[1] Its order of battle was as follows: Col. Pavel Ionovich Kuznetzov was appointed to command of the division on the day it began assembling.

As the German attack penetrated the Soviet lines, most of the division fell back to the east, and so avoided being encircled in the Kiev pocket.

In its report on the first day's operations, 38th Army staff does not mention the division at all, although in fact it did attempt to seize German positions around Piatnitskoe with a multi-battalion task force.

[6] During the first half of the following day, 38th Army's shock group (less the 300th) made impressive gains as the German lines fell back.

However, starting at 1300 hrs., a concerted German counterthrust, led by 3rd and 23rd Panzer Divisions and supported by three infantry regiments, struck the advancing Soviet forces "on the nose" and sent them reeling back.

In the process of fighting in these unequal circumstances the division took further losses, and was withdrawn into the Reserve of the Supreme High Command at Tuymazy[12] in August for rebuilding.

The 300th, now in 51st Army crossed to the right bank of the Volga by a pontoon bridge downstream from the city, and formed part of the second echelon of the southern pincer which completed the encirclement by November 22.

[18] Stalingrad Front faced two challenges following the encirclement: first, to prevent a German relief operation of the pocket, and second, to exploit the huge gaps in the Axis lines and drive the enemy out of the Caucasus steppes.

[19] The focus at this time was on the defensive battle, and on December 21 elements of the division helped stop one of the last attempts of Army Group Don to break the encirclement.

"[21] At this time, with the Stalingrad encirclement secured, 5th Tank, 5th Shock, and 2nd Guards Armies all turned their attentions to the ad hoc Corps Mieth holding in the great bend of the Don, headquartered at the town of Tormosin.

The division was across the Don somewhat north of the confluence with the Aksai River on December 31, the same day Tormosin was liberated by the mechanized corps.

On February 8, 1943, Col. Kirill Yakovlevich Tymchik took over command of the division, whose advance finally came to a halt along the Mius River.

On February 21, Southern Front reported to STAVKA that:"The 300th Rifle Division is fighting on the southeastern outskirts of Novaia Nadezhda, Alekseevka, and Aleksandrovka (I repeat, on the southeast outskirts of these points)..."[23]All of these points were on the left bank of the Mius, as the overstretched Soviet forces were unable to penetrate the German defenses on the right bank, based on fortifications they had built a year earlier.

When the Soviet Union declared war on Japan on August 9, 1945, the division, now in 26th Rifle Corps, joined in the advance into Manchuria.

It accomplished this by creating a forward detachment consisting of the 1049th Rifle Regiment, loaded in all the truck-drawn support that could be found.