CITY: Bashkir Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, Mishkinsky District, Kurmanaevo village DATE OF BIRTH: 12/31/1920 DATE OF DEATH: 12/21/2001 HISTORY: Subdivision: 41st Guards Rifle Division Korsun-Danube Order of Suvorov Living today, remember the past. Remember! Through the centuries, after years - About those who will never come Never, remember ... R. Rozhdestvensky My grandmother often said: "To live in peace, one must remember those who gave it." In the Great Patriotic War, four of my great-grandfathers and one great-great-grandfather fought for their homeland. My great-grandfather, whose name I bear, was named Andreev Nikolai Andreevich. I also want to tell you about him. He was one of the first to begin service in the newly formed (by order of the Headquarters of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief from October 10, one thousand nine hundred and forty-one) Airborne Forces, which consisted of young men living in Siberia and the Urals. At night, at high altitude, the boys were dropped by parachute behind enemy lines, two or three hundred of kilometers behind the front line. Their task was to return on foot through forests and swamps in pitch darkness, breaking through the front line from the rear. The total weight of the uniform and the load was thirty kilograms, with such a load it was necessary not only to go, but also to fight the enemy! When dropped by parachute, a strong wind at a height threw and carried them towards the paratroopers far from the landing site, several paratroopers wounded in the air were captured by the Nazis. A day later, great-grandfather and his comrades reached the place of captivity and saw a terrible picture: all the paratroopers who fell into the hands of the Germans were hanged by their chins on iron hooks with their hands tied behind their backs. The great-grandfather fought from Vyazma through the Smolensk and Kaluga regions to Stalingrad. He was awarded the Medal for Military Merit. He participated in the breakthrough of the Stalingrad Front from September 3 to 11, 1942, when only three hundred guardsmen survived from the Guards regiment of two thousand people. In a report about this, General of the Army Zhukov on September 12, 1942 reported to Stalin, emphasizing: "Our swift blow forced the enemy to turn his main forces from Stalingrad against us, which facilitated the position of Stalingrad, which would have been taken by the enemy without this blow." Here is an extract from the order: “On the Stalingrad front, Comrade Andreev took part in battles many times, he has twenty-seven killed German soldiers and officers to his account. In the Kotluban area near Stalingrad, with his squad, he captured four bunkers (long-term firing points) and six bunkers (long-term protected firing points) of the enemy, taking anti-tank guns, ten machine guns, twenty-two rifles, in addition, twenty-two German soldiers were taken prisoner ". On September 16, 1942, when battles for every house were already going on, hand-to-hand fights broke out fiercely, starting in the morning and not abating until dark, and often continuing at night, my great-grandfather was seriously wounded and became disabled. For the battles at Stalingrad, my great-grandfather was awarded the highest soldier's award "Order of Glory" and the medal "For the Defense of Stalingrad". Andreev Nikolai Andreevich was buried in the city of Birsk. His photograph still hangs in the city's military registration and enlistment office in the section "Cavaliers of the Order of Glory." And the milestones of the battles are described in the book by A.A. Yaroshenko "The 41st Guards Army went into battle." I remember and am proud of my great-grandfather.