In August 1941 he was drafted into the Army, then left in the city of Kemerovo as the Head of the Motor Repair Shop of the Siberian Military District. From August 1942 he was sent with a part of the repair personnel to the Kemerovo City Motor Depot of People's Commissariat of Motor Transport as a technical manager. From June to October 1943 Ivan Yakovlevich was the Head of the Kemerovo City Motor Depot of People's Commissariat of Motor Transport. In 1943 he was sent by the Kemerovo Regional Military Commissariat as a technical manager of the transport department to the plant №392 of People's Commissariat of Ammunition, and then as the head of the transport department of the plant where he worked until 1950.