The 5th Rifle Corps was a corps of the Soviet Union's Red Army, formed twice.
Formed in 1922, the corps was based at Bobruisk in Belarus for most of the interwar period. It fought in the Soviet invasion of Poland in September 1939, with elements participating in the Battle of Grodno before linking up with German troops. As a result, the corps was stationed on the border when the Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union, began on 22 June 1941. The corps was destroyed in the first week of the war in the Battle of Białystok–Minsk and officially disbanded in early July.
The corps was formed for a second time in mid-1942 in the Soviet Far East, and spent most of World War II guarding the border around Bikin, sending several formations to the Eastern Front while undergoing several reorganizations. In August 1945, the corps fought in the Soviet invasion of Manchuria as a separate unit directly controlled by the 2nd Far Eastern Front, capturing the Japanese fortified region adjacent to its sector of the border against light resistance, and advancing into Manchuria. The corps was disbanded after the war in late 1945.
First formation
Interwar period
The 5th Rifle Corps was first formed at Minsk in June 1922 in accordance with an order of the Western Front of 27 May and an order of the Minsk Military Region of 13 June. In July of that year, the corps headquarters was relocated to Mogilev before moving to Bobruisk in October 1923. It was part of the Western Front until April 1924, when the front became the Western Military District (later the Belorussian Military District).
Markian Germanovich commanded the corps from June 1924, and was replaced by Ivan Smolin in March 1926; the latter commanded the corps until May 1927. Alexander Todorsky commanded the corps from July of that year until November 1928, when he was replaced by Sergey Gribov (promoted to Komkor in 1935); the latter commanded the corps until December 1935. In February 1936, Komdiv Yevgeny Kazansky became the corps commander and commissar. In April 1937, he was placed at the disposal of the People's Commissariat of Defense before being arrested in the Great Purge. Kazansky was succeeded in May by Komdiv Leonid Petrovsky, who commanded the corps until his transfer to lead the Central Asian Military District in November of that year. Under Petrovsky's command, the corps participated in the Belorussian maneuvers of 1937, cooperating with airborne troops in an advance east across the Dnieper. Petrovsky was replaced by Komdiv Filipp Yershakov, who transferred to the Kharkov Military District in January 1938.
In April, Komdiv Vasily Chuikov took command of the corps. On 26 June 1938, the district became the Western Special Military District, while the corps headquarters was used to form the headquarters of the Bobruisk Army Group under Chuikov's command, whose troops were stationed on the territory of Mogilev, Gomel, and Polesskoy Oblasts. A new corps headquarters was formed as a replacement. On 10 February 1939, Komdiv (promoted to Major General 5 June 1940) Alexander Garnov took command of the corps.
Soviet invasion of Poland
The corps fought in the Soviet invasion of Poland in September, advancing into what was annexed by the Soviet Union as western Belarus. On 17 September, at the beginning of the invasion, it was part of the Dzerzhinsky Cavalry-Mechanized Group of the Belorussian Front and included the 4th and 13th Rifle Divisions. At 05:00 on that day it crossed the border into Poland, overrunning the overstretched Polish border guards. The corps captured 29 border guards while suffering losses of six killed and two wounded. It reached the Stolbtsy–Baranovichi railway line by 18:00 and the Usza River by 23:00, with mobile detachments advancing to the Servach River during the day. At 8:00 on 19 September, a motorcycle group from the 4th Division's 101st Rifle Regiment entered Slonim, receiving 6,000 prisoners of war from units of the 15th Tank Corps, advancing ahead of the 5th.
