My father told me. His father, my grandfather Sergey Vasilyevich Romanov in the 30s was a teacher of physics and electrical engineering at the NKVD technical school and later at Cheboksary University. In the fall of 1939, he was drafted into the army, in the Air Force. As a result, he got into one of the bomber regiments on TB-3.
He came home more than once on vacation and on leave. Once he came to May Day in 1941. My grandmother asked him about his plans for the summer.
"There will be The War," he said.
"What!? With whom... it'll be ?" She gasped.
"Nazi Germans," he said, and paused, "It will be dreadful and long."
"But... but will you return someday, won't you?"
"No, not anymore..."
This way my father remembered him: slowly walking away along the steppe road, the figure grew smaller and smaller until it was completely faded away in haze.
21.08.1942 Grandfather heroically died while performing a combat mission to bombard the forces and means of the Nazi German invaders in the Crimea, on the way to Victory Day.