Russian AnzacsCentenary Stories
To mark the Centenary of the First World War in 2014-2018, this site, in a weekly post, celebrated the Russian Anzacs who enlisted in the AIF that week.
Kanaef, Voitkun, Goldberg, Greig, Moody
- Jack Kanaef (originally his name was probably Ivan Korneev), an electrician from Moscow, fought at the battle of Mukden in the Russo-Japanese war. His daughter Leah believes that while in Russia he escaped from political exile to Siberia and fled to Australia in 1914. Before the war he lived in Queanbeyan.
- Enlisting in the AIF in Goulburn, he served in the 5th Field Ambulance on the Western Front, but was returned to Australia and discharged for reason of insufficient English.
- After the war he returned to Queanbeyan and worked as an electrician, being employed at the Canberra Power House in 1922, and was involved in the electrification of the Canberra-Queanbeyan area. In 1920 he married Zillah Lakovsky, a Jewish girl from Ukraine, whose brothers also served in the AIF. In 1922 they had twins, Leah and Mischa, but in 1923 Jack left the family and went to Fiji. During WWII his son and daughter both participated in the war, while Jack surfaced in the USA, registering for army service.
- Andreas Voitkun from Riga had a Polish father, Adam Woitkun, and a Latvian mother. A ship engineer by trade, he came to Adelaide with his wife Emily and two children in 1913. They settled in Port Pirie, where Andreas worked as a labourer. Three more children were born there.
- In spite of the fact that he had a large family, Andreas enlisted in the AIF, as being a Russian citizen he was compelled to serve in the Allied army. He came to the Western Front with the 32nd Battalion. In July 1916, less than a month after his arrival, at the battle for Fromelles he was severely wounded in the right leg and left wrist and taken as a prisoner of war by the Germans.
- Reunited after the war with his family, he lived in Port Pirie, working at the smelters there. His grandson, Prof. Peter Dennis, is the creator of the excellent database of all AIF servicemen.
- Alfred Goldberg, a Jewish man from Kutno in Poland, came to Australia in 1907 in the footsteps of his elder brother Benjamin, who later enlisted in the AIF as well. Alfred was a hairdresser by trade.
- He enlisted in the AIF in Rockhampton under the name of Alfred Lewis. He served in the 26th Battalion on the Western Front and was wounded at the Somme in November 1916. He was returned to Australia and discharged as medically unfit.
- After the war he married Rebecca Lenzer and lived in Sydney, working as a barman.
- Eugene Jack Greig was a sailor from Riga.
- Enlisting in the AIF in Sydney he served on the Western Front as a gunner in the 1st Field Artillery Brigade. In October 1917 he was killed at the battle for Passchendaele near Ypres.
- His uncle living in England was found after the war.
- Anders Alfred Moody (his original name was Modig) was born near Jeppo in Finland. He came to Australia in 1905 and worked in the Randwick railway workshops.
- He served in the AIF as a gunner in the 2nd Division ammunition column.
- Returning to Australia he married an Australian woman, Lillian Beatrice Smith, and lived in Sydney working as iron worker and pit assistant.
Mersky, Matveichik, Drager, Srebel
- Joseph Mersky, a Jewish man from Diatlovo in Belarus, left Russia to avoid conscription in the Russian army. He spent 10 years in London working as a baker. In 1907 he married Dora Niedel and by the time of his arrival in Australia in 1912 they had three children. In March 1915 his wife with children joined him in Australia, but half a year later Joseph enlisted in the AIF in Brisbane.
- He served on the Western Front as a baker in the Service Corps.
- After the war Mersky lived in South Brisbane, in the in the area of traditional Russian-Jewish settlement, where he continued his occupation as a baker and fruiterer. He also became the honourable secretary of South Brisbane Central Synagogue, and took active part in Jewish ex-servicemen reunions in Brisbane. A Brisbane newspaper reported on one such gathering: ‘Mr. Mersky, a member of the Field Bakery Section of the A.I.F., made the bread rolls, and the chief decoration of the evening was a huge khalar, a special loaf of bread baked in the old Jewish style’. His youngest daughter, Cecilia, worked as a nurse during WWII.
- John Matveichik, a Belarusian from Juszkowy Grud in Grodno Province, started his travels when he was conscripted in the Russian Army and sent to fight in Port-Arthur during the Russo-Japanese war. Arriving in Australia from Manchuria in 1912, he worked in Guluguba as a lengthsman.
