71st Guards Rifle Division

The 71st Guards Rifle Division was reformed as an elite infantry division of the Red Army in March 1943, based on the 1st formation of the 23rd Rifle Division, and served in that role until after the end of the Great Patriotic War.

As the 23rd it had fought in the Battle of Stalingrad and distinguished itself during Operation Ring in the 21st Army. It remained assigned to that Army when it was redesignated as the 6th Guards Army and remained under its command for most of the rest of the war. It moved north to the Kursk area joining Voronezh Front and played an important role in the defense of the south face of the salient as part of the 22nd Guards Rifle Corps during Operation Zitadelle. Following this victory it fought in the Belgorod-Kharkov Offensive in August and continued advancing toward the Dniepr River into the early autumn. With the rest of its Army it was transferred north to the 2nd Baltic Front where it took part in the later stages of the Battle of Nevel as well as the slow, grinding assaults towards Vitebsk during the winter. In the opening stages of Operation Bagration, now as part of 1st Baltic Front, the 71st Guards won a battle honor for the liberation of that city and soon entered the so-called "Baltic Gap" that had opened between Army Groups North and Center; its rifle regiments would all win the honorific "Polotsk" after helping to take that city. The division would remain in the Baltic states for the rest of its existence, advancing through Latvia and Lithuania eventually to the Baltic coast, assisting in the liberation of Riga and Klaipėda and then serving in the Kurland Group of Forces containing and attacking the German units isolated there right up to the final surrender. The division remained in the same area until it was disbanded in mid-1947.