“A SAMPER MAKES A MISTAKE ONCE” - this saying was born on the fronts of the Great Patriotic War, where their military profession was considered one of the most dangerous: being frontline troops, sappers acted in the vanguard of the advancing troops and in the directions of the enemy’s main attacks, risking their lives, crossings under heavy fire and paved the way through minefields, were necessarily included in the assault groups and suffered losses even higher than the infantry. Already at the beginning of 1942, ten sapper armies were formed - one for each front. The Nazis admitted that “the Ivans are especially strong in mine warfare” and that Operation Citadel was “thwarted by Russian sappers,” and the crews of the “Tigers” were most afraid of anti-tank mines... This book contains the memories of those who stopped German panzers and “gnawed through” enemy defenses, stormed impregnable fortified areas and signed on the walls of the defeated Reichstag: “CHECKED: NO MINES.”