Rank: Colonel Branch of troops: Artillery He was graduated from the 1st Moscow Artillery Special School at Krasnaya Presnya. It was the first Special School established before the war, of which there is a memory. The admission competition was huge. They accepted only Muscovites, excellent students , seventh grade graduates with good physical fitness and good health. When the war started, the specialists were evacuated to Anzhero-Sudzhensk in the Novosibirsk (now Kemerovo) region, then to Tomsk. By an accelerated course, the boys officers were sent to the front. Dad easily told that the artillery was horse-drawn, about the first Belorussian front, about the liberation of Poland, the capture of Berlin ... From his glance, I understood what dad was silent about ... He said that he lit his first cigarette while sitting in a trench in a temporary lull when he received a death notice for an older brother. That death notice had not survived. Another one written to my mother (my grandmother) has survived, a letter is still kept. Dad took out a small yellowed sheet, folded in four, and began to read (I quote verbatim): NOTICE "Your son, Junior Leiutenant Ivan Nikolayevich Kontorshchikov, in the battle for the Socialist homeland, faithful to the military oath, showing heroism and courage, was wounded and died of wounds on 04/09/44. He buried in a mass grave on a forest edge near a ravine, the village of Karamids, Vitebsk region and district, on the first kilometer of South Bolshak, Smolensk - Vitebsk. ... WARRIOR LETTER Sender's address: 43 935 S. Makarov "Hello dear Mother! I inform you that I have received your letter to my son Vanya, but dear mother, no matter how unpleasant it is to tell such news, it is better to immediately know the truth. He was seriously wounded, one leg below the knees was completely torn off and the other was broken. He felt good, talked, never even gasped. On April 10, he died in a Medical Battalion. Be courageous to endure this great grief for you, we will avenge his death damned Germans. Your son was one of the most exemplary young officers, he was a brave warrior. Accept my and my comrades my sincere condolences and sympathy for your grief. With warm greetings, your son's Comrade Sergei Makarov. 18.04.44. " Dad also fell silent at such moments. Ivan was older than dad, only two years. I did not think then about the difference in surnames. I knew that my grandfather returned from the war disabled and was awarded the Order of Glory III degree, that my father was wounded and carried a splinter, and not only military awards on his chest. I thought of the war with hatred. With his future wife, Galina Mikhailovna, dad met in Leningrad, her hometown. Mom told me what the child could know. I knew that she was born on March 7, 1932, at the age of nine she survived the Leningrad Siege, dropped incendiary bombs from the rooftops, that she had turned gray even then and at the age of eleven she was awarded the medal "For the Defense of Leningrad". Mom didn’t like to talk about hunger and death, she didn’t like to talk about the war, but I remember the dried bread that was kept in the house in rag bags. Colonel, Titov Viktor Nikolaevich, over the years of work in leading positions in the Ministry of Defense of the Soviet Union, did not buy a car, did not build a dacha with the hands of soldiers. He was an officer of Honor, a true defender of his Fatherland and an example for his children. The memory of our parents, of the millions of soldiers who died during the war, we carry in our hearts. We pass this memory from generation to generation. My brother - Titov Vladimir Viktorovich - Colonel, military officer. His son - Titov Viktor Vladimirovich - Major. My grandson, Artyom Sergeevich Goncharov, is a first-class graduate of the Tagansky Cadet Corps in Moscow. Blessed Memory of the departed, good health to those few who returned alive from the war and have survived to this day. We remember you. Zhmachinskaya Elena Viktorovna (Titova) poet, member of the Writers' Union of Russia.