Sergiyenko, Nikolai Fedotovich_x000D_ _x000D_ The stories about my great-grandfather Nikolay Fedotovich Sergiyenko I learned from my relatives, who carefully preserve memory of him. My mother keeps a manuscript of memories that my great-grandfather gave her for safekeeping at the end of his life. He dreamed that this manuscript would one day become a book… _x000D_ In 1940, after graduating from the Aviation club, my great-grandfather Nikolai was sent to study at the Kachin military aviation school of fighter pilots on a crash course. On July 10, 1941, by order of evacuation to Central Asia, cadet Nikolai Sergienko, together with his pilot-instructor, were in training "spark"on the way to their destination. He writes as follows: "in the area of the Sinyavka Station (near the city of Rostov-on-Don) we had to refuel. And then we were attacked, unarmed, by two Messers: a machine-gun burst went through the front cabin, where my instructor was. He was fatally shot in the head. I took over the controls and put the plane on an emergency landing. I landed the plane on a ploughed field, across ploughed furrows. The plane was violently shaken, and then it turned over. I lost consciousness from my injuries and came to myself in a Tbilisi hospital..." _x000D_ At that time, my great-grandfather was only 19 years old... After being discharged from the hospital, Nikolai returns to aviation again. At first, he flew on the PO-2, transporting the seriously wounded from the medical unit to hospitals. After some time, Nikolai was allowed to sit at the controls of a combat fighter I-16. From this moment on, he began his combat sorties to protect the coast from Sochi to Gelendzhik. Day after day, he entered into fierce air battles with the enemy, losing his comrades. Twice he had to leave the plane damaged in battle and jump with a parachute into the Black sea. He was rescued by border guards cruising on fast ships near the sea coast. _x000D_ _x000D_ Here is another of the episodes. My great grandfather writes: "My plane was severely damaged, the engine stopped working, and I had to plan in the Lazarev area. There was a low height, and I was not able to jump with a parachute, and I had to land in the mountains in woods and received severe injuries. A shepherd came to my rescue. He pulled me, unconscious, out of the wrecked plane and gave me first aid. When I regained consciousness, the shepherd's son took me to the Lazarev field hospital on an ass." _x000D_ _x000D_ In one of the air battles in the sky over Krasnodar, his best friend, wing-man Alexander Matchenko, was fatally wounded. His plane was shot down by a Messer. My great-grandfather was severely wounded by a shell fragment in this battle that exploded next to his cab. He remembers: "With great difficulty, losing consciousness, I went to an emergency landing in a field near Goryachy Klyuch. Our ground troops were there." _x000D_ After recovering, despite the conclusion of the medical Commission of the hospital that he was unfit for flight service, great-grandfather again returned to his avia unit on the Taman Peninsula. The Sivoiet assault on the Kerch Strait was being prepared. _x000D_ _x000D_ "At the end of November 1943, the offensive of all units of our troops began, we, the pilots, had destroyed the enemy's firing points with our machine-gun fire. The city of Kerch was liberated.»_x000D_ In the battles for the liberation of Zhytomyr, my great-grandfather was seriously wounded, again. After recovering, once again hiding the doctors ban on continuing flight service, he returns to his unit and sits at the controls of a combat fighter. "With my military friends, I liberated Western Ukraine, Belarus, and Poland."