About the book: 1958 / Nikolai Kirillovich Lichak was born on December 19, 1917 in the city of Voroshilovsk, Voroshilovgrad region, in the family of an employee. In 1933 he graduated from the seven-year school and entered the Rostov Marine College. In the summer and autumn of 1934 he sailed as a sailor in the Azov and Black Seas. From 1934 to 1937 he studied at the Leningrad Aviation College. In 1937, through the Komsomol recruitment, he entered the Odessa Artillery School, which he graduated with honors in 1939. He took part in the war against the White Finns as a platoon commander of an artillery regiment. From the first days of the Great Patriotic War until its end, he was in the active army, first commanding a battery, and from 1943, a separate reconnaissance artillery division. In 1948 he entered the Military Academy named after M.V. Frunze at the command department. After graduating from the academy, in 1951, he began working in the editorial office of the newspaper “Red Star”. N.K. Lichak began writing in the post-war years. The first essays and stories were published in military newspapers and the magazine “Soviet Warrior”. In 1954, the library of the magazine “Soviet Warrior” published the first book of his stories, entitled “The Feat of a Sergeant.” In the same year, the Military Publishing House published a collection of his essays about the Heroes of the Soviet Union, “In the Name of the Motherland.” In 1955, an essay about the artilleryman Hero of the Soviet Union G.N. Kovtunov was published as a separate book. This collection includes stories about the high patriotism, courage, skill and resourcefulness of soldiers of the Soviet Army and Navy during the Great Patriotic War. The plots for the stories were mainly events in which the author himself was a participant or witness..