Rudolph Mahlit, a Latvian teacher, organised the first social-democratic circles in Latvia. Exiled to Siberia, he fled to Japan and came to Western Australia in 1912. He worked in the Collie area as a timber hewer and foreman and was loved by all in the district.
Enlisting in the AIF, he participated in the Gallipoli landing with the 16th Battalion. On 2 May 1915 he was wounded at the battle for Bloody Angle, at Quinn’s Post. He rejoined his unit after recovery, only to die not long after, during the attack on Hill 60 on 27 August.
George Berzin, a sailor from Wolmar (Valmiera), Latvia, came to Australia from South America in 1911 and worked as a labourer in Broken Hill, Yorktown and Port Pirie.
Enlisting in the AIF, he served at Gallipoli where he was promoted to Lance Corporal. He was killed at Pozieres, on the Western Front, on 4 August 1916.
His uncle Edward Sinka, living in Latvia, was never found, but his Australian friends placed commemorative advertisements in newspapers.
Sidney Herbert Parsons was born in St Petersburg in 1870, where his British parents lived for many years. In 1886 all their family emigrated to Sydney, where young Sidney worked as a saddler. By the time of the war he was married and had a daughter.
He served in the 2nd Battalion as Corporal and Sergeant at Gallipoli and on the Western Front. He was wounded three times: during August battles at Gallipoli in 1915, and at Pozieres in 1916 and at Bullecourt in 1917 on the Western Front.
After the war he worked as a tram driver in Sydney.
Russian Anzacs