Full name: Vasily Matveyevich Panchenko last NAME: Panchenko first NAME: Vasyl middle name: Matveevich CITY: Lutsenko village, Alekseyevsky district, Voronezh region DATE of BIRTH: 23.11.1923 DATE of DEATH: 14.08.2013 HISTORY: Rank: Colonel. Branch of service: army, air force (except marine aviation), the coast guard, the troops of the NKVD border troops. Unit: 278th rifle division (1st formation). The summer day of 1941 remained forever in his memory. In the morning, the duty officer came running and urgently called to work. And there is already a representative from the district with summonses for military service. Everyone has one word on their lips-war! Families cry and cry. The village sent the first conscripts. In early July, they began to form youth detachments for the construction of defensive structures. From Voronezh, the train went to the area of Yelnya. The Germans were already near Smolensk at that time. From morning to night they dug trenches and anti-tank ditches. The enemy is on the outskirts of Kharkiv-you need to replenish. Vasily's father is already at the front, his sick mother and brother and sister are at home, but there is a summons and three days to gather. So Vasily Panchenko became a fighter of the 278th Rifle division, which after completion was transferred to the city of Kolomna near Moscow. The boy was only a couple of months away from turning eighteen. The division was in reserve on the Western front. In March 1942, the division was relocated to the Kharkiv region. In may 1942, a bloody battle took place there, in which thousands of soldiers and commanders were killed, 70 thousand people were missing. In may 1943, for the skillful command of a platoon and an important operation to capture the enemy's "language", Panchenko Vasily was awarded the first officer rank. And in October 1943, 16 shrapnel riddled the officer's back. A 21-year-old officer leaves the hospital with uncut wounds in January 1944. A short meeting with his family and back to the front, to catch up with his army, which as part of the troops of the 1st Ukrainian front with the fighting drove the Nazis from the ground. As part of the 126th light mountain rifle regiment, a company under the command of Vasily Panchenko liberated Kamianets-Podilsky, Khotyn, Chernivtsi, Stanislav, and fought heavy battles in the mountains on the Polish-Ukrainian border. Again the wound and again the hospital in the Polish city of Sanok and the Carpathian city of Sambor. And again in his native regiment. Victory for the company and his colleagues came only on may 11, 1945, when the army surrounded a large group of Nazis who wanted to escape from Czechoslovakia to the West. For 24-year-old Vasily, the Second World war ended in distant Herbin, after the surrender of Japan. The first post-war years for the military Vasily Matveevich took place in Chukotka. Then he continued his military service in the Carpathian military district.