By January 1942 the 8th Airborne Corps was relocated to the Moscow Military District conducted combat training there.

On September 27, 1942, the division was withdrawn from the front line and sent to re-form in the Saratov region.

In September 1943, the division crossed the Dnieper and was fighting on the beachhead, involved in the Nikopol operation.

It fought at Stalingrad, in the Don Basin, at Pavlograd, Kharkiv, Kryvyi Rih, Nikopol, Odessa, the Magnuszew Bridgehead, Küstrin, and in the Battle of Berlin.

The division was disbanded in August 1946, along with the 4th Guards Rifle Corps headquarters in the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany.