The 33rd Guards Rifle Division was formed as an elite infantry division of the Red Army in May 1942, based on the 2nd formation of the 3rd Airborne Corps, and served in that role until after the end of the Great Patriotic War. It was the second of a series of ten Guards rifle divisions formed from airborne corps during the spring and summer of 1942. It was briefly assigned to the 47th Army in the North Caucasus Front but was soon moved to the Volga Military District and saw its first action as part of 62nd Army in the fighting on the approaches to Stalingrad. It was withdrawn east of the Volga in September, but returned to the front with the 2nd Guards Army in December, and it remained in this Army until early 1945. After helping to defeat Army Group Don's attempt to relieve the trapped 6th Army at Stalingrad the 33rd Guards joined in the pursuit across the southern Caucasus steppe until reaching the Mius River in early 1943. Through the rest of that year it fought through the southern sector of eastern Ukraine as part of Southern Front (later 4th Ukrainian Front) and in the spring of 1944 assisted in the liberation of the Crimea, earning a battle honor in the process. The Crimea was a strategic dead-end, so 2nd Guards Army was moved north to take part in the summer offensive through the Baltic states and to the border with Germany as part of 1st Baltic Front. During the offensive into East Prussia the division and its 13th Guards Rifle Corps was reassigned to 39th and the 43rd Armies before returning to 2nd Guards Army in April. For its part in the capture of the city-fortress of Königsberg the 33rd Guards would receive the Order of Suvorov. In mid-1946 it was converted to the 8th Separate Guards Rifle Brigade.
Formation The 3rd Airborne Corps had been formed for the second time in October 1941 in the North Caucasus Military District and had stayed there in reserve until it was converted to the 33rd Guards on May 30, 1942. Airborne corps were roughly divisional-sized units made up of three brigades of about 3,000 men each. Since they were considered elite light infantry the STAVKA decided they could be assigned Guards status upon reformation. The artillery regiment and many of the other subunits had to be formed from scratch.Charles C. Sharp, "Red Guards", Soviet Guards Rifle and Airborne Units 1941 to 1945, Soviet Order of Battle World War II, Vol. IV, Nafziger, 1995, pp. 2-3, 7 After the subunits received their designations the division's order of battle was as follows: 84th Guards Rifle Regiment (from 5th Airborne Brigade) 88th Guards Rifle Regiment (from 6th Airborne Brigade) 91st Guards Rifle Regiment (from 212th Airborne Brigade) 59th Guards Artillery RegimentSharp, "Red Guards", p. 56 31st Guards Antitank Battalion 35th Guards Antiaircraft Battery (until April 25, 1943) 21st Guards Mortar Battalion (until October 20, 1942) 21st Guards Reconnaissance Company 40th Guards Sapper Battalion 45th Guards Signal Battalion 37th Guards Medical/Sanitation Battalion 32nd Guards Chemical Defense (Anti-gas) Company 42nd Guards Motor Transport Company 32nd Guards Field Bakery 22nd Guards Divisional Veterinary Hospital 1916th Field Postal Station 146th Field Office of the State Bank Col. Fyodor Aleksandrovich Afanasev remained in command of the division after redesignation. Along with the 32nd Guards Rifle Division it was immediately assigned to 47th Army in North Caucasus Front, but by July 1 the 33rd had been moved to the 7th Reserve Army in the Reserve of the Supreme High Command. Later that month this would be redesignated as the 62nd Army.Combat Composition of the Soviet Army, 1942, pp. 106, 134
Battle of Stalingrad By July 12 the situation facing the Soviet armies in the Caucasus region was becoming increasingly grim under the impact of the German Case Blue. Early that morning Stalin had the STAVKA issue a directive that renamed Southwestern Front as Stalingrad Front and added the 1st, 5th and 7th Reserve Armies and the 21st Army to its composition. 62nd Army was directed to occupy a line west of the Don River with 64th Army and other forces. 62nd Army was under command of Maj. Gen. V. Ya. Kolpakchi and had six rifle divisions under command, including the 33rd Guards.David M. Glantz, To the Gates of Stalingrad, University Press of Kansas, Lawrence, KS, 2009, pp. 186-87
German 6th Army was ordered to continue its eastward advance as soon as possible after July 17, but this was delayed by heavy rains; it was not until the 20th that LI Army Corps' lead divisions were able to engage and defeat the forward elements of 62nd Army on the Tsutskan River. By late on the next day five of the Army's divisions were deployed uniformly south to north across the Great Bend of the Don from Surovikino on the Chir River to Kletskaya on the Don. 33rd Guards was responsible for a sector 18 km wide roughly in the center of this line. On July 22 the XIV Panzer Corps and VIII Army Corps caught up and by the evening Kolpakchi reported that his divisions were engaging German tanks and infantry all along the line. The 3rd and 60th Motorized and 16th Panzer Divisions advanced rapidly the next day, tearing through 62nd Army's forward security belt and advancing 24–40 km, about halfway to the crossing points over the Don at Trekhostrovskaya and Kalach. By this time the 6th Army commander, Army Gen. F. Paulus, was planning to encircle 62nd Army west of the Don with his XIV Panzer and VIII Corps as a preliminary to an advance on Stalingrad.Glantz, To the Gates of Stalingrad, pp. 219-23, 225
During this fighting Guards Jr. Sgt. Pyotr Osipovich Boloto, an anti-tank rifleman of the 84th Guards Rifle Regiment, led three of his men with two PTRS rifles to a height between the 2nd and 3rd Battalions where a group of 30 German tanks were beginning to break through at the boundary. In the ensuing action the group knocked out 15 panzers, with Boloto himself accounting for eight, and the remainder withdrew. The news of this feat was soon broadcast and published around the USSR and a full-page photo of Boloto appeared on a motivational leaflet entitled "Learn to Fight With the Stalingraders!" On November 5 Boloto became the division's first Hero of the Soviet Union.
