138th Rifle Division (Soviet Union)

The division was originally based on a regimental cadre (301st Rifle Regiment) from the 48th Rifle Division and began forming in September, 1939, with the following order of battle:

• 554th Rifle Regiment
• 650th Rifle Regiment
• 768th Rifle Regiment
• 295th Light Artillery Regiment
• 198th Antitank Battalion
• 203rd Signal Battalion
• 155th Reconnaissance Battalion
• 179th Sapper Battalion
• 436th Tank Battalion
• 135th Medical Battalion

The division was under the command of Col. A.I. Pastarevich.

By December the 138th was already engaged in the Soviet-Finnish Winter War. Fighting as a separate rifle division, part of 7th Army on the Karelian Isthmus, the 138th performed better than the stereotypical Red Army formation of that war. When the fighting was over, the division had collectively won the Order of the Red Banner, and three officers were awarded the Gold Star Hero of the Soviet Union.[1]

On May 28 the division came under the command of Col. Ivan Ilich Lyudnikov. In late June the German forces launched Operation Blue, aiming for, among other objectives, Stalingrad. The 138th was railed north to join the forming 4th Tank Army. The division fought along the approaches to the city in this Army, then in the 64th, back to the rebuilding 51st, then in an Operational Group under command of Lt. Gen. Vasili Ivanovich Chuikov. On the night of October 16 - 17 the 138th crossed the Volga into Stalingrad, coming under Chuikov's orders again, now as part of 62nd Army,[7] defending the Barricades (Barrikady) ordnance factory:

"1. The enemy has taken the Stalingrad Tractor Plant, is developing an attack from the STP to the south along the railway line in an attempt to seize Barricady.

2. 62 Army continues to hold its positions, beating off fierce enemy attacks.

3. 138th Red Banner RD from 04.00 hours 17.10.42 to occupy and stubbornly defend the line: south of the suburb Derevensk, Sculpturnyi. Under no circumstances to allow enemy to approach Leninskii prospekt and Barricady factory.

650th Rifle Regiment/Major Pechenyuk: 138th Division/to take up positions in Barricady, establish ring of fire-points and not to permit enemy penetration into the factory."[8]

The men and women of the division were pushed back so close to the west bank of the Volga that the divisional artillery had to be evacuated to the east bank, but when the Soviet counteroffensive began the 138th was still holding on, at much reduced strength, and after the German Sixth Army was encircled the division went on the counterattack over the next two months, under command of Don Front. On January 27, 1943, Colonel Lyudnikov was promoted to the rank of Major General. The men of Sixth Army laid down their arms on February 2, and four days later, while being moved to the Reserve of the Supreme High Command, the 138th Rifle Division became the 70th Guards Rifle Division.[9]

A new 138th Rifle Division began forming at Kalinin in the Moscow Military District in May, 1943 from the 6th Naval Brigade and the 109th Rifle Brigade, under 52nd Army in the Reserve of the Supreme High Command. At this point in the war, the Red Army was trying to amalgamate separate rifle brigades into rifle divisions, which were much more efficient on the battlefield.[10]

The division first joined the Voronezh Front during the fighting around Kharkov, then went to 2nd Ukrainian Front reserves, then to 4th Guards Army in that Front, where it served in 21st Guards Rifle Corps until March, 1944. In that month it was transferred to 69th Army in Stavka reserves, returning to the front a month later in the 95th Rifle Corps, 18th Army, in 1st Ukrainian Front. At around this time the 295th Artillery Reg't. was completely equipped with 76mm guns (32 pieces) and no 122mm howitzers, making it, for all intents, a reinforced heavy antitank regiment. This was probably due to the nature of the fighting in Ukraine, where the Germans had most of their armored forces.[11]

In August the 138th moved to 4th Ukrainian Front reserves in 17th Guards Rifle Corps. This corps operated separately under Front command for several months in the Carpathian Mountains, before being reassigned to 18th Army. The division remained under these commands for the duration.[12] It ended the war in eastern Czechoslovakia, with the divisional honorific "Carpathian" (Russian: Карпатская), the Order of the Red Banner and the Order of Suvorov (Russian: Краснознамённая, ордена Суворова). The division was disbanded "in place" during the summer of 1945 with the Northern Group of Forces.[13]