Rank: Starshina _x000D_ Subdivision: 15th Guards Rifle Kharkov-Prague Order of Lenin, twice Red Banner Orders of Suvorov and Kutuzov Division. _x000D_ To my great regret, I did not know my grandfather. He passed away long before I was born. For some reason, it was hard to ask my grandmother about him. Now I managed to ask my mother what she remembers. My grandfather went through the entire war, but due to severe wounds he could not live a long life and passed away 12 years after its end. _x000D_ Alexey Nikolaevich was born in 1915. In 1939 he was drafted to serve on a submarine, which was based in Sevastopol. The war found Alexei when he had three children. In October 1941, he was called up by an infantryman to defend Moscow. During the siege of Koenigsberg (Kaliningrad) on April 22, 1945, my grandfather was seriously wounded. During the hostilities, he had to be both a liaison, and a machine gunner, and a simple infantryman. After a severe shrapnel wound, Alexei spent a whole year in the hospital and returned to his homeland only in 1946. _x000D_ Unfortunately, many fragments prevented my great-grandfather from leading a happy life. _x000D_ 1957, at the age of 41, the shell fragments had reached the heart. All awards were lost during Alexei's stay in the hospital, and then no one talked about his efforts. _x000D_ We found out that our grandfather had been awarded only at the website “Memory of the People”. On June 24, 1944, Alexei, being a liaison of the company Commander, was instructed to deliver an important report. On the way, Alexey faced two enemy soldiers, threw grenades at them and destroyed them. The report was delivered on time. For this effort my grandfather received the medal "For Courage".