Rank: Corporal _x000D_ Branch of troops: Artillery _x000D_ _x000D_ Sonin Vasily Maksimovich, was born on June 16, 1923 in the village of Melguny, Mordovian district, Tambov region. He graduated only from the 4th grade of School, then he helped two brothers and parents in the farm. He was drafted to the front from the village of Shulgino, Mordovian district, Tambov region on October 28, 1941, as a very young eighteen-year-old boy. He began his military career in the 729th Infantry Regiment, from June 1942 until the end of the war he served as a recon. He participated in the defense of Leningrad. In 1942 he took part in the Kharkov operation. During this operation he was wounded in the leg and was taken by horse-drawn carriage to the hospital. _x000D_ As a true recon, he did not talk about his efforts during his lifetime. _x000D_ After the war, in 1985, he was awarded the Order of the Great Patriotic War of the 1st degree for his fortitude and courage shown in the war. What effort he was awarded the Order of the Red Star during the war, our family did not know. But I managed to find archival documents describing the efforts of the hero of our family, V.M. Sonin. _x000D_ So we learned that in the offensive battles in the spring of 1945, Vasily Maksimovich Sonin showed himself to be a bold and resourceful recon. He personally reconnoitered 4 heavy and light machine guns, 2 enemy direct-fire guns, which were later destroyed by our mortar fire. Together with the infantry, he was the first to break into the enemy's trenches and destroyed 4 Nazis with the fire of his machine gun, and when the Germans launched a counterattack, he was the first to rise with a machine gun and shout "Hurray" led his infantry fighters to repel the counterattack, where he personally killed 5 more Hitlerites. For this effort he was awarded the Order of the Red Star. _x000D_ He made another effort in the combat on September 18, 1944, and destroyed 4 enemy soldiers with automatic fire at the entrance to the village of Vir. Also he discovered 2 fascist machine guns, which were later destroyed by the fire of our mortars. By this he contributed to the offensive of their infantry. For which he was awarded the medal "For Courage". _x000D_ The family album contains several photographs brought after the war, where he was captured with his comrades in arms while serving in Czechoslovakia and Ukraine. In the victorious 1945 he took part in the liberation of Prague from German troops. He was awarded the medal "For Liberation of Prague", as well as the medal "For Victory over Germany". _x000D_ After the end of the Great Patriotic War, he continued to serve in Ukraine. In 1947 he was transferred to the reserve. Returning to his homeland he worked as a mechanic at a sugar factory. Already in peacetime he was awarded jubilee medals. November 7, 2016 Sonin V.M. in the village of Shulgino, Mordovsky District, Tambov Region, a memorial was opened dedicated to the soldiers who did not return from the war, as well as to the immortal efforts of 13 thousand residents of the Mordovsky District of the Tambov Region, fallen in the combats during the Great Patriotic War. _x000D_ Besides, his brothers and sister were also fighting in the Great Patriotic War,: Sonin Mikhail Maksimovich (1919-1984), Sonin Pyotr Maksimovich (1912-1988), Sonina Alexandra Maksimovna (born in 1927). Currently, their names are included in the book of memory "They returned with victory" about the soldiers-fellow countrymen who returned from the fronts of the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945.