Nikolay Bogdanov Branch of Service: NKVD Border Guards Naval Forces. Rank: Senior red Navy officer. From the Nikolay’s memoirs: "I started to serve in the Soviet Army in 1940. I began to participate in military operations in June 1942 in the North, in the naval aviation of the Northern Fleet, as a master of aviation equipment. I had to prepare the warplanes for departure. When we arrived at the location, we were lined up and told that the regimental commander would speak to us. He said: "Team attention! Hello, comrades!" - he said little. I remember his words that the situation at the front was extremely tense, the fascists were approaching Stalingrad, Voronezh, and here in the North, the situation was also not easy. You arrived just in time. As he spoke, a German spy plane appeared. The commander looked at the sky and said that now wait, they will start bombing. He walked around the line and said that if in peacetime mistakes were forgiven or punished, then here, in such a tense situation, one would be shot for mistakes, and his words were later fully confirmed. Otherwise, there would be no Victory. You are preparing the plane for a combat flight, you must install four machine guns and 100 kg bombs on the plane. The aircraft was prepared for a combat by several people (technician, motorist, gunsmith, instrument maker, electrician). If someone made a mistake, for example: incorrectly prepared machine guns for firing or incorrectly hung bombs, then this mistake would be the death of the entire crew of the aircraft. The pilot and his crew, getting on the plane, fully relied on the master, who prepared the plane for a battle. That would be the mistake the commander was talking about. The plane must be ready to take off at any time, regardless of bombing, shooting from the air or frost. There was a case with me: they were preparing the plane for departure, when everything was ready and everyone left, I decided to make sure once again that the plane was ready for a battle. After looking at everything again, I began to get out of the cockpit of the plane, when suddenly anti-aircraft guns started to fire and German planes appeared, Junkers in the amount of about 88 pieces. There was no shelter, the dugout was about 30 meters away from me. Everything was decided by seconds and suddenly there was a small gap nearby. The bombs were howling, and was deafen by explosions. I threw myself into this gap and, literally, a minute later, the plane was blown up by a bomb that hit it, and another bomb fell nearby. I was shell-shocked. This was only one episode from front-line life, and how many of them were there during the war? I ended the war on May 9, for which I was awarded the Medal for the Defense of the Arctic.