Rank: Red ArmySoldier. Type of Army: Land forces, Air Force (except naval aviation), Coast Service, NKVD troops, Border Guards My great-grandfather, Ivan Gavritenkov, is one of those who fought for Victory. My great-grandfather wrote letters from the front line, they are very dear to me. Everything that happened during that wartime was reflected in the lines from the letters. Here are his post-war memories of that terrible time : ""I was drafted into the army in 1939, preparing for demobilization, when suddenly the war began. I started my combat journey from the city of Kalinin in the direction of the city of Bely. We liberated the city of Bely and moved to the West. We made our way across the ice under artillery fire and ended up in a swamp. Then we lost 3 of our comrades from the 4th Unit. Our Commander, a Second Lieutenant, was immediately wounded, and the middle finger of his right hand was torn off by a shrapnel. In a tank that has frozen into the ice, I made him a bandage. He went in the opposite direction, and I ran to catch up with my unit."" Here's what my great-grandfather also recalled: ""Once we were surrounded, we fought for 14 days, we were mostly without food and without ammunition. We shot from carbines and rifles. I remember that before leaving the encirclement, the Germans abandoned fighter aircraft. But still the enemy planes were shot down by our rifles. After that, the Nazis opened fire at the place where the plane fell. It was about 800-900 meters away from us. In the evening, the Nazis sent several hundred soldiers to attack us, after that we received an order to leave the encirclement on our own. That night I was seriously wounded-shell-shocked. I also received severe frostbite of hands and feet of 2nd and 3d degrees. I don't remember how I got to the hospital in the city of Kalinin. But later I returned to the front, many of my friends were already dead, but I continued to fight to the end with the Nazis in the 254th Guards Regiment named after Alexander Matrosov."