Fighting in the Don Bend Paulus' two pincers made substantial advances on July 24. His two motorized divisions sliced through the 192nd Rifle Division on the Army's left wing and moved more than 50 km southeast to within 10 km of Kalach. 16th Panzer and the 113th Infantry Division penetrated the center of the line and forced Kolpakchi's forces back another 15 km towards the Don; 33rd Guards reported it was in battle with a group of 150 tanks. By the end of the day the division was loosely encircled on the high ground in the Maiorovskii region along with portions of the 192nd and 184th Rifle Divisions plus the 40th Tank Brigade and 644th Tank Battalion. At this critical moment XIV Panzer Corps had to slow its advance due to acute fuel shortages and stiff resistance north of Kalach. Col. K. A. Zhuravlyov, chief of 62nd Army's operations department, was flown in to take command of the encircled units. Kolpakchi began organizing counterattacks by most of the 13th Tank Corps to break through 16th Panzer while Zhuravlyov, who was out of communication with the rear, ordered his group to break out northward toward Kletskaya.Glantz, To the Gates of Stalingrad, pp. 227-29
Over the next two days the two German pincers fought hard to complete their encirclement against sharply increasing Soviet attacks. VIII Corps' 113th and 100th Jäger Divisions, supported by most of 16th Panzer's tanks, had to simultaneously contain two Soviet bridgeheads south of the Don, defeat and destroy Group Zhuravlyov, and fend off attempts to relieve the pocket. The overall position of 6th Army became more difficult as the new 1st and 4th Tank Armies entered the fray. Zhuravlyov's force remained hard pressed and late on July 27 Kolpakchi reported:By nightfall the tanks of 13th Tank Corps had driven a deep wedge through the forward defenses of 16th Panzer, despite being reduced to a strength of about 40 vehicles. At 1500 hours on July 28 the 13th Tanks linked up with 40th Tank Brigade and units of the 192nd and 184th Divisions. In desperation, Paulus ordered elements of VIII Corps to move southward both to block any attempt by Group Zhuravlyov to withdraw to the east and to relieve elements of 16th Panzer which were now encircled. A swirling and confused battle continued through the last days of the month. On July 29 Zhuravlyov ordered a breakout to the northeast to link up with 22nd Tank Corps which was reported to be advancing to the rescue. Burdened with 500 wounded and running out of fuel and ammunition, the Group followed the remnants of 13th Tanks in a two-day running battle, finally reaching 4th Tank Army's lines near Oskinskii and Verkhne-Golubaya late on July 31. The total force amounted to 5,000 men, 66 tanks and two artillery regiments. The next day the German forces reported destroying a similar number of tanks in the region and taking 2,000 prisoners. Colonel Zhuravlyov was seriously wounded in the escape, but survived. As of July 30 the 62nd Army reported that 33rd Guards had 5,613 men on its strength, which would suggest that only part of it had been in the pocket.Glantz, To the Gates of Stalingrad, pp. 229-31, 233-34, 236, 239-40, 545. The map of the pocket on page 240 shows only the 84th and 88th Guards Rifle Regiments.
The balance of the division (primarily the 91st Guards Rifle Regiment) remained in 62nd Army's Don bridgehead west of Kalach. From August 1–6 the German 6th Army was forced to stand motionless due to further shortages of fuel. Attacking southward on August 7 from the Maiorovskii region, 30 km northwest of Kalach, multiple battlegroups of 16th Panzer smashed through the defenses of 33rd Guards and 131st Rifle Divisions and reached the northern outskirts of the town by nightfall. The remaining units in the bridgehead fared no better from the tank and infantry onslaught and shortly after dark the 24th Panzer Division linked up with the 16th to complete its encirclement. 33rd Guards took over a defensive sector from units of the 181st Division along a line from Hill 189.9 to Hill 191.2 to Berezovyi. The next day the two panzer divisions began pressing the eastern face of the pocket back towards the west while divisions of the LI, XI Army and XXIV Panzer Corps drove in other sectors of the perimeter. A summary from the headquarters of 62nd Army noted that the current location of the division was unknown. On August 9 the 33rd Guards and 181st were located in the Plesistovskii-Dobrinka region and had been ordered to fight their way to Kalach. By 0400 hours the next morning they had reached to within 22–25 km northwest of this objective, but on August 11 the Army stated it had lost communications with four encircled divisions including 33rd Guards. 6th Army announced the completion of the battle the following day, along with the elimination of eight rifle divisions; Soviet documents indicate that roughly half of the encircled troops managed to escape east across the Don but as of August 20 this included just 48 men of the 91st Guards Regiment.Glantz, To the Gates of Stalingrad, pp. 290-92, 295-98, 302, 557
Defense of the City