Russian Anzacs

Edward Watson was born in Warsaw, served in the Russian Army for 3 years and settled in WA in 1911, working as a butcher.
Wounded soon after the Gallipoli landing, and again in 1916 at Pozier at the Western Front, he was repatriated to Australia in 1917.

A Swede, he enlisted in the AIF as a native of “Moscow, Russia”.
Came to Australia in 1892 and worked as an AB seaman. By the time of enlistment in the AIF he was a widower with four children living in Sydney.
He served in the AIF as a driver and a batman, was wounded at Gallipoli and repatriated to Australia from the Western Front in 1917.
In 1918 his Australian born son Charles Herbert Jr. enlisted in the AIF, but reached Europe too late to take part in the war.

The first Belarusian to enlist in the AIF. Before arriving to Australia as a seaman he worked for three years in Canada.
After being wounded in Gallipoli, he served at the Western Front as a Lance Corporal, but was returned to Australia as medically unfit.
His English fiancée Eva Grace Cowne followed him to Australia in 1919, where they married in the Sydney Greek Orthodox church. Paul worked as a carrier and salesman in Melbourne and after his retirement they moved to Highcliff, Bournemouth in the UK.
Recently I found his Belarusian family who are eager to get in touch with Eva Cowne’s relatives and to learn more about Paul’s life.