The 69th Guards Red Banner Rifle Division () was a infantry division of the Soviet Ground Forces.
It was formed as an elite infantry division of the Red Army in February 1943, based on the 2nd formation of the 120th Rifle Division, and served in that role until after the end of the Great Patriotic War.
It originally served in the Stalingrad Group of Forces, mopping up in the ruins of that city after the Axis surrender there before eventually being assigned to the 21st Guards Rifle Corps of 4th Guards Army and moving north to the Kursk area in the Steppe Military District. The division would remain under these Corps and Army commands, with short exceptions, for the duration of the war. It entered combat during the Belgorod-Kharkov Offensive in August and continued fighting toward the Dnieper River and Kiev during the autumn and early winter. In early 1944 it took part in the encirclement battle at Korsun-Shevchenkivskyi and was soon rewarded with a battle honor. The 69th Guards then fought its way to the Dniester River where it took part in two offensives, the second of which in August finally took the city of Iași; this victory won the division the Order of the Red Banner. Now that Romania had been driven out of the Axis the division's combat path moved into the Balkans. The 69th Guards spent the remainder of the war fighting in Hungary and Austria; its regiments would all receive recognition for their roles in the battles for Budapest as they advanced into Austria. After the war the division remained in the Southern Group of Forces and in 1953 was converted to the 70th Guards Rifle Division.
1st Formation The 120th was redesignated as the 69th Guards on 6 February, shortly after the German surrender at Stalingrad, and officially received its Guards banner on April 21. Once the division completed its reorganization its order of battle was as follows: 204th Guards Rifle Regiment (from 289th Rifle Regiment) 206th Guards Rifle Regiment (from 538th Rifle Regiment) 208th Guards Rifle Regiment (from 543rd Rifle Regiment) 139th Guards Artillery Regiment (from 1033rd Artillery Regiment)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, p. 72 75th Guards Antitank Battalion 71st Guards Reconnaissance Company 79th Guards Sapper Battalion 97th Guards Signal Battalion 73rd Guards Medical/Sanitation Battalion 70th Guards Chemical Defense (Anti-gas) Company 68th Guards Motor Transport Company 72nd Guards Field Bakery 67th Guards Divisional Veterinary Hospital 1974th Field Postal Station 1155th Field Office of the State Bank Col. Kirill Kocheevich Dzhakhua, who had commanded the 120th since October 27, 1942 remained in command; he would be promoted to the rank of major general on March 1 and would lead the division for the duration of the war.http://www.generals.dk mistakenly states that Dzhakhua commanded the 60th Guards Rifle Division. The division had been in the 57th Army on February 1 but was then transferred to 21st Army and shortly after to the Stalingrad Group of Forces where it remained until March 1.David M. Glantz, Endgame at Stalingrad, Book Two, University Press of Kansas, Lawrence, KS, 2014, p. 575
Into Ukraine After leaving the Stalingrad Group the 69th Guards was reassigned to the 24th Army in the Reserve of the Supreme High Command. In April it was subordinated to the new 21st Guards Rifle Corps along with the 68th Guards and 84th Rifle Divisions as the 24th became the 4th Guards Army within the Steppe Military District. The division remained under these commands and in roughly the same area east of the Kursk salient until early August.Combat Composition of the Soviet Army, 1943, pp. 73, 96, 121, 147, 175, 206
Following the defeat of the German Zitadelle offensive, the 4th Guards Army, under command of Lt. Gen. G. I. Kulik and still in reserve, was concentrating in the area of Chernyanka, Orlik and Loznoe on 23 July. By 17 August the Army had been assigned to Army Gen. N. F. Vatutin's Voronezh Front and was now concentrated in the area from Yamnoye to Novaya Ryabina to Yablochnoye. As the Front pressed on towards Kharkov panzer forces of Army Group South counterattacked in the area of Akhtyrka and Vatutin received orders to eliminate this grouping to ward off the possible isolation of 27th Army. These orders were passed to the 27th, the 4th and 6th Guards and 1st Tank Armies. 4th Guards initially committed two divisions of its 20th Guards Rifle Corps to this effort and by 20 August the German riposte was brought to a halt. The Army was tasked with attacking toward Kotelva the following day; by 27 August it had reached the Vorskla River and captured Kotelva.Soviet General Staff, The Battle of Kursk, ed. & trans. R. W. Harrison, Helion & Co., Ltd., Solihull, UK, 2016, Kindle ed., Book 2, ch. 2
By 9 September the 69th Guards was advancing towards the Dniepr southwest of Zenkov in the Poltava region. A squad of 11 men of the 206th Guards Rifle Regiment, led by Jr. Lt. Museib Bagir oglu Bagirov, captured a tactically important height before being subjected to counterattacks. Armed with a sniper rifle, Bagirov was credited with killing or wounding 28 German soldiers, after which he destroyed a German artillery piece and its crew with an antitank grenade. Despite being surrounded, and in spite of his own wound, Bagirov's men held the height for more than 24 hours, knocking out three armored vehicles and inflicting up to an additional 250 casualties. On 22 February 1944 Bagirov was made a Hero of the Soviet Union. After his recovery in hospital he rejoined his regiment, fought through to the end of the war and died in 1981.http://www.warheroes.ru/hero/hero.asp?Hero_id=4452. In Russian; English translation available. Retrieved August 23, 2020.
