bear. Tiger Lily Publications LLC. ISBN 978-0-9720296-2-9.
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. ISBN 9785895035306.

Soviet divisions of the Russian Civil War

Rifle divisions

1st – 9th	1st 1st Communist 1st Don 1st Estland 1st Estonian 1st Inza 1st Kamyshin 1st Krasnouralsk 1st Siberian 1st Steel 1st Transbaikal 1st Tula 1st Turkestan 1st Ust-Medveditskaya Soviet 2nd (Army of Soviet Latvia) 2nd Consolidated 2nd Priamur 2nd Tula 2nd Turkestan 3rd Crimean 3rd Kazan 3rd Taman 3rd Turkestan 4th Petrograd 4th Smolensk 4th Ural 5th Saratov 5th Vitebsk 6th Oryol 7th Vladimir 8th Minsk 9th 9th Don

1st – 9th

1st
1st Communist
1st Don
1st Estland
1st Estonian
1st Inza
1st Kamyshin
1st Krasnouralsk
1st Siberian
1st Steel
1st Transbaikal
1st Tula
1st Turkestan
1st Ust-Medveditskaya Soviet
2nd (Army of Soviet Latvia)
2nd Consolidated
2nd Priamur
2nd Tula
2nd Turkestan
3rd Crimean
3rd Kazan
3rd Taman
3rd Turkestan
4th Petrograd
4th Smolensk
4th Ural
5th Saratov
5th Vitebsk
6th Oryol
7th Vladimir
8th Minsk
9th
9th Don

10th – 19th	10th Tambov 11th Petrograd 12th 13th 15th 15th Inza 15th Sivash 16th Simbirsk 17th Nizhny Novgorod 18th Yaroslavl 19th

20th – 29th	20th (I) 20th (II) 21st Perm 22nd Krasnodar 23rd 24th Samara 24th Simbirsk 25th Poltava 26th Zlatoust 27th Omsk 28th 28th Tsaritsyn 28th VNUS 29th 29th Vyatka

30th – 39th	30th Irkutsk 31st (9th Kuban Army) 31st Turkestan 32nd 33rd (10th Terek-Dagestan Army) 33rd Kuban 34th 35th Siberian 36th 36th (Field troops) 37th 37th Novocherkassk 38th 38th VNUS 39th 39th VNUS

40th – 49th	40th Boguchar 40th (Field troops) 41st (13th Army) 41st (14th Army) 42nd 43rd (I) 43rd (II) 44th Kiev 45th Volyn 46th Yekaterinoslav 47th (12th Army) 47th (14th Army) 48th Taman 48th Tver 49th

50th – 59th	50th Taman 51st Moscow 51st Perekop 52nd Yekaterinburg 54th 55th (13th Army) 55th 56th Moscow 57th 57th Yekaterinburg 58th Oryol 59th 59th VNUS