- He enlisted in the AIF in Toowoomba, a week later after the three men from Krasnoe, and was allocated to the same 26th Battalion. He served on the Western Front where in March 1917, during the attack on Lagnicourt, he was wounded in the right shoulder and repatriated to Australia.
- After the war he worked at the Blackheath Coal Mine at Blackstone near Ipswich, and as a carpenter in the Bundaberg area.
- Adolf Leopold Drager was born in Riga, Latvia; his father was a German who came to Russia as a child. A hairdresser and barber by trade, Adolf came to Australia in 1911, following his elder brother Ernest Mikel Dreger, who was a ship’s fireman and had contacts among Latvian radicals in London. Ernest finally decided to settle in Australia and invited there his brothers Adolf and Frederick. Upon arrival Adolf worked in outback Western Australia, Doodlakine and Culham.
- With the 51st Battalion he served on the Western Front where he was wounded three times: first at Mouquet Farm in August 1916, then in July 1917 and finally near Villers-Bretonneux in April 1918. During the last casualty he was severely wounded in the left leg, which was finally amputated.
- Returning to Australia, he suffered from depression and in 1922 in an attempt to commit suicide he shot himself in the chest, but luckily was saved. A change for the better came in 1923 when he married an Australian girl, Mary Ellen Armstrong, and had three children. They settled in North Perth where he continued his occupation as a hairdresser.
- Peter Srebel, a carpenter from Vilna (Vilnius) in Lithuania, came to Brisbane in 1914 with his wife and son.
- When he enlisted in the AIF he was well over 40. A year later, with the reinforcements to the 25th Battalion he sailed for the front, but was disembarked in Fremantle for medical reasons, returned to Brisbane and discharged.
- After that he led a nomadic life in Queensland working on railway construction. In 1921 he received permission to leave Australia and returned to Lithuania, but his son Sidor (Cedar Srebell) stayed in Australia.
Four Russians from Toowoomba
- On 21 September 1915 four Russians came to enlist in the AIF in Toowoomba, arriving from Guluguba, where they were working on the construction of the railway.
- The youngest among them was 17 year old Michael Dorofaeff. He was born in Bruslanovo near Lebedian in Tambov Province in Central Russia. His family moved to Chita in Siberia and from there Michael and his elder brother Vasily came to Australia in 1912. Here they were engaged in cane cutting and labouring work.
- When enlisting, Michael stated that he was nearly 19 and his parents were in Russia. Three months later, his brother Vasily reported that he was just 17 and Michael was immediately discharged. In February 1916 Vasily himself tried to enlist in the AIF, but was rejected as medically unfit.
- In 1916 the brothers moved to New Zealand, from where they tried to return to Russia with their families in 1936, but did not receive visas from the Soviet authorities when they reached London. They returned to New Zealand. Recently Michael’s granddaughter, Serena Dorf, visited Lebedian in the footsteps of her granddad.
- Three other enlistees were more successful. They were the three friends, Gregory Matrenin, Nicholas Silantiff and Michael Wolkoff, from the remote village of Krasnoe in the River Volga area, about 200 km from Simbirsk. They all were 27 years old and left wives and children in Krasnoe. Ethnically they were most likely Mordovians. Like many other Russian immigrants they came to Australia via the Far East to earn some money, landing in Brisbane just a few months before the outbreak of war.
- The Russian-language newspaper published in Brisbane reported that when the war started, the fathers of two of these men — Matrenin and Silantiff — wrote advising their sons not to return, to avoid being conscripted into the Russian army. The fathers were arrested by local Russian police, beaten and told that unless they demanded their sons’ return they would not be freed from jail. The unlucky immigrants from Krasnoe had no alternative but to join the army in Australia.
- They were allocated to the 26th (Queensland) Battalion of the AIF and came to the Western Front together in September 1916. Within only a few weeks they suffered their first loss when Michael Wolkoff was killed in the battle for the Somme in November 1916. Their second loss occurred three months later, when in February 1917 Nicholas Silantiff was severely wounded in the right arm and both legs and was invalided to Australia. Finally, in May 1917, whilst waiting to attack at Bullecourt, Gregory Matrenin received multiple shell-wounds affecting his right eye, his right hand and forearm, his thigh and left knee. He survived this ordeal but became blind.
