Our father, grandfather, great-grandfather Spirichev Veniamin Petrovich, a veteran of the Great Patriotic War, served in the Far East in military unit No. 19919 ... The war with Japan was short, but fierce. The Soviet army fought against the elite Kwantung Army. Veniamin Petrovich was born on November 21, 1926 in the village of Ivankovo, Sholsky district. After finishing 7th grade, he worked at a sleeper factory in Konevo. In October 1943 he was drafted into the Red Army and sent to the Far East in the Dubovoye borough near the border. He served in the 3 Crimean division of the 8th rifle regiment of the 6th company as a private. Then he was transferred to the 88th separate communications company as a telephone operator, and later as a telegraph operator. “When they declared war with Japan, on the night of August 9-10 they crossed the Amur River and entered the Manchurian land. Here began the baptism of fire to destroy the Kwantung Army of Japan. The fortification was very strong, it was located in the hills, where no equipment would enter. Our division suffered heavy losses. Not without losses among us, communications workers. I will describe only one memorable incident. When our division fought fierce battles to capture the fortified area in the hills, our separate communications company provided communications between the division headquarters and the regiment. Communication with the division headquarters was cut off. Me and two other signalmen were urgently sent to restore the telephone line. The area was fired upon by Japanese suicide bombers. Around the hills and a short, human-sized oak tree. We walked one after another at an interval. Suddenly we were fired upon. All three of us immediately fell and crawled away in different directions. After a while, the second and third shots followed. One of the comrades was mortally wounded. Not far from this place, a squad of reconnaissance soldiers was ambushed. They heard shots and went to meet them. A firefight began. My friend and I went further to fulfill our task. Soon the damage was repaired, the connection was restored. A detachment of reconnaissance soldiers,tied to a tree, as we learned later, was destroyed by Japanese suicide bombers . When we went back, we decided to shorten the distance. From the hill on which we were, we could see our own unit and the front line, where battles were going on to destroy the fortified area. When we went down from the hill into the hollow, went out onto the road, carts with wounded soldiers came to meet us. The seriously wounded lay on the carts, but easily walked behind the carts. I saw a wounded friend from Konev, Nikolai Ivanovich Afanasyev, walking by. After a short conversation, we moved on, but lost our bearings. We were at the forefront. We turned back. Then we approached the barbed wire fence and were ambushed. Later we learned that there were soldiers in the ambush. And it turned out like this. Our troops, having liberated a part of the fortified area, which was surrounded by a wire fence, left several soldiers disguised in weeds at each bunker. And so, when we drew level with these pillboxes, we heard: “Stop who is coming!”. We answered: "Ours". And it could have been different, if they would not have shouted at us, but would have opened an automatic fire. I have awards: the Order of the Patriotic War, II degree, the medal “For the victory over Japan. After seven years of service he was demobilized in October 1950 ”- from the memoirs of Veniamin Petrovich Spirichev. Dad was awarded medals: "For the victory over Japan", "30 years of the Soviet Army and the Navy", "25 years of victory over Germany."