Efim Maximenko was probably a Ukrainian, although he did not provide any place of birth but ‘Russia’. He came to Australia in about 1909 and worked as an engineer fitter living in Sydney. In 1915 he married an Australian girl, Cora Petterson.
He served with the 9th Field Company Engineers on the Western Front. In June 1917 he was wounded in the abdomen at Messines and died of wounds.
His widow commemorated his name in the newspaper advertisements.
Axel Alexander Olin, a Finnish seaman from Abo (Turku), was naturalised in New Zealand in 1908 and, by the time of his enlistment in the AIF, worked with his brother in Murrumbeena in Victoria.
He served with the 39th Battalion on the Western Front and attained the rank of sergeant. For his courage and devotion to duty during the battle for Passchendaele in October 1917, he was awarded the Military Medal. He received it a few weeks before he was killed at Ploegsteert in February 1918.
Usko Leonard Salonen, another Finnish seaman from Abo, was Olin’s cousin. He came to Australia in about 1905. They both were members of the Freemasons’ Lodge in Dunedin in New Zealand.
Salonen enlisted in the AIF together with Olin and served together with him in the 39th Battalion. In January 1917 he was wounded but rejoined his battalion; In June 1917, at Messines, he was killed in action.
Peter Abolin, a seaman from Riga, came to Australia in 1915.
He served with the 39th Battalion on the Western Front with Olin and Salonen.
After the war he married an Australian woman, Amelia Selina Rayner, and lived in Sydney, working on the waterfront.
Peter Haritonoff gave his birthplace as St Petersburg, but he was probably from Kaluga. He came to Australia as a seaman, having the profession of an electrical engineer.
He enlisted in the AIF with Abolin, but was later transferred to the 8th Battalion. In 1917 he was returned to Australia as medically unfit.
He disappears from the Australian records after the war; he probably sailed overseas, continuing his occupation.
Russian Anzacs