It was eventually commanded by Col. Anatolii Nikolaevich Chervinskii, who had previously led the 164th Rifle Division but was tried and convicted of negligence in October.

By late spring of 1942 it was being referred to as a regular rifle brigade, probably indicating it had lost most of its naval cadre in the winter fighting.

As of September 4, while most of the division remained in Front reserves, the 1331st Rifle Regiment was detached to 18th Army in the Black Sea Group of Forces.

And although not all the regiment managed to land, the men who did get a hold on the shore attacked the enemy fortifications in a massive rush.

"[7]On his way in, Kadanchik's boat sank after hitting a mine, but he was rescued by a ship returning from the landings and he reached his regiment later that day.

The 1339th came under massive pressure from German counterattacks over the next 24 hours which pushed some elements back to the sea, but eventually they held.

Kadanchik was killed on September 15 by German artillery, and was posthumously made a Hero of the Soviet Union three days later.

They also brought sad news: Col. Vrutzkii had suffered severe concussion, lost an eye and been wounded in the arm.

The troops who participated in the liberation of Novorossiysk, by the order of the Supreme High Command of September 16, 1943, and a commendation in Moscow, are given a salute of 12 artillery salvoes from 124 guns.

Even before the liberation of Novorossiysk, Axis forces had begun evacuating the Taman Peninsula across the Kerch Strait into the Crimea in what was called Operation Brunhild.

The Kerch-Eltigen landing operation began overnight on October 31/November 1, 1943, when the three rifle regiments of the 318th, supported by the 386th Naval Infantry Battalion and the fire of 50 howitzers of 18th Army on the lower Taman peninsula, embarked for the sandy beaches at Eltigen, south of Kerch.

These encountered at least two German naval minefields which sank several vessels, killing over 200 troops, including the commander of the 1337th Rifle Regiment and most of his staff.

The first vessels approached the beaches at 0450hrs and began unloading; due to the presence of a sandbar 50 metres from shore, many heavily laden soldiers quickly found themselves well over their heads and drowned.

[12] By the end of this first night the three regiments were ashore with the following strengths: One of the men who landed that night was Starshina Samad Abdullayev, a battalion sanitary instructor in the 1339th Rifle Regiment, who was killed in action on November 5, and was posthumously made a Hero of the Soviet Union 12 days later for his actions in the beachhead fighting.

The division lost many men and a good deal of equipment, including heavy weapons such as antitank guns and mortars, which would make it impossible to break out of the beachhead.

In an effort to make more troops available to contest this landing, the Germans and Romanians developed a plan to crush the Eltigen beachhead.

First, the German Navy forces in the Crimea were finally persuaded to take part in the battle, seriously interfering in resupply missions to the beachhead.

Gladkov's group was too exhausted to break through to friendly lines, and gathered in a perimeter on the shoreline east of Mount Mithridat, hoping for rescue.

[16] From February 1944, the rebuilding division was part of 3rd Mountain Rifle Corps in the Separate Coastal Army in its bridgehead east of Kerch, and served under those commands during the Crimean Campaign in April and May.

In the immediate aftermath, the division served in the 38th Army's 3rd Mountain Rifle Corps in the Carpathian Military District[20] at Mukachevo.