Arthur Kodak

Alias Served as Arthur Kadak
Russian spelling Артур Кадак **Estonian spelling** Kadak
Born 24.03.1891
Place Revel (Tallinn), Estonia
Ethnic origin Estonian
Religion Russian Orthodox
Father George Kadak
Family

Wife Alice Kodak (née Lynch), married 1931

Arrived at Australia from Buenos Aires, Argentina
on 4.02.1910
per Dorridon
disembarked at Newcastle, NSW
Residence before enlistment Brisbane
Occupation 1915 compositor, sailor (had 2nd mate's certificate); after the war: labourer, 1943 storeman
Naturalisation 1943
Residence after the war Innisfail, Brisbane, Sydney, Newcastle, Sydney
Died 27.08.1945, Redfern, Sydney

Service #1

Service number 1905
Enlisted 5.07.1915
Place of enlistment Brisbane
Unit 26th Battalion
Rank Private
Place Western Front, 1916
Casualties WIA 1916
Final fate RTA 13.02.1917
Discharged 24.08.1917 MU

Materials

Blog article

Russian

English

Newspaper articles

Travelling without a ticket. - Maryborough Chronicle, Wide Bay and Burnett Advertiser, 11 October 1921, p. 4

Innisfail vagrant sentenced. - Cairns Post, 1 August 1922, p. 5

Struck by truck door. - The Newcastle Sun, 15 December 1937, p. 7

From Russian Anzacs in Australian History:

Some men were pushed out into this nomadic way of life during the depression years and Arthur Kodak's story, revealed as it crops up from time to time through the official correspondence of different departments, gives us a glimpse of one such tragedy. Severely wounded at Pozières (with gunshot wounds to the head and chest), he was unable to return to being a seaman when he arrived back in Australia, and worked as a labourer in the Sydney area. In 1931 he married an Australian woman and applied for naturalisation, stating in his application: 'I am a staunch supporter of Labour and unfortunately I am unable to utilise the franchise. ... I am unemployed and unable to pay the sum required by the amended act.' The department refused to waive the fee. In 1933 Kodak, still unemployed, again applied: 'I humbly pray the Commonwealth Government ... to exempt me from the usual fees as an act of grace and recognition of my service and physical disabilities received in defence of the Commonwealth during the war' -- and was again refused. Sickness and poverty dragged him down even further, as becomes evident from a letter he wrote in 1937 while in Lidcombe State Hospital, applying for duplicates of his medals and a copy of his discharge certificate: 'On or about 15 October 1936 I was camping out at "La Perouse" N.S.W. (unemployed camp) in a sudden storm my camp was destroyed and all my belongings were carried away by tornado and stormwater in the sea'. Later, writing his thanks for the medals, he adds, 'I lost them at the time when I was canvassing, as every night I was in different place'. In 1939 he requested a replacement for his returned servicemen's badge, which was 'destroyed in bush fire at Liverpool plains in July 1938'. And it is only in 1943, when he was employed as a storeman at a munitions establishment, that he finally succeeds in being granted naturalisation: his police report noted, 'Applicant appears to be a good hard working type'. Two years later he died -- as an Australian citizen.

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