Artillery

Crew of the Soviet M-42 cannon pulling it up the hill in the area of Chinese city of Dunhua

Soviet officers inspecting the Japanese 150-mm fortress cannon on Shumshu Island

Soviet soldiers examining a destroyed Japanese gun. Sakhalin

Memorial to the artillerists in one of the villages in Vilnius region

M-30 howitzer, installed near Ushakovo village, where battles for elimination of Yelnya salient took place in autumn of 1941

Artillery gun installed on the bank of the Volga river

Throughout the war S.V. Selepukhin fought on the 1st and 2nd Belarusian fronts, was awarded the Order of the Red Star and the Medal "For the Victory over Germany".

Refugees

A.G. Suleymanova, Junior Lieutenant from the 1873th Anti-Aircraft Artillery Regiment A.G. Suleymanova, Junior Lieutenant from the 1873th Anti-Aircraft Artillery Regiment of the 9th Separate Air Defense Brigade, Kiev. November 1944.

The car ZIS-5В tows a 37-mm anti-aircraft gun. Battle of Kursk. Belgorod direction.

Soviet artillery in the Battle of Kursk.

Photo from the archive of Central Navy Museum in Petersburg

Soviet artillery is moving along Novo-Moskovskaya Street in liberated Belgorod towards the city of Kharkov. Counterattack of Soviet troops in the Battle of Kursk. August 1943

Krylov Nikolay Grigorievich was born in 1926 in Spassky settlement in the family of Grigory Vasilyevich and Elena Ivanovna ( maiden name Shumilina). He was a 3rd child, besides him there were 3 other daughters in the family. Grigory Vasilyevich worked in the collective farm as a groom and a saddler, sewing harness (equipment) for horses. Elena Ivanovna worked in the field. 24.12.1943 Nikolai was conscripted into the army by Verkhneuralsky RVC of Chelyabinsk region. At first he was in the city of Chebarkul, and from September 15, 1944 he was sent to the front. Before being sent, he and other guys from our village were brought home to say goodbye to their relatives. He served as a telephone operator of a 76 mm battery of guns of the 556th Bialystok regiment of the 169th Rogachevskoy Rifle Division of the Red Banner Division. "Comrade Krylov in the battles to break through the enemy defense on January 14, 1945 near Glazhevo-Viti, Warsaw Province, and in subsequent battles in East Prussia, proved himself as a brave and fearless phone operator. On January 14, 1945, he repeatedly replaced telephone communications in place of disabled one by enemy artillery fire. For three days without rest, not noticing how tred he was, he provided uninterrupted communication between the battery positions and the observation point. During this time, he fixed under enemy fire up to 13 gusts of the telephone line and twice directed the telephone line, thus contributing to the accurate firing. He was awarded the Medal "For Merit in Combat". After the war, his second reserve rifle regiment was left to continue serving in East Prussia. In his last letter, Nikolai wrote to ask that no more letters were written to him. He was going home. Then, his father received a notice from the military committee: 'Please inform citizen Krylov Grigory Vasilyevich that his son, Krylov Nikolay Grigorievich, Red Army soldier, died while performing his official duties on February 1, 1946 and was buried in St. Stettin - the port. Chief of Staff of the Second Separate Reserve Rifle Regiment Major Konovalov". He died, having gone on duty in the last guard.

My grandfather, Nikolai Krotkov, was born on February 24, 1905 in the village of Novo-Tarasovo, Kineshemsky district, Kostroma region (now Ivanovo region). The family had five children, my grandfather was the oldest. On September 1, 1928 he was drafted into the Red Army and in November 1929 was demobilized as the middle reserve commander. In 1930, he entered the Moscow Peat Institute, after completing a training course at the university, he became a peat bog engineer. By distribution he was sent to the peat enterprise in Gusevsky settlement (Vladimir region) where he lived with his family, wife and son until he was drafted into the Red Army in 1940. Since July 1941 he was at the front in the acting army with the rank of lieutenant. He served in the artillery troops, was a unit commander. The last letter to the family from the front dates back to August 18, 1941. On September 1, 1941 he was killed while performing a combat mission in Kordemovsky district of Smolensk region, near the Dnieper River. His colleague, S. Bushuyev, took off his killed grandfather's field bag, which contained his military ticket, a badge with a note and other documents. He also sent these things to his wife (my grandmother). All my life our family carefully keeps them. Grandmother spent a long time looking for where her husband was buried, but the answers to all requests were negative. And only recently we found with the help of the site "Road of Memory" information that our grandfather was buried in a mass grave in Kordemovsky district of Smolensk region, apparently near the place of death. In the lists of those killed, our grandfather was listed as a Red Army soldier, and his title was not mentioned for a reason unknown to us.