The 380th Rifle Division was raised in 1941 as an infantry division of the Red Army, and served for the duration of the Great Patriotic War in that role. It began forming on 10 August 1941, one of a series of divisions formed in accordance to an order of that date in the Siberian Military District. The pace of moving newly formed units to the fighting front was beginning to ease and the division arrived there in late February 1942. Until the end of that year it was involved in the bloody fighting around the Rzhev salient. After a brief move to Northwestern Front and then a period in reserve for rebuilding, the division's combat path shifted southward when it was assigned to Bryansk Front. It won a battle honor for its part in the liberation of Oryol in the summer offensive, then spent the