page_title: 33rd Guards Rifle Division
section_title: Into Ukraine and Crimea
hierarchical_section_title: 33rd Guards Rifle Division / Into Ukraine and Crimea
caption_attribution_description: English: Red Army soldiers near Saur-Mogila during World War 2.
context_page_description: 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 It was withdrawn east of the Volga in September, but returned to the front with the 2nd Guards Army in December, and it remained in this Army until early 1945.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 and in the spring of 1944 assisted in the liberation of the Crimea, earning a battle honor in the process.
context_section_description: The 33rd Guards spent the spring of the year rebuilding along the Mius front. On April 17 General Utvenko was assigned to command of the 31st Guards Rifle Corps and was replaced three days later by Maj. Gen. Nikolai Ivanovich Seliverstov. On July 17 the Southern and Southwestern Fronts began a new offensive against the German positions on the Mius but the initial gains were soon lost to counterattacks. The defenses here had been well-organized and strengthened off-and-on since December, 1941 and were very difficult to break. On July 30, as the offensive was winding down, General Seliverstov's observation point near Hill 277.9 (called Saur-Mogila) was discovered by German artillery observers and heavily shelled. Seliverstov was mortally wounded in the attack and died during air evacuation to a hospital. He was briefly replaced in command by Lt. Col. Mitrofan Afanasevich Kuzenkov on August 2, then by Col. Dmitrii Vasilevich Makarov on the 14th. At about this time 30 percent of the division's personnel were noted as being of Bashkir nationality.
  On August 16 Southern Front again attacked the rebuilt German 6th Army along the Mius and finally broke through. Over the next month the 2nd Guards Army drove west through the southeastern Ukraine. On September 17 Col. Nikolai Stepanovich Ugriumov took command of the division from Colonel Makarov; Ugriumov had been made a Hero of the Soviet Union in 1939 for his exploits on the first day of the Winter War with Finland. On October 30 elements of the renamed 4th Ukrainian Front reached the entrance to the Perekop Isthmus and the Axis 17th Army was soon isolated by land in the Crimea. Over the following months the two sides sparred for the several crossing points and the 56th Army created a bridgehead in the Kerch area. At the start of April, 1944 the 2nd Guards Army was given command of all the forces in the Perekop sector in preparation for the final assault into the peninsula.
  The offensive began at 0800 hours on April 8 with a two-and-a-half hour artillery preparation by 2nd Guards and by 51st Army from its bridgehead across the Syvash. The 2nd Guards commander, Army Gen. G. F. Zakharov made the assault using relatively novel tactics. He led with just his 13th Guards Corps, with artillery-delivered smoke rounds, flame-throwing tanks and heavy self-propelled guns in support. Despite losses the attack tore a large hole in the German line, and 1st Guards Corps was fed into the breach. By 1600 hours the next day the German line finally broke. After an outflanking landing by elements of the 387th Rifle Division the German Gruppe Konrad began a costly retreat to its second line at Ishun, which was already untenable and soon fell, giving the Soviet forces complete access to the Crimea. On April 14, as the 33rd Guards took part in the pursuit of the Axis forces towards Sevastopol, Colonel Ugriumov was wounded and had to be hospitalised; two days later Col. Pavel Mikhailovich Volosatykh was moved from command of the 263rd Rifle Division of 51st Army to take over command. This officer would be made a Hero of the Soviet Union on May 16 and was promoted to the rank of major general the following day. Another soldier of the division, Sr. Sgt. Gabdelahat Gabdelganeevich Valiev, a squad leader of the 1st Company of the 91st Guards Regiment, would be posthumously made a Hero of the Soviet Union on the same day for his gallantry in the fighting near Belbek.
caption: Soviet soldiers near Saur-Mogila
exif: {}