251st Rifle Division (Soviet Union)

251st Rifle Division (June 26, 1941–March, 1947)
Postwar photo of Major General A.A. Volkhin
Active	1941 – 1947
Country	Soviet Union
Branch	Red Army
Type	Division
Role	Infantry
Engagements	Battle of Smolensk (1941) Operation Typhoon Battle of Moscow Battles of Rzhev Battle of Smolensk (1943) Operation Bagration East Prussian Offensive
Commanders
Notable commanders	Col. V.F. Stenin Col. B.B. Gorodovikov Maj. Gen. A.A. Volkhin

The 251st Rifle Division was raised in 1941, within days of the German invasion, as a standard Red Army rifle division, and served for the duration of the Great Patriotic War in that role. Its men escaped encirclement in October and returned to Soviet lines in good enough shape to avoid disbandment. In the following two and a half years the division slogged through the difficult and costly battles around Rzhev and Smolensk before distinguishing itself by assisting in the liberation of the city of Vitebsk in June, 1944.

The division began organizing on June 26, 1941 at Kolomna in the Moscow Military District. It was one of a series of rifle divisions numbered in the 240 - 260 range that were built on cadres taken from the NKVD. Its order of battle was as follows:

Col. Vladimir Filippovich Stenin was named divisional commander, and the division was assigned to 30th Army of Western Front by July 13, less than three weeks after beginning to be formed. On its arrival at the front the unit did not make a favorable impression on the Army commander, Maj. Gen. V.A. Khomenko, who reported on August 5:

... the division is without equipment... no formed [anti-]chemical company... artillery didn't arrive until early August on three trains... 400 NKVD cadre, lots of Party members and Komsomols, but so few and weak horses that the artillery regiment had to move in relays... very little combat power.

30th Army had tried to remedy these faults by assigning a battalion of 21 tanks from the 110th Tank Division to the 251st, but by the date of the above report only one of these tanks remained, and the division had also lost 3,898 officers and men killed, wounded or missing; the 919th and 923rd Rifle Regiments were down to just 247 and 379 men, respectively, due to the heavy fighting around Smolensk.

Beginning on August 25, Western Front began a series of counterattacks known as the Dukhovshchina Offensive against the overstretched forces of German Army Group Center. Along with the rest of its Army, the 251st drove against elements of German Ninth Army, in particular 35th Infantry Division, in and near the village of Gorodno, and while making some minor gains and inflicting losses on the invaders, these attacks were very costly and were shut down by September 10 along the whole front.