The 101st Rifle Division was a unit of the Soviet Red Army initially formed as a mountain rifle division on 28 August 1938 within the 2nd Separate Red Banner Army in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky city.

According to the Soviet General Staff order of battle study it was converted to a regular rifle division in December 1941 but the Personnel Department's list of commanders shows it as a rifle division from October 1940 to the end of the war.

It remained on Sakhalin Island for the duration of the war, apart from the Soviet invasion of Manchuria.

From 15 January 1945 the division was included in the composition of the Northern Group of Forces of the Far Eastern Front and subordinated to the Kamchatka Defense Area[3] of the Front (Russian: Камчатский Оборонительный район (КОР) ДВФ).

[4] For exemplary fulfillment of assignments and displaying combat mastery during the taking of the islands Shumshu and Paramushir in the course of the Kuril Landing operation, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, declared by order of NKO No.