Sent west after the start of Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union, it was reorganized into the 107th Tank Division shortly after arriving at the front.

On 15 October 1943 it made a successful assault crossing of the Dnepr River south of Gomel; 21 officers and men of the division were decorated as Heroes of the Soviet Union for this action.

[2] According to the most recent Russian sources, the 69th was originally formed as the 3rd Kolkhoz Rifle Division of the Special Red Banner Far Eastern Army in 1932.

[3] On 22 June 1941, the day Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union, began, Porfiry Chanchibadze was serving as commander of the division's 120th Rifle Regiment.

Shortly after the German invasion began, the division was sent west to the front by a General Staff directive of 25 June.

[3] After making a 200-kilometer march, the 107th joined the Reserve Front's 30th Army and took up defensive positions on the line of Bely and Yelnya.

In early October, the 107th fought in heavy fighting, trapped in a pocket by Operation Typhoon in the Volynovo, Samsonikha, and Bykovo areas.

In three days of defensive battles in the area of Ilyinsky, Domarino, and Pokrovskoye, the division was credited with destroying 46 tanks, four armored vehicles, and ten guns and mortars.

For the duration of the war its main order of battle was as follows: On 14 February, when Col. (later, Maj. Gen.) M. A. Bogdanov was assigned as divisional commander, the division went to the Reserve of the Supreme High Command, then in March to the Western Front reserves, and finally in April to 50th Army of Western Front, remaining there until February 1943.

At this point it was necessary to rebuild the division, as casualties from the summer and autumn offensives had reduced the rifle regiments to the effective strength of just two battalions each.

Division honorifics were - Russian: Севская дважды краснознаменная, Орден Красного Знамени, Суворова, Кутузова.