Deputy head of the Central Excise Customs Yevgeny Baskakov spoke about his grandfather, Great Patriotic War veteran Guards Sergeant Ivan Fyodorovich Lukashov. Source: Central Excise Customs (CAT).
Ivan Lukashov, a native Muscovite, was born in 1909 on Sokolinaya Hill. At 18 he was called up for conscription in the border troops. During army service he became an experienced professional driver — skills that proved invaluable in wartime.
In 1943 Ivan Fyodorovich was mobilised to the front as commander of a drivers’ section in the 49th Mechanised Brigade and later in the 35th Guards Mechanised Brigade under Marshal Konev. He drove along front-line roads all the way to Berlin, where he saw the victorious May of 1945.
The famous song “A Front-Line Driver’s Song” might have been written about Ivan Lukashov. His award citations describe repeated trips under fire to deliver mortar rounds to firing positions, including on 9 August 1944 near the village of Vzduv and on 27 August 1944 near the village of Bordo, where he was seriously wounded by an enemy shell.
In the battle for Potsdam on 27 April 1945, three battalion vehicles were knocked out by enemy artillery and urgently needed repair. Lukashov personally undertook to restore them within six hours under continuous fire, using captured spare parts, and then delivered 120 mm mortars to firing positions in time for the unit to complete its mission.
For these actions Ivan Lukashov received two Medals for Courage, as well as two commendations from Marshal Konev for bravery. He was not demobilised immediately after the war — experienced drivers remained essential, and he served two more years in the active army until 1947.
Back in Moscow he worked as a driver at a city enterprise. With his wife Anastasia Ivanovna he raised seven children; she was a full holder of the Order “Mother Heroine”. The family has six grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren; one great-grandson, Mikhail, is currently doing conscript service in the Airborne Forces.
Baskakov recalls that his grandparents loved hockey and attended matches whenever they could — a passion he inherited and still pursues in amateur games. The family carefully preserves the memory of their legendary grandfather and his decorations: two Medals for Courage, medals for the capture of Budapest and Berlin, for the defence of Moscow, and two commendations from Marshal Konev. Ivan Lukashov is on the right in the wartime photograph.