- After the war their stories took different paths. Gregory Matrenin, demobilising in London, was placed in St Dunstan’s hostel for blind soldiers, where he received training in poultry farming and willow basket-making. He applied for his discharge in May 1920, stating his intention was to try to find his wife and two children in Russia. Luckily, he did not manage to get there. In 1928 he married an English woman, Alice Ballard, and worked as a wool rug maker.
- Nicholas Silantiff, recovering from his severe wounds in Brisbane, had been left with a bad limp. When his war savings were gone he worked as a cane cutter and on railway construction. After several years of such life he applied for permission to return to Russia; it was finally granted in 1923 and he went soon afterwards to Krasnoe. There he met the wife of Michael Wolkoff, Praskovia, who received an Australian pension. In 1936 he was arrested for ‘anti-revolutionary’ activities (probably because he received an Australian pension); Praskovia Volkova was arrested as well. In 1938 Silantiff was arrested for the second time and deported to Kazakhstan. The trace of him ends there. Praskovia survived the ordeal and when the Australian Legation was opened in Moscow during WWII she came there, ‘having walked the greater part of the way from Krasnoe Selo’ to ask to renew her pension, which allowed her to survive.
- A tribute to these Russian Anzacs from Krasnoe village was made during the Centenary celebrations at the Australian Embassy in Moscow with the participation of the Volkovs’ great grandson.
Tetoll, Bloom, Harsila, Andreson
- Nicholas Tetoll was born in Kostroma in Central Russia. He came to Australia via the Russian Far East in 1909. He worked on railway construction and as miner in Queensland.
- Enlisting in the AIF in Rockhampton, he served as a sapper in the 1st Tunneling Company in the Western Front. In September 1917 he was wounded in the leg and evacuated to Australia.
- After the war he lived in Central Queensland, working as a labourer and occasionally being fined by the police for excessive drinking.
- Samuel Bloom, a Jewish man from the Plock area in Poland, first emigrated to England and in 1913 moved to Sydney, where he worked as a hairdresser and chiropodist.
- After a month in the AIF he was discharged as unfit for military service. Shipping records of his arrival to Australia suggest that he was over fifty, being six years older than he claimed when enlisting in the AIF.
- After the war he lived in Sydney and died in 1926; he was obviously lonely as his estate was managed by a public trustee.
- Matti Harsila, a Finnish seaman from Lapua, came to Adelaide in September 1915 and enlisted in the AIF two weeks later.
- He served with the 48th Battalion on the Western Front. He was wounded in August 1916, but remained on duty. In April 1917, at the Bullecourt advance, he was wounded in the left wrist and taken as a prisoner of war by the Germans. When he recovered, they used him at steel works near Essen.
- After the war he was freed and visited his family in Finland, but in 1922 he returned to Australia, settling in North Queensland where he worked as a labourer and a cane cutter until in 1944 he was severely injured by an overturned cane truck. The last years he spent in Brisbane.
- William Andreson, a seaman fron Piarnu in Estonia, enlisted in the AIF in Tasmania.
- He served with the 26th Battalion on the Western Front.
- After the war he continued his occupation as a sailor.
Preis, Miconi, Berk, Lindholm, Hulsen
- Karl Preis was a seaman from Pernau (Piarnu) in Estonia.
- Enlisting in Lithgow in September 1915, he deserted two months later.
- In the following years he worked in country New South Wales as a labourer, occasionally getting into trouble with the police for not registering as an alien.
- Ivan Miconi from Riga came from a Russianised Italian family. He served in the Volunteer Russian Fleet and in 1898 he deserted his ship in Adelaide. By 1915 was farming in Victoria and had a family.
- Enlisting in the AIF in Melbourne, he was allocated to the 1st Remount Unit, but upon reaching Egypt he was invalided to Australia because of his advanced age.
- After the war he lived in Adelaide with his family and was one of the organisers of the Russian Citizens’ Association there.
- Leo Berk was born in Belostok in Grodno Province (now Poland) and might have been of Belorussian or Jewish origin, but after his service in the Russian Army in the Russo-Japanese war he seems to have become Russianised and upon arrival to Brisbane in 1913 was a part of the Russian community there. He worked as a labourer in different parts of Queensland.
- Enlisting in the AIF, he served as a gunner in the 4th Field Artillery Brigade on the Western Front. In May 1917 he was gassed and soon afterwards became sick and was evacuated to Australia.
