At the opening of Operation Barbarossa it was in the Leningrad Military District where it had formed near the Finnish border but was soon moved south to defend against German Army Group North.

[12] A new division, originally numbered as the 455th, began forming at Stalinsk in the Siberian Military District on December 3, 1941, based on the shtat of July 29, but on January 13, 1942 it was redesignated as the 2nd formation of the 237th.

[20] The 237th began moving west again in the late afternoon toward Lomovo, again without adequate transport and under occasional air attack, both of which slowed the march to roughly 5-6km per hour.

A gap appeared at the boundary of the two leading regiments due to a resistance nest in the woods north of Vysochkino which had stymied the 284th and 340th Divisions in the previous days.

The last effort was made on the left flank of the 835th Regiment when its 1st Battalion attempted to overcome the position north of Vysochkino, attacking the western fringe of the woods:The commander... [Sen. Lt. Yushchenkov] and his headquarters particularly stood out in the fighting.

By contrast the commander of the 835th submitted a pessimistic and alarming report at day's end:... the 1st and 3rd Battalions ran into a fortified area, suffered enormous losses, and the neighbor on the right retreated.

Overnight a directive arrived from Chibisov's headquarters informing Tertyshnyi that his 841st Regiment was being withdrawn to the operational group reserve, while the division's objectives remained unchanged.

[23] Just as dawn was breaking the next day the poorly-prepared positions of the 237th came under repeated air attacks from 9-12 Luftwaffe bombers each, soon accompanied by German artillery and mortar fire.

The experienced commander of the 284th Division, Col. N. F. Batyuk, saw this buildup as well and noted its openly intimidating nature, observing, "All the enemy's actions were designed to affect morale."

The first frontal attack was repulsed and the enemy, suffering losses, began to envelop the battalions from the flanks, having left behind a small screening force in front.

However, the dawn caught his division scattered all over the map, from Kamenka and Ozerki in the west to Khlevnoe and Kon Kolodez in the east, already on the left bank of the Don.

The 841st's chief of staff returned to the regiment but the commander and commissar were still missing; the latter showed up around noon but Major Dudkin did not appear until two days later, having fled across the Don.

In addition, several tank brigades were located there - the congestion of men and machines was extraordinary.Into this chaos a group of German bombers raided the village at 0500 and although casualties were light the panic was described as "appalling".

The commander of the 7th Tanks noted that the morale of the 237th was still very shaky: "Given the slightest attack by enemy aircraft, they ran away in panic, as happened on 29.7.42 when they fled from Hill 199.8 to Kamenka...

"[29] On August 4 Tertyshnyi was reassigned to command of the 161st Rifle Division; he would be promoted to the rank of major general in January 1943 and would be made a Hero of the Soviet Union during the Dniepr River battles.

Moreover, there remained an Axis group of 30,000-35,000 men east of Gorshechnoe still attempting to break out of the encirclement and the 237th, along with four other rifle divisions and one brigade, were tied down in fighting with it.

Despite this assistance the 232nd and 167th Divisions were threatened with encirclement and began pulling back, allowing all three Axis groupings to withdraw through Manturovo in the direction of Solntsevo.

The 237th, along with the 96th Tank Brigade, was ordered to attack at dawn from the line Pogozhee–Lisii Kolodez in the direction of Manturovo with the task of capturing it by day's end and thus cutting the escape route to Solntsevo.

Chibisov now ordered his forces to encircle and destroy the Axis garrison of that town in preparation for a renewed offensive on Sumy, 100 km to the southwest.

The 40th's shock group attacked at 0715 hours, following a two-hour artillery preparation against the positions of the German 57th Infantry Division, which had been severely damaged in the Kastornoye pocket months before.

Its resistance was soon crushed; the two Soviet armies broke through along a 26km-wide sector and by the end of the day had advanced from 8km-12km, reaching a line from Starosele to Kasilovo to Ivanovskaya Lisitsa to Nikitskoye despite counterattacks by 11th Panzer Division which were beaten off.

Following a 50-minute artillery and air bombardment the combined forces of the three Armies broke through the German defense and advanced 10–12km, reaching a line from Bezdrik to Velikii Istorop.

The 40th's right-flank forces, having defeated the German Lebedyn grouping and having gone over to an energetic offensive, advanced during the day to the southwest along the Psel River to a depth of 35km and captured Veprik.

During the next weeks the defeated German forces fell back through Ukraine as a race developed to reach the crossing points along the Dniepr River.

On September 23 General Moskalenko wrote to his 47th and 52nd Corps: "The Dnepr River must be forced in the most favorable places, without regard for boundary lines and available crossing equipment."

On the same day units of the 52nd Corps, including the division, began crossing northwest and southeast of Rzhyshchiv near Staiki, Grebeni and Shchuchinka but only with infantry and at a slow pace.

[54] One of the first 13 soldiers of the 835th Rifle Regiment to reach the west bank of the river was Sanitar (medic) Mariya Zakharovna Shcherbachenko, doing so under heavy enemy fire in the village of Grebeni.

The Army was committed to a pinning attack out of the Bukryn area; this diversion began the same day with 40 minutes of artillery and airstrikes and the Corps was able to take the village of Kanada.

The fighting continued into November 5 and achieved little more than drawing the 2nd SS out of reserve but by the next day it was clear that Kyiv was about to be liberated from Lyutezh and the 40th and 27th Armies were ordered to maintain the impression of a coming attack with false troop concentrations and dummy tanks.

The troops who participated in the liberation of Košice and nearby towns, by the order of the Supreme High Command of 20 January 1945, and a commendation in Moscow, are given a salute of 20 artillery salvoes from 224 guns.