24th Rifle Corps

24th Rifle Corps

Active	1939–1941 1943–1946
Allegiance	Soviet Union
Branch	Soviet Red Army
Engagements	Eastern Front (World War II) Operation Barbarossa

The 24th Rifle Corps was a corps of the Red Army. It was part of the 27th Army and took part in the Great Patriotic War. It appears to have been initially formed in the Kalinin Military District, around what is today Tver, in 1939. In 1940 it was relocated to Soviet-occupied Latvia with units of the dissolved Latvian Army joining the corps.

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24th Territorial Rifle Corps

After the Soviet occupation of Latvia in June 1940, the annihilation of the Latvian Army began. The army was first renamed the People's Army of Latvia (Latvian: Latvijas Tautas armija) and in September–November 1940 the Red Army's 24th Territorial Rifle Corps. The corps comprised the 181st and 183rd Rifle Divisions.

In September the corps contained 24,416 men but in autumn more than 800 officers and about 10,000 instructors and soldiers were discharged. The arrests of soldiers continued in the following months. In June 1940, the entire Territorial Corps was sent to Litene camp. Before leaving the camp, Latvians drafted in 1939 were demobilised, and replaced by about 4,000 Russian soldiers from the area around Moscow. On June 10, the corps' senior officers were sent to 'officer courses' in Moscow, where they were arrested and most of them were shot. On June 14, the camp was surrounded by NKVD Troops – around ten soldiers were shot, and at least 430 officers were arrested and sent to Gulag camps ir Norilsk.

After the German attack against the Soviet Union, from June 29 to July 1 more than 2080 Latvian soldiers were demobilised, fearing that they might turn their weapons against the Russian commissars and officers. Simultaneously, many soldiers and officers deserted and when the corps crossed the Latvian border into the Russian SFSR, only about 3,000 Latvian soldiers remained.^[1]

After completing a fighting retreat to Staraya Russa and beyond, the corps was dissolved in September 1, 1941.

2nd formation

The Corps was recreated on February 24, 1943.
It fought in the Central Front as part of the 60th Army, and later in the 1st Ukrainian Front as part of the 13th Army from March 14, 1943 to May 11, 1945.
The corps was disbanded in July 1946.

Formations

1941

Commanders

Lieutenant General Roberts Kļaviņš [lv] (December 1940 - Jun 1941) - arrested and executed
Major General Kuzma Kachanov (30.06.1941 - 01.09.1941)
Major General Nikolay Kiryukhin (24.02.1943 - 17.08.1944)
Major General Dmitry Onuprienko (18.08.1944 - 11.05.1945)

References

^ Bleiere, Daina; Ilgvars Butulis; Antonijs Zunda; Aivars Stranga; Inesis Feldmanis (2006). History of Latvia : the 20th century. Riga: Jumava. p. 327. ISBN 9984-38-038-6. OCLC 70240317.