The 7th Rifle Division was an

infantry Infantry is a military specialization which engages in ground combat on foot. Infantry generally consists of light infantry, mountain infantry, motorized infantry & mechanized infantry, airborne infantry, air assault infantry, and marine i ...

division Division or divider may refer to: Mathematics *Division (mathematics), the inverse of multiplication *Division algorithm, a method for computing the result of mathematical division Military *Division (military), a formation typically consisting ...

of the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army (Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and, after ...

, formed twice.

History

The division was first formed in September 1918 at

Vladimir Vladimir may refer to: Names * Vladimir (name) for the Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Macedonian, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovak and Slovenian spellings of a Slavic name * Uladzimir for the Belarusian version of the name * Volodymyr for the Ukr ...

in the

Moscow Military District The Order of Lenin Moscow Military District was a military district of the Soviet Armed Forces and the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. The district was awarded the Order of Lenin in 1968. In 2010 it was merged with the Leningrad Military Di ...

. After reorganisation, probably as part of forming new divisions, the division was re-formed for the second time in August 1939 at Poltava in the

Kiev Special Military District Kyiv, also spelled Kiev, is the capital and most populous city of Ukraine. It is in north-central Ukraine along the Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2021, its population was 2,962,180, making Kyiv the seventh-most populous city in Europe. Kyi ...

. In September–October, 1939 the division took part in the

Soviet invasion of Poland (1939) The Soviet invasion of Poland was a military operation by the Soviet Union without a formal declaration of war. On 17 September 1939, the Soviet Union invaded Poland from the east, 16 days after Nazi Germany invaded Poland from the west. Subse ...

as part of the

6th Rifle Corps The 6th Rifle Corps () was a rifle corps of the Soviet Union's Red Army and later the Soviet Army, formed three different times. The corps was first formed in 1922, and spent most of the interwar period headquartered at Odessa. It fought in the ...

, 6th Army, Ukrainian Front. From the Kiev Special MD it was sent to

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...

around the middle of January 1940 during the Soviet invasion in Finland. The division arrived in Perkjärvi around the end of January or the start of February and moved to lake Mikkilänjärvi. From 3 February 1940 it joined the 50th Rifle Corps, and advanced with the Corps from 13.02.1940 as part of the 7th Army. It was then shifted to the 10th Rifle Corps about 20 February 1940, on th
Summa-Hotinen
direction. It was then shifted again, to the 34th Rifle Corps in February–March and awarded the

Order of the Red Banner The Order of the Red Banner (russian: Орден Красного Знамени, Orden Krasnogo Znameni) was the first Soviet military decoration. The Order was established on 16 September 1918, during the Russian Civil War by decree of th ...

. Returned to the Kiev Special Military District in April 1940, it participated in the

Soviet occupation of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina The Soviet occupation of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina took place from June 28 to July 3, 1940, as a result of an ultimatum by the Soviet Union to Romania on June 26, 1940, that threatened the use of force. Bessarabia had been part of the Ki ...

in June–July 1940. In August 1940 it was reformed as the 7th Motorized Division. During the Soviet-Finnish campaign the division consisted of the 27th, 257th, and 300th Rifle Regiments, the 23rd Reconnaissance Battalion, and the 405th Separate Tank Battalion. Fighting as part of the

8th Mechanized Corps The 8th Mechanized Corps, was a mechanized corps of the Soviet Ground Forces. It was destroyed in 1941 in the beginning of Operation Barbarossa. The formation of the 8th Mechanized Corps began on June 4, 1940. The commander was General Lieutenant ...

, 26th Army, Southwestern Front, from June 1941, the division was decimated in attempting to halt the German advance. It was engaged in the Lutsk-Rovno area soon after the German invasion began. The division was reformed on 27 December 1941 for the third time from remnants of the 22nd Estonian Territorial Rifle Corps. It was reformed at Sverdlovsk in the Ural MD in 1942, as an

Estonia Estonia, formally the Republic of Estonia, is a country by the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, a ...

n national formation, which later joined the

8th Estonian Rifle Corps The 8th Estonian Rifle Corps (2nd formation) (russian: 8-й Эстонский стрелковый корпус, et, 8. Eesti Laskurkorpus) was a formation in the Red Army, created on 6 November 1942, during World War II. An 8th Rifle Corps ...

of the Red Army. It took part in operations from 7 November 1942 as part of the

3rd Third or 3rd may refer to: Numbers * 3rd, the ordinal form of the cardinal number 3 * , a fraction of one third * Second#Sexagesimal divisions of calendar time and day, 1⁄60 of a ''second'', or 1⁄3600 of a ''minute'' Places * 3rd Street (d ...

, 1st Shock,

8th 8 (eight) is the natural number following 7 and preceding 9. In mathematics 8 is: * a composite number, its proper divisors being , , and . It is twice 4 or four times 2. * a power of two, being 2 (two cubed), and is the first number of t ...

and 42nd Armies. Its first combat was the

Battle of Velikiye Luki The Battle of Velikiye Luki, also named Velikiye Luki offensive operation (russian: Великолукская наступательная операция), started with the attack by the forces of the Red Army's Kalinin Front against the We ...

. On 1 December 1942 it was part of the 8th Rifle Corps, subordinated directly to the

Kalinin Front The Kalinin Front was a major formation of the Red Army active in the Eastern Front of World War II, named for the city of Kalinin. It was formally established by Stavka directive on 17 October 1941 and allocated three armies: 22nd, 29th Army a ...

alongside other Estonian formations. On 22 September 1944 elements of the division, along with the 45th Estonian Tank Regiment and the 952nd SU Regiment ( SU-76s), formed the forward detachment of 8th Rifle Corps and captured

Tallinn Tallinn () is the most populous and capital city of Estonia. Situated on a bay in north Estonia, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland of the Baltic Sea, Tallinn has a population of 437,811 (as of 2022) and administratively lies in the Harju ' ...

, for which all three units received the name of that city as a battle honor. The 7th Estonian Rifle Division was with 1st Shock Army of the Kurland Group (

Leningrad Front The Leningrad Front (russian: Ленинградский фронт) was formed during the 1941 German approach on Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg) by dividing the Northern Front into the Leningrad Front and Karelian Front The Karelian Front ...

) in May 1945. On 28.06.1945 it became the 118th Guards Rifle Division by NKO Order № 0126. Feskov et al. 2013 does not, despite earlier publications, list the division among those reformed in the 1950s.Feskov et al 2013, p.150, Table 4.1.5, contradicting Feskov et al 2004 and, through translation, Avanzini and Crofoot, 'Armies of the Bear'.

Honorifics and awards

*22.10.1944 Awarded the honorific "Tallinn" *16.12.1944 Awarded the

Notes

External links

*http://rodstvo.ru/forum/index.php?showtopic=13751 *See also http://samsv.narod.ru/Div/Sd/sd007/default.html. {{Soviet Union divisions before 1945, state=collapsed 007 Military units and formations established in 1918 1918 establishments in Russia Military units and formations of the Soviet Union in the Winter War