Under pressure from the 4th Panzer Group the division commander, Maj. Gen. Nikolai Mikhailovich Glovatsky, requested permission on July 8 to retreat east across the Velikaya River.

A new division began forming in the Gorki Oblast of Moscow Military District in January 1942 based on the shtat of December 6, 1941 and was soon numbered as the second formation of the 118th.

In early August it entered the Sandomierz bridgehead across the Vistula and remained there until the start of the Vistula-Oder Offensive in January 1945 when it broke out and advanced through Poland and into Germany with the rest of 1st Ukrainian Front.

During the Berlin operation the 5th Guards advanced toward Dresden and following the German surrender the 118th was awarded the Order of the Red Banner for its part in the late April battles southeast of that city.

The division began forming at Kostroma in the Moscow Military District according to a decree of the Council of People's Commissars of the Soviet Union dated July 6, 1940.

After delays owing to German air attacks and the general chaos of the time the Corps (which also included the 111th and 235th Rifle Divisions)[2] detrained north and west of Pskov during the first days of July where it was assigned to 11th Army in Northwestern Front.

[3] After falling back from the frontier with its surviving forces on June 25 Northwestern Front began attempting to establish a defense along the Western Dvina River but this was preempted the next morning when the 8th Panzer and 3rd Motorized Divisions arrived along its banks and by nightfall seized a significant bridgehead.

[5] While senior German officers argued over future strategy and their forces struggled to overcome the swampy terrain on both sides of the Velikaya the XXXXI Motorized Corps fended off heavy Soviet counterattacks at Ostrov on July 6–7 and the following day captured Pskov, utterly compromising the remaining Stalin Line defenses and largely isolating the 111th and 118th Divisions on the west bank.

On July 16 Kosobutsky was arrested for unauthorized withdrawal from positions and sentenced to 10 years imprisonment although in the event he would be released in October 1942 and return to corps command.

However, in the confusion following the fall of Pskov the division had moved almost due north along the eastern shore of Lake Peipus, eventually taking up positions near Gdov.

[9] In fighting with the 58th Infantry Division from July 16–20 the 118th was surrounded and forced to break out, in part with the assistance of the Peipus Flotilla, and reached Narva but lost 1,200 men taken prisoner in the process.

[12][3] Most of its remaining forces were transferred to the 48th Rifle Division when Colonel Safronov took command of that unit and would continue holding the Oranienbaum pocket into early 1944.

Its order of battle remained similar to that of the 1st formation with several exceptions: Lt. Col. Andrei Yakovlevich Vedenin was appointed to command the day the division began forming; he would be promoted to full colonel's rank on February 4.

While this date is officially considered the end of the offensive in Soviet sources, in fact bitter fighting continued west of Zubtsov into mid-September.

The situation... was also complicated by the fact that, during their withdrawal, the Hitlerites blew up and burned all the towns and villages along the Vyasma River lines and turned the terrain west of the Dnepr into a "desert" zone.On March 22 reconnaissance discovered that the German 6th and 337th Infantry Divisions had occupied defenses along previously prepared lines at the base of the former salient with full-profile trenches, extensive minefields and barbed wire obstacles.

In July it was assigned to the Moscow Defense Zone, but in August it again boarded trains, this time to Astrakhan at the mouth of the Volga as the German summer offensive rolled across the Caucasus region.

In the late winter and early spring the brigade advanced along the north shore of the Gulf of Taganrog to the Mius River line where it was disbanded to form the new 118th Division.

Lt. Gen. F. Köchling, who had recently arrived from Berlin to take over local command in Crimea, noticed the weakness and agreed to move his meagre forces to provide some defense there and at Perekop.

The commander of the 336th Infantry Division, Maj. Gen. W. Kunze, established a blocking position at Salkove, at the northern entrance to the Chongar, with a battery of four 88mm flak guns and two companies of his antitank battalion, backed by just 100 infantrymen.

Elements of the 347th Rifle Division brushed aside a unit of Luftwaffe field troops and began advancing down the Arabat Spit while the 118th appeared 1.5 km north of the Salkove position.

Five hours passed before Colonel Dobrovolskii responded to this ambush by sending two rifle companies on foot, supported by mortars, against the blocking position, but the result was a desultory exchange of fire for the rest of the afternoon.

The pursuit continued through the rest of the month largely due to deep mud conditions faced by both sides and 5th Shock reached Dudchino by March 1.

Overnight on April 10/11 the STAVKA ordered 3rd Ukrainian Front to mount a concerted offensive to reach the Soviet-Romanian state borders, forcing crossings of the Dniestr River.

9th Corps was deployed on the Army's left (south) wing moving in the direction of Varnița with the support of the 595th Tank Destroyer Regiment and several construction and engineering units.

The Corps commander, Maj. Gen. Ivan Rosly, wrote in his memoirs:We were able to compensate for the many genuine weaknesses in our preparations to force so formidable a water obstacle only by fast action.

The rasputitsa and the lack of roads forced serious alterations in our plans.Roslyi's riflemen gathered up local materials, including wood, furniture and even wooden doors from nearby buildings to construct rafts and makeshift boats.

The 301st and 230th Divisions made additional gains early on April 13 at Hill 65.3 and Varnița and the 118th kept pace, but by then the nature of the battle changed as German artillery fire and airstrikes struck the Corps' forward positions continually and regrouped infantry began counterattacks to drive Roslyi's men back into the river.

By the end of August 3 it had concentrated in the Kolbuszowa region and was ordered to exploit the 3rd Guards Tank and 13th Armies' crossings over the Vistula in the Baranów Sandomierski area.

These fresh troops secured the bridgehead, led to the capture of Sandomierz on August 18 and set the stage for a protracted battle against considerable German forces well into the autumn.

Beginning on February 8 the 5th Guards Army took part in the Front's Lower Silesian Offensive with its main objective of encircling the German garrison of Breslau.