Gustave Jackson (his true name was Gustav Kaeramees) from Dago (Hiiumaa) Island in Estonia worked in South Australia as a labourer.
He enlisted in the AIF in Port Pirie and served with the 5th Pioneer battalion on the Western Front. He was wounded in the leg in January 1917; although he recovered, he later suffered from mental delusions and was repatriated to Australia.
After the war he recovered and was seafaring all over the world, but the 1950s he returned to Australia and naturalised.
John Goralski (he served as Guralsky), a Polish man from Falkow, was conscripted in the Russian Army as a railway soldier, deserted and came to Darwin from the Russian Far East in 1915. He worked on the railway construction at Pine Creek.
He enlisted in the AIF in Darwin, was transferred to Brisbane and discharged three months later as medically unfit.
After that he worked in Sydney as a gardener and later moved to South Australia.
Osiph Rinkevich was born in Razekne in Latvia, from where his family migrated to Tomsk Province in Siberia. He came to Australia in 1913 and after two years in Sydney and Port Pirie moved to Darwin.
He enlisted in the AIF together with Goralsky. While in training camp in Brisbane he met a number of other Russian compatriots enlisted in the AIF and his collection of WWI photographs began growing. Rinkevich served with the 47th Battalion on the Western Front; in May 1918 he was transferred to the 46th Battalion and finished the war in the Light Trench Mortar Battery. He was wounded twice: in June 1917 in the battle for Messines in the leg and September 1918 near Peronne he was wounded by a bomb blast in the head and in the arm.
Recovering after the war, Rinkevich worked as a labourer on the railway construction and a cane cutter in North Queensland. In 1925 he married Ukrainian girl Maria Gavriluk and had son, Valentine. After WWII they ran a chicken farm near Innisfail and an oyster farm on Dunk Island. The Rinkevich family preserved his collection of WWI photographs and was recently reunited with the family of Osiph’s brother in Siberia.
Gustav Lindrose, a Finnish seaman from Abo (Turku), came to Australia in 1908 and continued seafaring.
Enlisting in the AIF in Newcastle, he served with the 34th Battalion on the Western Front, attaining the rank of corporal. In March 1918 he was wounded at Amiens and in August 1918 at Mont St Quentin.
In 1916, before leaving for the front, Lindrose married an Australian girl, Violet Evelin Kirchner. After the war they lived in Newcastle, where he worked as a rigger; during WWII he served in the Royal Australian Navy.
Frank Pyziak from Widzew in Poland came to Australia in 1909, probably as a seaman. In Australia he worked as a labourer and orchardist in Bodalla and Seven Hills, NSW.
Enlisting in the AIF, he served with the 53rd Battalion on the Western Front. In March 1918 he was wounded in the right shoulder at Amiens, and in September 1918 he was wounded in the leg at the battle for Peronne.
After the war he lived in Port Kembla and Wollongong; during WWII he enlisted in the AIF and served in the garrison battalions.
Russian Anzacs