John Paakola from Uleaborg (Oulu) in Finland came to South Australia in 1914, most likely as a seaman.
Enlisting in the AIF in Port Pirie, he served with the 48th Battalion on the Western Front. In April 1917 he was wounded in the leg at the battle for Bullecourt and later repatriated to Australia with a diagnosis of deafness. In the 1930s his commander, D.G. Mitchell, mentioned his stamina in his memoirs.
After the war he stayed in South Australia, working as a labourer in Port Pirie, Broken Hill, Streaky Bay and Port Adelaide. He married an Australian woman, Charlotte Oborn, who had children from her previous marriage, and they had a large family.
Alexander Boronow, a Russian man from Odessa, came to Australia in about 1889, most likely as a seaman, and was cane cutting and cane farming in North Queensland.
He enlisted in the AIF in Townsville and was discharged six months later as medically unfit. If his naturalisation application is to be believed, at that time he was well over fifty.
After the war he lived in Townsville and was an inmate of Dunwich Benevolent Asylum, suffering from asthma.
John Mamchin, another native of Odessa, came to Australia in 1911 from the Russian Far East and worked as a labourer on the railway construction where he developed rheumatism due to working in water.
His service in the AIF lasted only two months and he was discharged as medically unfit. He tried to enlist two more times afterwards but did not succeed.
After the war he worked on the ships and died aboard the ‘Maori’ while in Lyttleton, New Zealand.
Antoney Zook, a Russian born in Samarkand, in Central Asia, came to Australia in 1914 from the Russian Far East. He was a clerk by training, but found it difficult to obtain work in Australia.
He enlisted in the AIF in Townsville, two days after Boronow, and served with the 12th Battalion on the Western Front. He was wounded in February 1917 in the shoulder and hand. Recovering in London he was discharged and employed by the Russian Government Committee.
No documents were found about his life after the war.
Russian Anzacs