It was based on the shtat (table of organization and equipment) of July 29, 1941, and remained forming up and training in Far Eastern Front until early November when the strategic situation west of Moscow required it to be moved by rail to Tula Oblast where it became encircled in the last throes of the German offensive and suffered losses in the following breakout.

As the offensive continued it took part in the fighting for Belyov and Sukhinichi before being subordinated to the 1st Guards Cavalry Corps in January 1942 to provide infantry support.

[2] On June 22 the 239th was stationed at Iman; in his memoirs Colonel Martirosyan stated that a large part of the division's cadre was recruited from Novosibirsk and Krasnoyarsk.

It was offloaded at Kuibyshev, where most of the Soviet government had been evacuated from Moscow, and paraded in the central square on November 7 in honor of the 24th anniversary of the October Revolution.

In connection with a breakthrough on the 299th Rifle Division's front, it began falling back to the north under pressure from tank units of 2nd Panzer Army.

A division-sized supporting attack from the Zaraysk and Kolomna area will move through Serebryanye Prudy in the direction of Venyov and Kurakovo.The beginning of the offensive from the jumping-off point is slated for the morning of December 6.Overall, the Army was deployed along a frontage about 100km in width.

0106/op which laid down the following task for 10th Army: launch its main blow in the direction of Bogoroditsk, Plavsk, and Arsenevo and, in cooperation with the 1st Guards Cavalry, to destroy the German grouping in the area Uzlovaya–Bogoroditsk–Plavsk by the end of December 16.

The fighting for Belyov proper began on the morning of December 27; it had been transformed into a powerful fortified defensive area equipped with a considerable amount of artillery, mortars and machine guns.

The next day it joined the 324th in the fighting for that place, but the initial frontal attack ended unsuccessfully, as did the succeeding efforts that continued until January 5.

The 1st Guards Cavalry Corps, which had failed to take Yukhnov earlier, turned toward Mosalsk on January 8, which it was to capture in conjunction with 10th Army.

Between February 17 and 23 additional airborne troops were dropped to link up with 50th Army in order to assist its attack in the direction of Vyazma, but this proved unsuccessful.

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.

In the planning for Operation Mars a directive was sent on September 28/29 from the command of Western Front to 31st Army, "consisting of the 88th, 239th, 336th and 20th Guards Rifle Divisions, the 32nd and 145th Tank Brigades... [to advance] along the Osuga, Artemovo, and Ligastaevo axis."

The offensive finally began on November 25 when the Army's shock group, consisting of the above forces minus the 20th Guards, attacked the German 102nd Infantry Division.

It was intended to link up with the shock group of Leningrad Front, 67th Army, near Sinyavino and then protect the reconstruction of the rail line along the Ladoga Canal, restoring normal ground communications between the besieged city and the country as a whole.

However, the forested swampy terrain spring conditions, the absence of roads, inadequate intelligence data about the enemy, especially concerning his system of fires in the depths of the first defensive belt, created definite difficulties in planning the employment of artillery, tanks and aviation.

Despite heavy rain which prevented any air support, the group reached the rail line east of Turyshkino Station before being halted by hastily assembled German reinforcements.

Despite the initial failure, Marshal Zhukov insisted the attacks continue through the rest of March, including the commitment of the second echelon formations, but further gains were marginal.

By this time one soldier of the 132nd Infantry wrote that his division was "reduced by casualties and exhausted to the point of incoherence", but losses on the Soviet side were also heavy.

Later in the day the two tank brigades, along with the 239th, approached the Chudovo-Novgorod road and engaged a regiment of the 24th Infantry Division, forced it back, and cut a vital rail line.

[35] On January 17, despite bad weather, difficult terrain and lack of transport, the 59th Army was clearly threatening to encircle the German XXXVIII Corps at Novgorod.

The advance turned into a slugfest in difficult terrain as the troops waded forward in waist-deep water, with artillery and tanks lagging far behind.

The Army was now ordered to capture the German strongpoint at Strugi Krasnye on February 24 prior to breaching the central part of the Pskov-Ostrov fortified zone (Panther Line) in March.

After reaching the Panther Line the 67th began making preparations to penetrate it, but by this point, after 45 days of almost continuous combat, most of its rifle divisions had decreased in strength to 2,500 - 3,500 personnel each.

[43] Colonel Ordanovskii was wounded and hospitalized on July 26; after he recovered in November he went on to lead the 85th and 173rd Rifle Divisions but was killed in East Prussia in March 1945.

[48] This Army was part of the force containing the German units trapped in the Courland Pocket, but as this was increasingly a backwater the division could be more profitably employed elsewhere.

[50] On February 24, immediately following the Lower Silesian Offensive, the Front commander, Marshal I. S. Konev, presented his plan for subsequent operations.

Upon the arrival of the Front's main group of forces in the Neisse area the 59th and 60th Armies were to develop the attack from the bridgehead north of Ratibor to the west and southwest.

The 391st would be committed on the second day while the main forces of the 239th, less one rifle regiment in Army reserve, comprised the third echelon to develop the offensive's success.

On March 19 an attack against several units the Corps was quickly recognized as a feint to disguise the actual direction of the planned breakout, which was in the 21st Army's sector.