318th Rifle Division (Soviet Union)

318th Rifle Division (June 15, 1942 – August 15, 1944) 318th Mountain Rifle Division (August 15, 1944 – 1954) 318th Rifle Division (1954–1955)
Active	1942–1955
Country	Soviet Union
Branch	Red Army
Type	Division
Role	Infantry
Engagements	Battle of the Caucasus Battle of Novorossiysk Taman Peninsula Kerch–Eltigen Operation Crimean Campaign Prague Offensive
Decorations	Order of Suvorov 2nd Class
Battle honours	Novorossiysk
Commanders
Notable commanders	Col. Anatolii Nikolaievich Chervinskii Maj. Gen. Aleksei Aleksandrovich Grechkin Col. Valentin Apollinarovich Vrutzkii Maj. Gen. Vasilii Fyodorovich Gladkov

The 318th Rifle Division began forming on June 15, 1942, in and near Novorossiysk on the coast of the Black Sea, as a standard Red Army rifle division; it was later re-formed as a mountain rifle division, but exactly when this happened is disputed among the various sources. It fought in the area it was formed in until September 1943, and was granted the name of this city as an honorific. In November of that year it took part in the largest Soviet amphibious operation of the war, across the Kerch Straits into the easternmost part of the Crimea, but its small beachhead was eliminated some weeks later. After the Crimea was liberated in May 1944, it remained there for several months before it was transferred to the Carpathian Mountains west of Ukraine as a mountain division, and spent the remainder of the war fighting through Czechoslovakia in the direction of Prague. The division continued to serve postwar in this same role, but was converted back to a standard rifle division before it was disbanded in the early 1950s.