60th Guards Rifle Division

rdf:langString 60th Guards Rifle Division

rdf:langString 60th Guards Rifle Division

rdf:langString Pavlograd

rdf:langString Maj. Gen. Dmitrii Petrovich Monakhov

rdf:langString Maj. Gen. Vasilii Pavlovich Sokolov 10px

rdf:langString Infantry

rdf:langString Division

rdf:langString The 60th Guards Rifle Division was formed as an elite infantry division of the Red Army in January, 1943, based on the 2nd formation of the 278th Rifle Division, and served in that role until after the end of the Great Patriotic War. The division was formed in the 3rd Guards Army of Southwestern Front and immediately continued operations in the Soviet winter counteroffensive. In the spring of the year the Front was forced over to the defensive, but by August the division was part of the 1st Guards Army, fighting into the Donbass and towards the Dniepr River, winning a battle honor in the process. From late October into late November the 60th Guards helped force several crossings of that river in the Zaporozhe area and several dozen personnel were awarded the gold star as Heroes of the Soviet Union. During the winter it took part in the fighting around Krivoi Rog in the Dniepr bend, now as part of the 6th Army in the redesignated 3rd Ukrainian Front. In May, 1944 as it reached the Romanian border the division was assigned to the 32nd Rifle Corps of 5th Shock Army and it would remain under those commands for the duration of the war. In August the 60th Guards took part in the offensive that drove Romania out of the Axis and then was moved with its Army northward to join the 1st Belorussian Front. In its third winter offensive it advanced across Poland and eastern Germany to the Oder River, and then continued the assault into the northern sector of Berlin in April, 1945. Following the German surrender the division formed part of the Allied occupation force in the city, including guarding Spandau Prison after the Nuremberg trials. The division was disbanded in December 1946.