Uno Videkind Sandberg, a ship mate born in Finland, came to Australia in 1912.
He enlisted in the AIF in Sydney and married an Australian girl, Ivy Mercy White, before sailing to the front. He served on the Western Front with the 1st Field Ambulance until he became sick with trench foot himself and returned to Australia accompanying a troop ship as a nurse.
After the war he worked as a storeman living in Sydney. In 1923 he was working as an upholsterer in Grafton. He suffered from insomnia and trench foot and died taking poison when working away from home.
Aoe Wiliamson, a seaman from Piarnu in Estonia, came to Australia in 1915 from South Africa and enlisted in the AIF on the same day.
He served with the 6th Battalion on the Western Front, first as a driver and then as a gunner in the artillery detachment. In February and March 1917 he twice experienced shell shock, but returned to the trenches.
After the war he lived in outback New South Wales and Queensland, working as a farmer and a drover.
Andrew Putre, another seaman from Liepaja in Latvia, came to Australia in 1911 in the footsteps of his elder brother John. He lived in South Australia working on the coastal ships and as a coal lumper.
He served in the 1st Pioneer Battalion on the Western Front, where he experienced severe shell shock in June 1916, becoming partly deaf. In September 1918, during the assault on the Hindenburg Outpost Line, he was wounded in the thigh and repatriated to Australia.
After the the war he married an Australian girl, Nora Gertrude, and lived in York, South Australia, working as a panel worker. During WWII he enlisted in the AIF, but was discharged as medically unfit. His son Robert Andrew Putre served in the RAN after the WWII as an officer.
Max Honig, a Jewish man from Slutsk in Belarus, moved with his family to Palestine and Egypt. Arriving in Western Australia in 1911 he worked as a draper in Kalgoorlie; at the same time he also worked as a teacher of Hebrew.
He enlisted in the AIF in Perth and, while in the training camp, fell ill and ended up in hospital, where he was described by a doctor as ‘intelligent and introspective’. He held the exams to become a non-commisioned officer, but failed and was discharged from the army in January 1916 as medically unfit.
After the war he disappeared from the records, probably returning to Palestine.
Peter John Potter came from a farmer family near Saratov, being, probably, a German colonist there. He arrived at Brisbane in 1911 from the Russian Far East and worked in Brisbane as a painter.
He served with artillery unit on the Western Front as a gunner.
While in England he married an English girl, Victoria Winifred Streeten, and sailed to Australia with his wife and two children in 1920. He worked as a painter in Brisbane and Sydney; his two sons enlisted in the AIF during WWII and the eldest, John Victor William Potter, was killed in Libya in 1941.
Russian Anzacs