Battles for the Dnieper On 20 September the division was recorded as having a strength of 5,048 personnel, supported by 44 guns of 76mm and 122mm calibre plus 81 medium and heavy mortars. As of 22 September Voronezh Front was attacking along three axes. On the left (south) flank the 4th Guards and 52nd Armies were advancing along a line through the Kozelshchyna Raion in the direction of Kremenchug while the Front's 3rd Guards Tank Army reached the Dniepr at Zarubintsy. 4th Guards also reached the river on 28 September but had to temporarily go over to the defense on the east bank. In a STAVKA directive (No. 30203) issued the next day the 52nd and 4th Guards Armies were transferred to Steppe Front to the south.Soviet General Staff, The Battle of the Dnepr, ed. & trans. R. W. Harrison, Helion & Co., Ltd., Solihull, UK, 2018, pp. 27-29, 46, 49, 182-83
On 6 October the 69th Guards began its crossing operations in the Svitlovodsk area near Kirovograd. One of the first men over was Guardsman Mikhail Stepanovich Tsyganov, 4th Company, 2nd Battalion of the 208th Guards Rifle Regiment. His unit first had to capture a defended nameless island near the west bank; after helping to secure the German trenches Tsyganov forded the river channel and carried a red flag through heavy small arms and artillery fire before planting it on a small hill just inland, inspiring the comrades of his company to follow his example. On 22 February 1944 Krasnoarmeets Tsyganov would be made a Hero of the Soviet Union. Postwar he worked in several responsible positions until his health forced him to retire in 1955 but he lived until 2001.http://www.warheroes.ru/hero/hero.asp?Hero_id=5574. In Russian; English translation available. Retrieved August 24, 2020. During the same crossing operation Cpt. Vasilii Alekseevich Zhukov, commander of a battalion of the 204th Guards Rifle Regiment, led his men in the assault on the unnamed island and cleared it before continuing to the west bank. In the battles for the bridgehead that followed over the next days Zhukov led several counterattacks which resulted in the destruction of 10 German armored vehicles and up to one-and-a-half battalions of infantry. This officer also became a Hero of the Soviet Union on 22 February. In peacetime he worked in mechanical engineering before he died in 1957.http://www.warheroes.ru/hero/hero.asp?Hero_id=7672. In Russian; English translation available. Retrieved August 24, 2020.
Following these crossing operations the 20th and 21st Guards Corps remained holding a bridgehead northwest of Kremenchug facing the German 320th Infantry Division but it was not given any priority for expansion and in fact on 18 October the 8th Guards Airborne and 80th Guards Rifle Divisions were removed from 4th Guards Army and moved south, leaving the Army with just three divisions under command and the 69th Guards alone in 21st Guards Corps; this situation continued into December.Combat Composition of the Soviet Army, 1943, pp. 250, 279, 308 On 20 October Steppe Front was renamed 2nd Ukrainian. Meanwhile, during mid-October the center armies of the Front had driven south from bridgeheads farther to the southeast, liberated Pyatikhatka, and continued as far as Krivoi Rog, although they were forced to fall back from the latter. This advance allowed the 4th Guards Army to substantially expand its bridgehead between Kremenchug and Cherkassy. By 20 November, the 2nd and 3rd Ukrainian Fronts were involved in a joint offensive along the Kirovograd axis.Soviet General Staff, The Battle of the Dnepr, pp. 163, 244
Korsun–Cherkassy Pocket On this date the 1st Panzer Army reported that its infantry strength had fallen to the lowest tolerable level and Cherkassy was threatened with encirclement. The fighting through the first three weeks of December was largely attritional in nature but around the middle of the month the German line north of Krivoi Rog gave way and soon 2nd Ukrainian Front had cleared the west bank of the Dniepr north to Cherkassy.Earl F. Ziemke, Stalingrad to Berlin, Center of Military History United States Army, Washington, DC, 1968, pp. 188-89 By 1 January 1944 the 4th Guards Army had been restored to a strength of five divisions and the 21st Guards Corps had the 69th Guards and the 138th Rifle Division under command.Combat Composition of the Soviet Army, 1944, p. 17 The Kirovograd Offensive began on January 5 and involved four armies, although the 4th Guards was in a secondary role, and the city was liberated three days later. The advance to the northwest continued until 16 January by which time the German XI and XXXXII Army Corps, holding the last sector of the Dniepr line, were deeply enveloped. On 25 January the 4th Guards Army, which was still rebuilding in strength, plunged into the front of the German 8th Army southwest of Cherkassy and was helping set the stage for a classic double envelopment in conjunction with two mobile corps of 6th Tank Army attacking from the north. On the afternoon of 28 January the encirclement was closed in conjunction with forces of 1st Ukrainian Front, 56,000 German troops were trapped, and the 69th Guards helped form the inner ring of the encircling forces.Ziemke, Stalingrad to Berlin, pp. 219, 224-29 Before the German relief attempt began on 4 February, as the Army was establishing an outer ring of encirclement, the division was awarded an honorific:The fighting for the Korsun–Cherkassy pocket continued until 16 February by which time about 30,000 German troops had managed to escape, roughly half of those originally encircled.Ziemke, Stalingrad to Berlin, pp. 228, 237
Battles on the Dniestr