- During the Russian Revolution of 1917 he expressed more conservative positions and was at odds with the Russian community in Brisbane. Marrying a German woman, Margarite Stuewe in 1921, he moved to the Tumoulin – Ravenshoe area in North Queensland, working as labourer and millhand there and actively supporting the local RSSILA.
- John Lindholm was a Finnish seaman from Abo.
- He served on the Western Front with the 54th Battalion. In October 1918 he was killed during the attack on the Hindenburg Line.
- His brothers were found after the war in the USA.
- Alexander Hulsen was a seaman from Riga.
- He served with the 47th Battalion on the Western Front and was killed in June 1917 at Messines.
- His Australian friend Charles Lawrence could not provide any information about his family when the Australian authorities tried to locate them.
Bevolsky, Paltie, Markoff, Johnson, Janshewsky
- Paul Bernard Bevolsky from Piarnu in Estonia served in Russia on submarine miners. He came to Australia in 1911 and worked in Sydney as a storeman.
- He served with the 1st Battalion on the Western Front. In August 1916 he was wounded in the wrist and forearm at the battle for Pozieres. Evacuated to an English hospital, he continued his service in Britain, being appointed temporary sergeant in 1918.
- While in Britain he married an English woman, Harriet Elizabeth Bowes, a widow with two children, whose husband had been killed during the war. In 1920 they all left for Australia, where their son Harry was born in 1920. They settled in Wentworth Falls, where Paul worked as a gardener. In 1924 his wife died, leaving him with three children. Paul changed his name to Bowes and later moved to Sydney, where he worked as a storeman. His son Harry served in the AIF in the WWII and was killed in Egypt.
- Samuel Paltie, a Jewish man from Talsen in Latvia, first moved to Glasgow in Scotland and in 1901 came to Australia with his wife Ada and two children Martha and Joseph. They lived in Sydney where Samuel had a secondhand shop on Campbell Street.
- Enlisting in the AIF in September 1915, he was discharged two months later at his wife’s request. His son Joseph, born in Scotland, enlisted in the AIF at the end of war but was too late to be sent overseas.
- After the war Samuel lived in Sydney and Brisbane, continuing his business.
- Makar Markoff from Melikhovo in Kursk Province left Russia when he was a teenager and worked as a fireman on the ships. He came to Australia not long before the war.
- Enlisting in the AIF, he served in the artillery units as a driver on the Western Front.
- After the war, spending a few years in Australia, he returned to Russia, where he received Australian pension until it was stopped in 1937 and trace of him was lost.
- John Johnson, a seaman from Riga, worked in Coonabarabran in NSW as a labourer.
- Enlisting in the AIF in Dubbo, he served with the 20th Battalion on the Western Front. He was wounded in the head during the advance in March 1917. Recovering, he returned to his unit and was wounded once again, in the battle for Mennin Road, at Ypres, and again to the head. After the second wound he was evacuated to Australia.
- After the war he worked as a wharf labourer in Sydney and later moved to Brisbane.
- Edward Rudolph Janshewsky, a fireman from Libava (Liepaja) in Latvia, came to Australia in July 1915 and enlisted in the AIF two months later.
- He served with the 1st Pioneer Battalion on the Western Front, but his servive was marked with numerous AWLs and two court-martials, so that he was not eligible for war medals.
- After the war he married a woman from New Zealand, Signa Hansen, and settled down in Sydney working as a bootmaker. Here he played in the Workers’ Art Club performances. During WWII he enlisted in the AIF once again, working in a boot repair section.
Korniack, Loginoff, Semenkin, Kusheff, Johnson, Jorgensen
- Affanasey Korniack, a Ukrainian from Poritsk in Volyn Province, fought in the Russo-Japanese War. He came to Townsville from the Russian Far East not long before WWI broke out. By that time he was nearly forty, being a widover with two children left behind in Russia. He had the trade of a machinist and worked in the mines in Cloncurry and Friezland as a miner.
- In September 1915 he enlisted in the AIF in Townsville together with two Russians, Loginoff and Semenkin. His service was not long, and although he reenlisted in February 1916 in Brisbane, he was discharged in April of the same year as medically unfit.
- After the war he worked in North Queensland as an engineer and fitter, later moving to Brisbane where he worked at a meatworks. For six years he attempted to receive naturalisation in Australia, but was refused because the security officers had suspicions about his belonging to the Russian Association and ties with Communists. He finally succeeded in 1930.
