Rank: Red Army Soldier _x000D_ Branch of troops: ground forces, air force (except naval aviation), coastal service, NKVD troops, border troops. _x000D_ Division: 346th Infantry Debaltsevskaya Red Banner Division. _x000D_ This is my grandfather. He was born on October 8, 1914 in the village of Novo-Zakharkino of the then Lipovskaya volost of the Nikolaev district of the Samara province (now it is the village of Novo-Zakharkino of the Dukhovnitsky district of the Saratov Region). By birth, he was Yakov Alekseevich Bain. When he was 6 years old, his father passed away. His mother, Praskovya Maksimovna, remarried. Yakov was adopted by the new stepfather Mikhey Andriyanovich and became Solomatin Yakov Mikheevich. Before the war, he studied and worked in the Nadezhdinskaya MTS of the Pugachevsky district of the Saratov Region. Then he worked as a machine operator in the neighboring village of Krasnaya Rechka, Pugachevsky Region. He married Potapova Evdokia Pakhomovna and they began to live in Krasnaya Rechka. On October 4, 1936, their son Ivan was born (now he lives in the Pugachevsky sovkhoz of the Pugachevsky district of the Saratov Region). The second child died in infancy from a fever. _x000D_ In 1941 he was drafted by the Pugachev Commissariat. The 346th Debaltsevskaya Division was formed in the city of Volsk, Saratov Region. He fought as a trumpeter-signalman for the regimental band in the1166th Suvorov Regiment. _x000D_ My grandmother told that they had ridden horses (carts) to Volsk to their husbands 130 kilometers away. From our village, some people had been in this division: Efim Ivanovich Vlasov (diied) and Dmitry Petrovich Borisov (died). My grandfather said to my grandmother:_x000D_ "If I return alive from the war, I will definitely restore my last name Bain and patronymic Alekseevich ..." Saying goodbye, he cried, regretted that he would not see the birth of a third child. The grandmother carried the girl. Yakov was sent to the front, and a month later, on July 24, 1941, their daughter, my future mother was born, now she is Valentina Yakovlevna Udachina, lives in the village of Krasnaya Rechka, Pugachevsky district, Saratov Region, like me. _x000D_ In January 1942, a death notification came that my grandfather was killed on January 18, 1942. Now no one knows where he is buried, somewhere near Moscow ... Borisov Dmitry Petrovich, his fellow man, sent a letter and told that our grandfather died in his arms. There were severe frosts, he, wounded by shrapnel, was bleeding. They carried them for a long time on a raincoat, the Medical Battalion was too far away. They brought it, but it was too late. My grandmother lived alone all her life, never got married, raised two children, five grandchildren, eight great-grandchildren. She passed away at the age of 91 on April 19, 2007.