As the offensive continued, it took part in the partial encirclement and elimination of a German division near Lake Peipus and was recognized for this feat with the Order of the Red Banner.

During the summer offensive in 1944 that drove Finland out of the war, the 224th, now in 59th Army, played a leading role in amphibious landings on several islands in Vyborg Bay.

While technically this could be considered a pre-war division, since it had a commander assigned on June 1, 1941, it does not appear in the official Red Army order of battle until September 1.

In the first echelon of the operation five different transport groups would land a total of 7,500 troops from the 224th and the 302nd Mountain Rifle Division on separate beaches north and south of Kerch.

[6] On the evening of December 25 elements of the 224th and the 83rd Naval Infantry Brigade loaded aboard small craft on the Taman Peninsula to cross the near-frozen Kerch Strait.

Group Two, heading for Cape Khroni, 7 km (4.3 mi) northeast of Kerch, consisted of the gunboat Don, the transports Krasny Flot and Pyenay, a tugboat, two self-propelled barges that carried three T-26 tanks and some artillery, and 16 small fishing trawlers.

Lacking purpose-built landing craft the Azov Flotilla was forced to use whaleboats to transfer troops from the transports to the shore, a tedious and difficult process under the circumstances.

At the landing point 697 soldiers of the 2nd Battalion of 160th Rifle Regiment managed to reach shore by 0630 hours on December 26, but a number of men drowned while wading ashore through the surf or became hypothermia casualties.

[7] By midday the Army had five separate beachheads on the north side of the Kerch Peninsula containing barely 3,000 half-frozen and lightly armed soldiers who generally moved 1–2 km (0.62–1.24 mi) inland before digging in against expected German counterattacks.

However, the German Air Force soon arrived, sinking the cargo ship Voroshilov with 450 soldiers aboard, while a further 100 were lost when a vessel of Group Two was bombed near Cape Zyuk.

The isolated regimental and battalion commanders of the 224th, with little or no communications between them or with higher headquarters, decided to wait for the arrival of the rest of the division and the follow-on 83rd Brigade before advancing inland.

The landings by 302nd Mountain Division south of Kerch on December 26 were opposed by the 46th Infantry's 42nd Regiment and largely failed, apart from 2,175 who got ashore at Kamysh Burun.

[8] The commander of the 46th Infantry, Lt. Gen. K. Himer, ordered elements of his reserve 97th Regiment to counterattack the beachhead at Cape Zyuk but due to bad road conditions they were not in position until 1300 hours on December 27.

[9] A second wave of Soviet landings took place farther west on December 29, and the city of Feodosiya, which had been held by a battalion of the 97th Regiment, was liberated by units of the 44th Army.

The division force-marched 125 km (78 mi) through a snowstorm over December 30-31 toward the Corps headquarters northwest of Feodosiya, abandoning vehicles due to fuel shortages and with its heavy equipment lagging behind.

[11] On January 29 Colonel Degtyarev handed his command to Col. Mikhail Ivanovich Menshikov, but this officer was in turn replaced by Col. Valerian Sergeevich Dzabakhidze on February 10.

From February 27 to April 11 Crimean Front launched a series of efforts to break out west of Parpach toward Sevastopol but these had little result beyond heavy Soviet casualties.

Operation Trappenjagd would initially target the 44th Army, which was defending a sector about 6 km (3.7 mi) long with five rifle divisions and two tank brigades.

The battle quickly became a disaster for the Red Army; on May 15 a regiment of the German 170th Infantry Division covered more than 80 km (50 mi) to retake Kerch.

Over the next two days the surrounded Soviet troops came under heavy artillery and air attacks which reduced them to a formless mob, 170,000 eventually being made prisoners.

[14] Colonel Dzabakhidze survived the debacle, going on to command the 406th and 414th Rifle Divisions before the end of the war and being promoted to the rank of major general in November 1943.

Overnight on January 19/20 mobile units of 2nd Shock and 42nd Armies linked up in the Ropsha region as demoralized German troops filtered through their lines.

116th and 123rd Corps regrouped during February 6-8 and prepared to assault southeastward toward the Luga–Pskov railroad but their advance the next day ran into the German counterattack force, most of which had not yet reached its designated positions.

The new commander of Army Group North, Field Marshal W. Model, ordered the 13th Luftwaffe and 12th Panzer Divisions to go to the rescue of the 58th, whose 220th Infantry Regiment was now also encircled in the Zovka region.

[28] What the STAVKA intended to be the final offensive against Finland had begun on June 10 and ten days later the combined 21st and 23rd Armies of Leningrad Front occupied the city of Vyborg (Viipuri).

[31] The Finns had already erected defenses along the north coast of the Bay in expectation of an assault and these were manned by the 2nd Coastal Brigade and elements of V Army Corps.

Colonel Burmistrov's three rifle regiments were to land simultaneously on Teikar-saari, Suonion-saari and Ravan-saari after embarking at Khannukkola and Iokhannes late on July 3.

Despite losing several small vessels the Finns managed to land a reinforced infantry battalion between 1900 and 2400 hours and by the latter time the 160th had been driven to the island's southern end.

[35] By the end of the same day the 224th was fighting for Turkin-saari and Musta-saari as the remainder of the 124th cleared further islands in the bay, prompting the Finnish command to shore up its coastal defenses southwest of Vyborg.

Meanwhile, the Leningrad Front commander, Marshal L. A. Govorov, ordered the Baltic Fleet to prepare another amphibious assault along this coast on July 12 with the three divisions of 43rd Corps.