- George Loginoff from Kotelnich in Viatka Province, leaving Russia, spent two years in England, France, and Alaska, arriving in Brisbane in 1913. He worked as a labourer in Friezeland.
- Enlisting in the AIF, he served as a gunner in the Division Ammunition Column on the Western Front. In October 1916 he received a contusion to the face and in November 1917 he was gassed at Passchendaele. He experienced deafness and was evacuated to Australia.
- After the war he lived in Brisbane and Cairns. In 1921 he was naturalised and disappers from the records after that. It is most likely that he returned to Russia.
- Paul Semenkin, from Paluzh in Mogilev Province in Belarus, came to Australia in 1914 and worked in the mines in Friezland with Korniak and Loginoff.
- He was discharged from the AIF soon after enlistment, suffering from rheumatism.
- In 1916 he worked in Paraparap in the Northern Territory, but disappears from records after that.
- Michael Kusheff, a Russian from Viatka, came to Townsville in Australia from the Russian Far East in September 1915.
- He immediately enlisted in the AIF, probably together with the group of Russians, which included his countryman George Loginoff from Viatka Province. A local newspaper informed that with a group of volunteers he has sailed to the training camp in Brisbane in September 1915. His service records are not found, but his portrait appeared in the Queenslander Pictorial in April 1916 among the 12th reinforcements of the 9th Battalion. He obviously did not embark for the overseas service and disappears from the Australian records after that.
- After the war he probably lived in China, as in 1956 information about him appears in the Brazil immigration register according to which he moved from Hong Kong to San Paulo. By that time he was a widower and an accountant by trade.
- Harry Johnson from Perrynory near Riga in Latvia was a ship’s carpenter. He stated that he naturalised in the USA. In 1912 he came to Port Melbourne and worked on coastal boats, and then on a farm in Cheltenham.
- Enlisting in the AIF in Melbourne he was transferred for training to Bendigo, where he deserted.
- He disappears from the records after that.
- Carl Jorgensen from Finland came to Australia in 1907, probably as a seaman. Here he worked as a labourer and stockman in Prosperine in North Queensland. In 1913 he married an Australian girl, Agnes McKinney.
- Enlisting in the AIF in Rockhampton he served as a bombardier in the artillery units on the Western Front. In February 1918 he was gassed, but rejoined the unit. In October 1918 he was on leave in the UK where he contracted influenza and died a week later in the Military Hospital in Hamilton in Scotland, just five days before the armistice.
Tanne, Rothman, Simula, Sjomlom, Anderson
- Michael Tanne, an Estonian seaman from Piarnu, came to Australia in 1911 and worked as a labourer in South Australia.
- Soon after enlistment in the AIF he was found sick with TB, discharged from the army a year later, and died soon afterwards.
- Leon Rothman, a young Jewish man born in Odessa, came to Australia in 1914 with his parents and lived in Brisbane learning the trade of a jeweller.
- He enlisted in the AIF, but was soon discharged when his commander learned that he was just 19 and did not have the consent of his parents.
- In 1917 he married a Jewish girl from Melitopol, Elsie Meerkin, and had a large family. First he worked in Brisbane as a salesman, but by 1930 he moved to Sydney, where he found employment as a painter.
- Toivo Jala Simula, a Finnish seaman from Helsingfors (Helsinki) came to Australia in September 1915 and enlisted in the AIF a few days later in Melbourne.
- He sailed with the 5th Battalion to the Western Front, but there his service did not go right, he was court martialled for disobedience three times and had numerous AWLs. When he finally reached the trenches he was wounded at the Amiens advance in August 1918 and returned to Australia.
- After the war he lived in Sydney, periodically getting into trouble with the police, until, in 1932, he married an Australian woman, Agnes Frances Leighton.
- Alexander Alfred Sjoblom, another Finn, from Genbole, came to Australia in 1906 and worked in Australia as a miner.
- Enlisting in the AIF, he served through the war as a gunner on the Western Front.
- After the war he farmed in country NSW, specialising as a viticulturalist.
- Ernest Anderson, a seaman from Riga, came to Western Australia in 1910 and worked as a sleeper hewer.
- He served with the 11th Battalion on the Western Front and was killed in action in July 1916 at Pozieres.
- His mother in Riga was found after the war.
Thaler, Breitman, Jaffe, Kivovitch, Borg
- Gustav Thaler, born in Warsaw, was of German-Polish origin. He came to Queensland in 1891 as a child with his family. He lived in Charters Towers, Blackall and Brisbane, working as a labourer and a cook.
