This formation had an extremely short career, coming under devastating attack in the north of the Crimea on the day of its redesignation and being officially disbanded just over a month later.

The world had not seen the last of the 321st, however, as a new division was formed from two existing rifle brigades in the spring of 1944, which gave very creditable service for the duration, completing its combat path in northeastern Germany, and serving into the postwar period.

The 321st saw its first action nine days later, following these orders from the STAVKA to Stalingrad Front:[T]he Front's main mission over the next few days is, at all cost, to defeat the enemy who have reached the western bank of the Don River south of Nizhne-Chirskaya by no later than July 30 by... the employment of 204th and 321st Rifle Divisions and 23rd Tank Corps, which have reached the Kalach region... As with many others, the planned assault faltered with very little to show for it, largely because not enough time was available to coordinate and control it properly.

[9] By early August the division had been transferred to the 4th Tank Army which was trying to hold a 50km-wide bridgehead on the west bank of the Don while also protecting the approaches to Stalingrad from the northwest.

Only the timely arrival of 38th and 40th Guards Rifle Divisions prevented the German corps from liquidating the narrow bridgehead south of the Don from Kremenskaya to Sirotinskaya.

On the following day it was ordered to attack XI Corps again, in an attempt to prevent 22nd Panzer Division from moving eastward towards Stalingrad.

In the planning for Operation Uranus, 21st Army was to have a leading role in breaking out of the Kletskaya bridgehead, but the 65th was to provide support on its left.

In the event, the 321st and the neighboring 304th Rifle Division ran up against skillfully fortified German strongpoints which pinned them down, leading to negligible gains.

On November 30, an attack by the 321st, a regiment of guardsmen, and two cavalry divisions, failed to take this strongpoint, although some gains were made.

On the appointed day and time two regiments of each division attacked on a 6km-wide sector from the outskirts of Surovikino westwards to the village of Sekretov, easily crossing the frozen surface of the river, with two mechanized brigades concentrated in the rear, ready to exploit southward.

General Romanenko, commander of 5th Tank Army, was present, and ordered that the offensive be postponed until the next day, when it would be spearheaded by the mechanized troops.

5th Mechanized Corps attacked out of the narrow bridgehead it had won a week earlier, while the 321st began its assault across the river before dawn, seizing the village of Dalne-Podgorskii with small forward detachments, before the defenders could react.

The accounts of this fighting from each side vary greatly, but it appears that the German armor recaptured about half the ground lost by 7th GAF the day before.

[15] Following the German surrender in Stalingrad, the 321st continued to serve under 5th Tank Army in the following offensives into the lower Don and Donbas regions.

In October it was back in 1st Guards Rifle Corps, and took part in several other fruitless attacks around Demyansk which left it so depleted that it was withdrawn all the way to the Volga Military District for another rebuilding at the end of the year.

[22] Forming in December 1941, in the Siberian Military District,[23] this brigade was moving in the Reserve of the Supreme High Command by the end of February 1942, and joined 54th Army in Leningrad Front in March, just south of Lake Ladoga.

[26] It was in 14th Guards Rifle Corps of 1st Shock during the Leningrad-Novgorod Offensive on February 24, 1944, when it shared credit with several other units for the liberation of the key transport hub of Dno[27] and according was given the town's name as an honorific.

By mid-June the division was probably still absorbing and training new men, and the corps itself was only recently formed, so at the outset of Operation Bagration it was given a relatively easy assignment: holding attacks against units of German 16th Army.

[31] On July 8, as its Front entered the general offensive, the 321st was facing the German Panther Line defenses about 20 km east of Ostrov.

A few days later, the division was transferred to the 111th Rifle Corps of 54th Army in 3rd Baltic Front, and by August 1 was advancing into Latvia.

Before the month's end it was back in 1st Shock Army, which was now also in 3rd Baltic Front, and by September 12 the 321st had reached positions north of Gulbene, nearly on the Estonian border.

[33] The attrition had taken its toll, and a few days later the division was withdrawn to the Reserve of the Supreme High Command for rebuilding; while there it was assigned to the 116th Rifle Corps of 2nd Shock Army.

It became part of the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany, still in the 116th Rifle Corps of 2nd Shock Army, where it remained until being withdrawn to Dnipropetrovsk in the Kharkov Military District in February 1946.