Arthur Kodak
Alias | Served as Arthur Kadak |
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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 |
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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
Naturalisation 1 2 (NAA) (Kodak)
Digitised service records (NAA) (Kadak)
Digitised Embarkation roll entry (AWM) (Kadak)
Court martial file (NAA) (Kadak)
Digitised Naval Brigade Guard Section file (NAA) (Kodak)
Alien registration (NAA) (Kodak)
World War II security investigation dossier (NAA) (Kodak)
Blog article
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.