This division began forming in March-April 1941 in the
Kiev Special Military District as part of the
19th Mechanized Corps. Col. Vasilii Mikhailovich Osminskii was appointed to command on March 11 and he would remain in this position until the division was disbanded. Once formed its order of battle was as follows: • 702nd Motorized Rifle Regiment • 739th Motorized Rifle Regiment • 132nd Tank Regiment • 671st Artillery Regiment • 39th Antitank Battalion • 205th Antiaircraft Battalion • 301st Reconnaissance Battalion • 387th Light Engineering Battalion • 599th Signal Battalion • 211th Artillery Park Battalion • 373rd Medical/Sanitation Battalion • 697th Motor Transport Battalion • 152nd Repair and Restoration Battalion • 39th Regulatory Company • 483rd Chemical Defense (Anti-gas) Company • 718th Field Postal Station • 537th Field Office of the State Bank The 132nd had only one battalion of 42
T-26 tanks and while the 301st was equipped with a company of 13
T-37 tankettes it had no armored cars or motorcycles. The 671st had only one battery of four
122mm howitzers and the 205th only one battery of four
37mm guns.
Battles of Brody and Uman When Operation Barbarossa began on June 22 the 19th Mechanized Corps (
40th and
43rd Tank Divisions, 213th Motorized Division, 21st Motorcycle Regiment) was under the direct command of the redesignated
Southwestern Front. The 213th was positioned at
Vinnytsia with the tank divisions deployed northward as far as
Zhytomyr. At this time the division was at close to full strength in manpower, with 10,021 personnel assigned, but had only 140 trucks of all types on hand, making it "motorized" in name only. In addition to the ongoing shortages in heavy equipment the rifle regiments had only about half of their authorized machine guns and mortars and the division had no antitank guns at all. Within 48 hours of the German invasion it was being identified in Soviet sources as an ordinary rifle division. By this time it had been detached to Operational Group Lukin which was protecting a large Red Army supply base at
Shepetivka. By day's end on June 24 the 40th Tank Division had advanced as far west as
Hoshcha and was followed by the 213th which had entered
Rivne by the end of June 27. The
13th Panzer Division had broken through 40th Tanks near
Mlyniv earlier that day with Rivne as its immediate objective. In fighting over the next two days the
III Motorized Corps drove the two tank divisions back to the east beyond Hoshcha but at the same time the
XXXXVIII Motorized Corps forced the 213th off to the southeast as it advanced on Ostriv. By this time the 19th Mechanized Corps had come under command of
5th Army in Southwestern Front, but in its scattered condition effective command and control was largely impossible. As of July 7 what remained of the division was located roughly 30km south of Shepetivka, facing the
16th Panzer and
111th Infantry Divisions. On July 10 the division was further weakened when its 132nd Tank Regiment (never actually more than a battalion) was detached to the Kiev Fortified Sector. As Army Group South reached this objective in mid-July the 213th was still resisting in the
Berdychiv area. By the beginning of August the division had been detached from 19th Mechanized and was subordinated to
6th Army of
Southern Front. At this time the 6th was in the process of being encircled in the
Uman Pocket along with the
12th Army and by August 8 the division was effectively destroyed, being officially stricken from the Red Army order of battle on September 19. == History ==