The division was formed in October 1941 part of the 53rd Army of the Central Asian Military District, and was deployed for active field duty from May 1942 through to May 1945.
The 389th Rifle Division particularly distinguished itself in early January 1944 during the liberation of Berdychiv from the German military, for which it was awarded the honorary title of "Berdychevskaya".
Feskov, V.I.; Golikov, V.I.; Kalashnikov, K.A.; Slugin, S.A. (2013). Вооруженные силы СССР после Второй Мировой войны: от Красной Армии к Советской [The Armed Forces of the USSR after World War II: From the Red Army to the Soviet: Part 1 Land Forces] (in Russian). Tomsk: Scientific and Technical Literature Publishing. ISBN9785895035306.
Further reading
Robert G. Poirier and Albert Z. Conner, The Red Army Order of Battle in the Great Patriotic War, Novato: Presidio Press, 1985. ISBN0-89141-237-9. Poirer and Conner primarily used the wartime files of the German Foreign Armies East ('FHO') intelligence section, of which substantial sections are now held by the U.S. National Archives.