Русская версия

Puring, Roshkovsky, Lehtonen, Pavelkin, Newman

Gustav Albert Puring

  • Gustav Albert Puring from Riga, by the time of his enlistment in the AIF, was working as a labourer in Adelaide.
  • He served with the 32nd Battalion on the Western Front; in November 1918 he was attached to the 59th Battalion as a German interpreter.
  • After the war he married Hannah Faulkiner and lived in Port Adelaide, working as a wood contractor. He died in 1931 leaving behind six young children.

Ion Roshkovsky

  • Ion Roshkovsky, a Jewish man from Tomsk in Siberia, came to Australia in 1915 and worked as a labourer in Brisbane.
  • A week after enlisting in the AIF he was discharged.
  • In 1917 he married Olga Trager from Russia and lived with his family in Brisbane and Sydney, working as a cook.

John Alfred Lehtonen

  • John Alfred Lehtonen, a Finnish seaman from Helsingfors (Helsinki), by the time of his enlistment in the AIF, was working as a wheeler in West Maitland in New South Wales.
  • He served with the 4th Battalion on the Western Front and was killed in January 1917 near Flers.
  • His parents were found after the war.

John Pavelkin

  • John Pavelkin, a Mordvinian from Ardatov in Simbirsk Province, came to Sydney from the Russian Far East in 1913 and worked as a miner in Cobar and Boulder.
  • Enlisting in the AIF, he served as a sapper with the 3rd Australian Tunnelling Company on the Western Front. In July 1918 he was wounded in the leg and hand and repatriated to Australia.
  • After the war he worked as a labourer and seaman moving from Western Australia to Sydney. Newspapers would report about his performances on a ‘Russian string instrument’ ‘with harmony and sweetness’.

Emil Newman

  • Emil Newman, a carpenter in Raumo in Finland, by the time of his enlistment in the AIF, was working in Newcastle.
  • He served with the 35th Battalion on the Western Front. He was court martialed once for disobedience and wounded three times: in June 1917 near Messines (shell-shock), in July 1917 (gunshot wound to the left arm), and in October 1917 at Passchendaele (in the right hand). After that he worked as a stretcher-bearer and was killed while carrying rations to the line by a sniper bullet in May 1918.