Karl Johannes Puikko, a Finnish seaman from Oulu, came to Australia in about 1912 and worked as a labourer.
Enlisting in the AIF in Melbourne, he served with the 46th Battalion on the Western Front; later he was transferred to the machine gun battalion. In September 1917 he was gassed at Ypres and returned to Australia.
After the war he continued seafaring and finally returned to Finland.
Serge Tarasov was a seaman from St Petersburg; his father was a history teacher there.
Enlisting in the AIF in Newcastle, Tarasov served with the 34th Battalion on the Western Front. In May 1918 he was killed near Sailly-le-Sec on Somme.
The local Newcastle newspaper, commemorating his death, wrote ‘Young Tarasov was a midshipman, but deserted in order to join the fight against the Germans’.
Moisey Kotton, a young Jewish man from Kremenchug on Ukraine, came with his family to Harbin and in 1912 moved to Brisbane in Australia. After trying a number of jobs in South Queensland, he finally settled in the small township of Naughtons Gap near Lismore in NSW, where he worked as a carter, winning the love and respect of local farmers.
With the outbreak of war he made several attempts to enlist in the AIF. The local newspaper reported when he finally succeeded in his attempts: ‘Mr. M. Kotton, who succeeded in passing the medical test, is a naturalised Russian, and is only 5 ft. high. The minimum height is 5 ft 2 in, and Mr. Kotton was pleased when he was admitted as a bugler. He is very anxious to get to the front’. He served with the 4th Battalion on the Western Front; in September 1918 he was killed in the battle south of Peronne.
Andrew Kovalevsky from Blahoveshchenka in Ukraine came to Australia in 1913 from the Russian Far Est. He was probably a clerk by profession, but worked in Queensland as a labourer.
Enlisting in the AIF in Bundaberg, he served with the 26th Battalion on the Western Front. In October 1918 he was killed at the advance south of Peronne.
Russian Anzacs