Rank: Guards Captain My dad, Ivan Dmitrievich Smirnov, is a Guards Captain. He fought from the first day of the war - from June 22, 1941 until the end. Participant of the battle near Moscow in the Volokolamsk front. Since May 1943 he fought in the 137th Separate Guards Communications Battalion of the 16th Guards Rifle Corps of the 11th Guards Army as an assistant chief of staff. He helped to establish uninterrupted communications to the Command. He was located directly in the places of work to restore the communication disrupted by the enemy, being repeatedly exposed to enemy fire. He performed all missions of the command accurately and in the shortest possible time, communication was restored and worked steadily. When the corps was relocated in 1944 to the area of the village Cherno-Kovali was the battalion's convoy commander. On the way, the convoy was attacked several times by enemy aircraft. He skillfully dispersed the machines, as a result the equipment and personnel were completely saved. During the capture of the city and fortress of Konigsberg and Pillau in 1945, as an assistant to the head of the personnel department, he performed the missions of the command to establish an officer corps accounting, to staff the combat units with an officer corps. Being directly in the units during the combat, he managed to correctly place the officers in positions to perform the combat missions set by the Army Council. During the assault on the city of Konigsberg, most of the time he was in the rifle battalions, timely replacing the left the ranks officers with other officers in reserve. In any combat situation, he provided the command and higher headquarters in a timely manner with all the necessary data on the status and manning of the officer corps. It's such a coincidence that dad's birthday is the beginning of the war on June 22. It turned out that my father's birthday is really a sad holiday for the rest of his life. My dad was an amazingly tactful, intelligent, educated and handsome person. He didn't like to talk about the war. Eternal memory to him ... No one is forgotten, nothing is forgotten