I sent this postcard to my father, congratulating him on the Red Army Day. It was in February 1942.
The mailing service returned it with a note: "military unit does not exist".
Me and mother were in evacuation at that time in Sverdlovsk region, Zaikovo village. Father, on the contrary, went to the military registration and enlistment office as soon as the Great Patriotic War broke out and wrote an application,
asking to be accepted to the army as a volunteer.
Father immediately left for the frontline. We received letters from him during 3 months. Last letter from him stamped 'Pereslavl' [name a small town near Kiev] was dated September 28th, 1941.
Later we got no messages from him. I continued to write letters, until my postcard was returned with this piece of paper attached, which said that there existed no such military unit. He was said missing.
We do not know what happened to him.
Later we got an official notification, stating that he was found missing in October 1941. Apparently, he perished in encirclement September 1941 Germans surrounded and destroyed 5 Russian armies near Kiev.
[In The Red Army lost 1 million persons altogether then, killed and imprisoned].
