The 24th Rifle Corps was a corps of the

Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Republic and, from 1922, the Soviet Union. The army was established in January 1918 by a decree of the Council of People ...

. It was part of the 27th Army and took part in the

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. It appears to have been initially formed in the

Kalinin Military District Kalinin may refer to: *Mikhail Kalinin (1875–1946), Bolshevik revolutionary and Soviet functionary * Kalinin (surname) Places *Kalinin, former name of Noramarg, Armenia *Kalinin, former name of Tashir, Armenia *Kalinin, former name of Burunq ...

, around what is today

Tver Tver (, ) is a types of inhabited localities in Russia, city and the administrative centre of Tver Oblast, Russia. It is situated at the confluence of the Volga and Tvertsa rivers. Tver is located northwest of Moscow. Population: The city is ...

, in 1939. In 1940 it was relocated to Soviet-occupied Latvia with units of the dissolved Latvian Army joining the corps.

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 Litene () is the center of the Litene Parish of Gulbene Municipality in the Vidzeme region of Latvia. Other names: Lytene, Myza Lytene.NKVD The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (, ), abbreviated as NKVD (; ), was the interior ministry and secret police of the Soviet Union from 1934 to 1946. The agency was formed to succeed the Joint State Political Directorate (OGPU) se ...

Troops A troop is a military sub-subunit, originally a small formation of cavalry, subordinate to a Squadron (cavalry), squadron. In many armies a troop is the equivalent element to the infantry section (military unit), section or platoon. Exception ...

– around ten soldiers were shot, and at least 430 officers were arrested and sent to

Gulag The Gulag was a system of Labor camp, forced labor camps in the Soviet Union. The word ''Gulag'' originally referred only to the division of the Chronology of Soviet secret police agencies, Soviet secret police that was in charge of runnin ...

camps in

Norilsk Norilsk ( rus, Нори́льск, p=nɐˈrʲilʲsk) is a closed city in Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia, located south of the western Taymyr Peninsula, around 90 km east of the Yenisei, Yenisey River and 1,500 km north of Krasnoyarsk. Norilsk is 300 ...

. 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 The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (Russian SFSR or RSFSR), previously known as the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic and the Russian Soviet Republic, and unofficially as Soviet Russia,Declaration of Rights of the labo ...

, only about 3,000 Latvian soldiers remained. After completing a fighting retreat to

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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 The 1st Ukrainian Front (), previously the Voronezh Front (), was a major formation of the Red Army during World War II, being equivalent to a Western army group. They took part in the capture of Berlin, the capital of Nazi Germany. Wartime ...

as part of the 13th Army from March 14, 1943 to May 11, 1945.
The corps was disbanded in July 1946.

Formations

1941

* 181st Rifle Division * 183rd Rifle Division

Commanders

* Lieutenant General (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

{{Soviet Union corps Rifle corps of the Soviet Union Military units and formations established in the 1940s Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic