John Evanoff (served as Jacob Evonoff), a Russian seaman from Novo Dilizhan, in Elizavetpol Province in the Caucasus (now Armenia), came to Australia in April 1917 and enlisted in Sydney two months later.
He served with the 53rd Battalion on the Western Front. In April 1918, two weeks after his arrival at the front, he was gassed, but continued his service. In September 1918, at the battle for Peronne, he was wounded in the leg and repatriated to Australia.
In 1919, soon after his discharge from the army, he married an Australian girl, Catherine Mary Lindbeck, and lived with his family in Sydney working as a labourer for the Water Board Department, and later as a miner.
Walter Alen Weckman, a Finnish seaman from Vyborg, deserted his ship due to cruel treatment from the captain soon after their arrival at Fremantle in February 1917.
He enlisted in the AIF in July 1917, and served with the 51st Battalion on the Western Front. In July 1918 he fell ill and was evacuated to England; on 9 November 1918, two day before the Armistice, he died of pneumonia.
His relatives in Finland were found after the war.
Peter Wiselenski came from a peasant family in Slonim, Belarus. Leaving his home as a teenager, he spent five years in the USA, came to Brisbane in July 1917 and enlisted in the AIF a week later as Pete Wishkenlski.
He served with the 2nd Tunnelling Company on the Western Front as a sapper.
Returning to Australia, he married an Australian girl, Mary Eliza Revell. They took a land block in the soldiers’ settlement of Red Cliff, Victoria, where Peter worked as a farmer. Their son Peter Kelvin served in the AIF in WWII and Peter elder served in the volunteer defense corps.
Russian Anzacs