Volikov Nikolay Nikolaevich_x000D_ _x000D_ Title: Foreman. Branch of service: army, air force (except marine aviation), the coast guard, the troops of the NKVD border troops. Division: ninth guards airborne Poltava-Taganrog red banner order of Suvorov and Kutuzov division. Nikolai Nikolayevich Volikov was drafted into the army in October 1940. He was sent to study at the school of sanitary instructors in the city of Chkalov, where the war that began in June 1941 found him. Upon graduation, he was awarded the rank of Sergeant-sanitary instructor. And he was sent to the airborne troops, where for four months the soldiers received military training (mastered skydiving). In February 1942, as part of the 4th airborne corps, which is approximately 12 thousand people, great-grandfather was parachuted into the enemy's rear in order to block the road, the retreating Germans, to limit the supply of food and equipment approach. The release was made at night, in the dead of winter. Everyone had to gather at the fires lit by the partisans. The Germans saw the bonfires and started bombing them. The soldiers had to run for their lives along the meter-long snowdrifts away from the fires. Great-grandfather was lucky; he immediately found a pair of skis and lost when landing fur MITT. Having connected, the corps began to perform the combat task assigned to it. They fought until June. Planes supported communication with the «mainland», and wounded soldiers were sent to them. Here in the rear, my great-grandfather was awarded the medal "for military merit". He was also concussed there. He woke up in the village, in a house where there were three more wounded and the owner with two children. The bombing started, and they took shelter in the basement. A bomb exploded near the house, the house was destroyed, and they survived, although they barely got out from under the ruins. They fell behind their unit and began to move independently to the front line, got into a minefield, explosions started, the Germans surrounded them and took them prisoner (and sent them to a large pow camp in the city of Krichev). The prisoners were then transported to France. There, Russian immigrant has helped some Russian soldiers to escape to the French partisans. So great-grandfather in the French army liberated France. After the victory, all the Russians were gathered in camps, equipped at the expense of the "red cross" and began to be sent home. They were transported to Germany on American planes and returned to the Soviet Union on foot via Poland. Here they were again enlisted in the army, and at the end of the war, great-grandfather served for another year. Soviet soldiers who had withstood the worst of the brutal war were now rebuilding their shattered Homeland.