 Fyodor Shpalikov was sent to the front line; he received an Order of the Red Star in 1944 and was declared missing in action in Western Poland in 1945.Gennady was raised by his mother Ludmila Nikiforovna Perevertkina, also from peasants of the Voronezh Governorate.Her brother was an acclaimed Soviet colonel general Semyon Perevertkin who led the 79th Rifle Corps of the 3rd Shock Army during the fight for Reichstag and later served as a Deputy Director of the Ministry of Internal Affairs between 1956 and 1960.