- Enlisting in the AIF, he came with the 31st Battalion to Egypt, but got a hernia and was returned to Australia as medically unfit.
- After the war he married an Australian girl, Eva Scriven, and was farming at Beerburrum, and later moved to Ipswich.
- George (Girsh) Breitman, a young Jewish man from Chechelnik in Podolsk Province in Ukraine, probably came to Australia from England, where his relatives lived.
- He served with the 3rd Battalion on the Western Front. In April 1917 he was awarded the Military Medal for bravery in the field, saving his officer’s life and assisting in the capture of four enemies. In October 1917 he was wounded in the hand at Broodseinde near Ypres. In August 1918 he was gassed, but rejoined his battalion after recovery and was in the field on the day of the armistice.
- In April 1919 he contracted pneumonia, was transferred to a hospital in England, and died a week later.
- Phillip Jaffe, a Jewish man from Kovno (Kaunas) in Lithuania, first migrated to South Africa and served in the South African Army. In June 1915 he came to Australia working his passage, and enlisted in the AIF two months later.
- He service did not go well; he was absent without leave several times and deserted in December 1915. Being apprehended, he was court martialled and sentenced to 60 days of imprisonment.
- He disappears from Australian records after that.
- Yur Kivovitch, born in Odessa, came from a large Jewish family, which migrated to Palestine soon after 1905. From there Yur, who knew a number of languages, went to China, India and Hong Kong. He came to Townsville in 1913 and worked as a collector of customs and refreshment room keeper there.
- Enlisting in the AIF, he served in Egypt in the Camel Transport Corps as a Quartermaster Sergeant and later in the Censor’s office of the Australian HQ in Cairo.
- After the war he worked in South Australia as a commercial traveller, and later as a merchant and manufacturer. In 1931 he left for Canada. Twenty years later he returned to Australia and lived in Sydney, working as a restaurant proprietor.
- Charles Leonard Borg, born in Helsingfors (Helsinki) in Finland, was a train conductor. He came to Western Australia in 1913 and worked as a timber worker.
- He served as a sapper in the 3rd Field Company Engineers, attaining the rank of Lance-Corporal. He was killed in April 1918 near Amiens.
- His family in Finland was found after the war.
Strom, Klemettila, Erickson, Rautlin
- Oscar Strom, a Finnish seaman from Helsingfors (Helsinki) came to Australia in 1914.
- When he enlisted in the AIF in Sydney, his name was misspelt and he was recorded as Srom; he also gave his place of birth as Piarnu, in Estonia. He served as a gunner in the 1st Division Ammunition Column on the Western Front. He got sick and was returned to Australia in mid-1917.
- After the war he married an Australian girl, Sarah Jean Hincks, and had a family in Sydney, taking a variety of jobs from tram driver to orchadist. During WWII he enlisted in the AIF again.
- August Klemettila from Viipury (Vyborg) in Finland, came to South Australia in 1907 as a seaman and worked in Bowden.
- He served with the 48th Battalion on the Western Front, being awarded with the Military Medal for his bravery at the Lihons advance in August 1918.
- After the war he settled at Saddleworth, marrying an Australian woman, Mary Eveline Wilson. They had six young children by the time Klementilla died in 1943 and his sons would proudly wear his medal on Anzac Day.
- Otto Erickson, another Finnish seaman, from Oravais near Vaasa, came to South Australia in 1904. After two years in Port Pirie he moved to Townsville, working as a waterside worker.
- Enlisting in Townsville, he served with the 26th Battalion on the Western Front. In July 1916 he was wounded at Pozieres and in May 1917 at Bullecourt. On that second occasion he was wounded in the head, leg and hand and evacuated to England. He believed that he was awarded the Military Medal, but there is no record of this.
- After the war he lived in Townsville, working as a waterside worker. In 1919 he married an Australian girl, Annie Josephina Bowen, who died four years later, leaving him with a newborn daughter.
- Sulo Rautlin, one more Finnish seaman, from Tammerfors, came to Australia on the eve of the war. He worked for the Sugar Refining Company in North Queensland and enlisted in the AIF in Townsville, on the same day as Erickson.
- His service in the AIF was short; in November 1915 he deserted. Later on he explained that he had left the army because he could not understand English at that time.
- After the war he worked as a cane cutter and a seaman in North Queensland and drowned tragically in Cairns.