Vlas Kozakovshonok (in Australian documents his name was misspelt in all possible ways) was a Russian seaman from Riga.
He came to Australia on the eve of the war and, joining the AIF in Sydney, sailed to Gallipoli with reinforcements to the 4th Battalion. He was killed a couple of days after the landing at the Lone Pine battle of August 1915.
Kozakovshonok’s parents in Riga were found in 1917 and received an Australian pension.
Phillip Nesterinko was a seaman and locksmith from Konotop in Ukraine.
He enlisted in the AIF on the same day as Kozakovshonok, but Nesterinko’s service was short: he was discharged a month later on medical grounds by his own request and continued to work as a seaman.
The origins of Samuel Bortzell are a bit of mystery. Near the end of the war, when he took part in the recruiting campaign, he posed as a ‘Frenchman bred and born’ who came from Noumea to enlist in the AIF, but according to his enlistment application he was a Jewish man born in Irkutsk in Siberia. By the time of the outbreak of the war he lived in Sydney with his father.
He was just 21 when he enlisted in the AIF as an interpreter. In August 1915 he landed at Gallipoli with the 17th Battalion. A month later he was injured when a bomb exploded a yard from him and spent several months in hospitals. He continued his service on the Western Front where he was severely wounded at the battle of Passchendaele in October 1917; as a result his leg was amputated.
Returning to Australia he took part in the recruiting campaign, posing as a recipient of the Military Medal and Distinguished Conduct Medal, neither of which he had. For years he worked as a lift driver in Sydney and several times attracted the attention of the press due to his extramarital liaisons.
Russian Anzacs