Jack Limbek from Dago (Hiiumaa) Island in Estonia came to South Australia in 1910. He worked as a labourer and carpenter in the area between Quorn and Petersburg, as well as at Port Pirie.
Enlisiting in the AIF, he served with the 27th Battalion on the Western Front. In May 1916 he was court martialled for absence without leave, which was qualified as desertion. The sentence of three years was quashed in two weeks and Limbek was sent back to trenches. In November 1916 he was wounded in the right arm at the battle for Somme. In September 1917, at the Menin Gate battle, he was wounded for the second time, in the left hand, and evacuated to Australia as medically unfit.
After the war he lived in Port Pirie, working as a fisherman and occasionally getting into trouble with police as a result of excessive drinking.
Huon Pollejuke had deserted from the Russian naval ship Gromoboi when it visited Australia to take part in the celebrations for Federation in 1901. At the time of desertion his name was recorded by the police as Ivan Polyxhonk, he also appeared in the documents as Pologouck and his original name can be reconstrusted as Ivan Poleshchuk, while in Australia he was known as Jack Pollock. He was a Ukrainian from ‘Ollenow, Podolia’, which probably was Olenevka in Podolsk Province. After his desertion, Pollejuke stayed in townships north-east of Melbourne and made trips to Tasmania and New South Wales. Later on he settled in Melbourne working as a kitchen hand and a cook.
Enlisting in the AIF, he deserted three weeks later, probably finding the service too hard for him, as he was already not a young man.
The latest records about him relate to 1940, when he died in Sydney, a lonely man, working in Surry Hills as a hawker.
Russian Anzacs