Verkhovykh Pavel Mikhailovich_x000D_ Rank: Junior Sergeant. _x000D_ Branch of service: Artillery._x000D_ Unit: 1st guards rifle division. _x000D_ _x000D_ Pavel Mikhailovich Verkhovykh was born on January 16, 1927 in village Gerbil of the Galkinsky district of the Kurgan region. For some time he was brought up in the Galkin orphanage, where he graduated from four classes of school, and then remained without this shelter – so as a boy for the time being and wandered between courtyards. _x000D_ Then he left, or rather, escaped from starvation to Magnitogorsk, where a woman sheltered him. He worked at the Magnitogorsk collective farm "Kharkiv", helped the hostess around the house, and she took care of him as if he were her son. However, hunger plagued here, and so Pashka decided to go to the front, adding an extra year and thinking that it was better to die in battle than to perish from hunger. _x000D_ He was thin and small: the hunger of his military childhood had affected him. He had four brothers and four sisters, but no one saw him off, he did not write to anyone, because after the death of his mother, fate scattered everyone to different orphanages. Pavel got to the 1st Belorussian front. _x000D_ From November 1943 to may 1944, he joined the military unit "36 reserve artillery regiment". From may 1944 to February 1946, he was a machine gunner in the "137 guards rifle regiment". Senior comrades took patronage over a very young soldier, protected him, and taught him military skills._x000D_ Pavel Mikhailovich went all the way to Berlin, through Poland. He had no serious injuries. He described more than one circle around the Reichstag, but he did not leave a memorial record on it: he was illiterate, and there was no "empty" space on the building – everything was covered with writing. I believe that my great-grandfather was a hero, because he was a direct participant in the historical events of our country. He finished his service 5 years after the end of the war. He served in Germany in the 62nd mechanical regiment as a driver of a wheeled armored personnel carrier from February 1946 to April 1949, then in military unit No. 52806 as a squad leader from April 1949 to November 1950.