5th Rifle Corps
It fought in the Soviet invasion of Poland in September 1939, with elements participating in the Battle of Grodno before linking up with German troops.
As a result, the corps was stationed on the border when the Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union, began on 22 June 1941.
The corps was formed for a second time in mid-1942 in the Soviet Far East, and spent most of World War II guarding the border around Bikin, sending several formations to the Eastern Front while undergoing several reorganizations.
[5] Kazansky was succeeded in May by Komdiv Leonid Petrovsky, who commanded the corps until his transfer to lead the Central Asian Military District in November of that year.
Under Petrovsky's command, the corps participated in the Belorussian maneuvers of 1937, cooperating with airborne troops in an advance east across the Dnieper.
On 17 September, at the beginning of the invasion, it was part of the Dzerzhinsky Cavalry-Mechanized Group of the Belorussian Front and included the 4th and 13th Rifle Divisions.
At 8:00 on 19 September, a motorcycle group from the 4th Division's 101st Rifle Regiment entered Slonim, receiving 6,000 prisoners of war from units of the 15th Tank Corps, advancing ahead of the 5th.
[12] At 4:00 on 20 September, the motorcycle group of the 13th Division's 119th Rifle Regiment entered Volkovysk, where it was operationally subordinated to the 15th Tank Corps.
The group encountered two squadrons of Polish cavalry 3 kilometers (1.9 mi) west of the city, capturing 150 with the loss of one killed.
[14] On 21 September, the main forces of the corps had reached Zelva, with the 101st and 119th Regiments moving on Grodno to fight in the battle for the city.
On 27 September, the corps' forward detachments reached Nur and Czyżew, discovering another Polish ammunition depot near Gaynuki and digging up buried weapons in the forests.
That night, a Polish detachment of 50 cavalrymen attacked departing German units at Nur, who moved west covered by the 13th Division's reconnaissance battalion.
It included the 13th, 86th (transferred to the corps in August 1940),[19] and 113th Rifle Divisions and was headquartered at Zambrów by 22 June 1941, when Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union, began.
[24] Having suffered heavy losses to German bombing and artillery fire, the 113th Division assembled in a relatively orderly fashion and moved northwest to cover the border in accordance with pre-war planning.
The division ceased to exist as a unit, although individual groups continued to fight on the southern edge of the Białowieża Forest for several days.
Their positions were somewhat strengthened by the fire of four battalions of the 124th Howitzer Artillery Regiment in the second half of the day, which inflicted losses on the German troops.
The 330th Rifle Regiment defended the border railway station of Czyżew; it had been marching from the Zambrów area, where it had drilled the day before the war began, to summer camp at Ciechanów.
[38] On the first day of the invasion, 9 August, the corps' assault units and reconnaissance detachments crossed the Ussuri at 01:00, aboard rafts, barges, steamship ferries, and boats of the 3rd Brigade of the Amur Flotilla.
After the artillery preparation, the 390th Division's advanced battalions crossed the river and captured a bridgehead north of Jaoho in the morning, subsequently followed by main force units.
On 19 August, the lead elements of the corps linked up with the 35th Army's 66th Rifle Division at Poli after crossing southward through the mountains from Paoching, having faced "virtually no Japanese resistance".
