Philip Antonovich
Gokov
1919-1993
Philip Antonovich Gokov was a Colonel of the Soviet Army, participant in the battles on the Khalkhin-Gol River and the Great Patriotic War, the Hero of the Soviet Union. He finished seven grades of school in his native village, then the financial and economic college in Orel. In 1936 Gokov was called up to serve in the Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army. In 1938 he finished Orel Tank School. In 1939 he participated in the battles on the Khalkhin-Gol River. Since the beginning of the Great Patriotic War he was on its fronts. By March 1942, Senior Lieutenant Philip Gokov had commanded a tank company of the 10th Tank Brigade of the 21st Army of the Southwestern Front. He distinguished himself during the Kharkov operation of 1942. On March 9, 1942 Gokov’s company broke through the enemy defensive line. During the battle for the village of Rubezhnoye in the Volchansky district of the Kharkiv region of the Ukrainian SSR, Gokov’s tank was the first to cross the Seversky Donets and destroyed a bunker, a cannon, a mortar and 3 machine guns. Soviet infantry and tank units were introduced into the resulting breakthrough of enemy defence. Having spent all the shells, Gokov destroyed the German bunker with the mass of the tank. In total, during the period from February 13 to March 13, Gokov’s crew destroyed 18 artillery pieces, 43 machine guns, 20 mortars, as well as a large number of enemy soldiers and officers. By the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR “On conferring the title of the Hero of the Soviet Union to the commanding staff of the Red Army” dated November 5, 1942, for “exemplary performance of combat tasks of the command at the front of the struggle against the German invaders and the courage and heroism shown at the same time”, he was awarded the high title of the Hero of the Soviet Union with the award of the Order of Lenin and the Gold Star medal number 747. In the future, he passed the combat path from Stalingrad to Vinnitsa. Since July 1942, Gokov commanded a tank battalion, and since November of the same year — the 8th Guards Tank Regiment of the breakthrough. He was seriously wounded, almost lost his leg, and was in hospitals until November 1944. Since November 1944, Lieutenant Colonel Gokov headed the military department of the Department of Educational Institutions of the People’s Commissariat of Tank Construction of the USSR. In September 1946, with the rank of colonel, he was discharged from the reserve due to illness. In 1962 Gokov graduated from the Moscow Institute of Civil Engineering and then worked as a senior foreman, engineer of the construction trust, head of the construction trust. He lived in Moscow.
Address: Moscow, Yunykh Lenintsev str., 85, bldg. 1
