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.
Josephson, Crook, Kovalsky, Filip, Sank
- Axel Valentine Josephson, a Finnish seaman from Abo, came to Australia in 1910 and worked in Victor Harbour in South Australia on railway construction.
- He served with the 27th Battalion on the Western Front until he was severely wounded in the right eye, arm and leg in March 1917. He was repatriated to Australia.
- After the war he married an Australian woman, Elizabeth Anne, had seven children and lived in Adelaide working as a carpenter.
- Louis Crook, a Jewish man from Belostok in Poland, moved to England with his family as a child. Migrating later to Australia, he lived in Townsville, working as a tailor.
- Enlisting in the AIF he served with the 9th Battalion on the Western Front. In July 1916 he was wounded at Pozieres and in August 1918 gassed during the advance at Chuignes.
- After the war he lived in Temora and then in Sydney working as a tailor.
- Vachalar Kovalsky (his correct first name must have been Viacheslav), was said to be from Moscow. He came to Queensland via the Russian Far East and worked as a labourer in Brisbane and Toowoomba.
- At the first attempt to enlist in the AIF he was rejected, but was accepted in July 1915. With the 9th Battalion he fought on the Western Front, but after Pozières his sight began to rapidly go; in the end he was taken to London. There, in November 1916, nearly blind, he was discharged. Three days after Christmas he poisoned himself: the police report stated he had ‘no known friends in this country’. No friends of his were found in Australia either.
- He is missing from the Australian Roll of Honour.
- Edmund Filip was born in Talsen in Latvia and came from Canada to Melbourne in 1909, probably as a seaman. Here he worked as a labourer in the agricultural settlements east of Melbourne.
- He served with the 12th Field Company Engineers on the Western Front as a sapper.
- After the war he returned to country Victoria, married an Australian girl, Ethel May, and lived in Orbost, working as a labourer.
- Alexander Paul Sank came from a Jewish family in Aleksandrovsk (Zaporozhe) in Ukraine. In 1906, after the pogroms, his family moved to Harbin. In 1912 Alexander followed his brother to Australia. A motor mechanic by trade, he worked as a labourer and driver.
- Enlisting in the AIF, he came to the Western Front with reinforcements to the 9th Battalion in April 1916 and was wounded soon after that at Rouge de Bout in both arms. After treatment in a British hospital, he was evacuated to Australia and discharged, but reenlisted in the AIF and in 1917-1918 was on home service.
- After the war he lived in Queensland working as a motor driver and tram guard. In 1921 he returned to his mother in Harbin and in 1922 went to live in Khabarovsk in Russia where he worked as an interpreter on the Ussury Railway. Later he married, moved to Novosibirsk and worked as supply agent for industrial enterprises. In 1951 he was arrested and sent to GULAG for ‘espionage’ and ‘anti-Soviet agitation’.
Kalasnikoff, Beroff, Demetric, Dombroski, Rogojnekoff
- Walter Kalasnikoff, a Russian fireman from Ostrov near Pskov, came to Australia in August 1914 when the war had already broke out. He worked, probably as a miner, in Mount Morgan, where he enlisted in the AIF.
- He came to the Western Front with the 9th Battalion and was nearly blinded by an explosion in June 1916, soon after his arrival. He was returned to Australia and discharged as medically unfit. His brief war experience left him very bitter about the war.
- Upon his return he married Mary Rudovsky, a Ukrainian woman, and worked in Brisbane as a tramway employee until he succumbed to sickness. He died in December 1920 in hospital in Corinda.
- Walter Beroff, an Ossetian from Humalag village near Vladikavkaz, who identified himself as a Cossak as well, came to Australia in 1912 from the Russian Far East. Like many other Ossetians he worked at first in Port Pirie smelters and in Broken Hill mines, moving later to Queensland.
- Enlisting in the AIF in Rockhampton he served with the 49th Battalion and 31st Battalion on the Western Front. In spite of his hot nature, which brought him once to a court martial, he was a fine servicemen and by March 1917 he attained the rank of a Sergeant. While in hospital in England he met an English girl, Alice Ivy Betts, and they married in March 1917 before he was returned to the trenches. In September 1917 at the Polygon Wood Battle near Ypres he was severely wounded in the chest and head, losing sight in one eye.
- Returning to Australia with his wife he worked as a French polisher in Brisbane, but in the 1920s he moved to London.
- Alix Demetric was born in Yamburg near St Petersburg. He came to Australia in 1912 as a seaman from Brazil and worked in Queensland.
- Enlisting in the AIF in Rockhampton he sailed to Egypt with the 9th Battalion, but upon arrival he was diagnosed with trachoma and cataracts in both eyes and invalided to Australia.
- After the war he lived in Sydney, working as labourer.
- Tom Dombroski, a Pole from Warsaw, served for 4 years in the Russian Army before arriving in Queensland via the Russian Far East in 1913. He worked on the railway construction work at Yamba near Rockhampton and enlisted in the AIF with Beroff and Demetric.
- He served with the 49th Battalion on the Western Front. In April 1917 at the battle near Noreuil, he was wounded to the thigh and invalided to Australia. The wound made him permanently lame.
- After the war he lived in Cairns, working on the sugar mills there.
- Lavrrenty Rogojnekoff was born in Viatka Province. He was not a young man and ‘an old gun shot wound’ indicated that he might have fought in the Russo-Japanese war with the Russian Army. He came to Queensland from the Russian Far East in 1912.
- He served with the 25th Battalion on the Western Front, being wounded first at Armentieres in April 1916 and then, six weeks later, once again at Sally. On the second occasion he was wounded in the thigh and transferred to England. In March 1918 he was discharged as medically unfit in London.
- He did not come to Australia and most likely he returned to his native places in Russia where he had a wife, Maria, waiting for him.
Soans, Collath, Klatchko, Wirta, White
- Boris Soans, an Estonian seaman from Revel (Tallinn), in 1906 graduated from the Nautical school there and toiled the sea. Before the war he lived in Port Adelaide in South Australia.
- He arrived with the 32nd Battalion at the Western Front in June 1916. A month later he was killed at the Sugarloaf Battle.
- His father was found after the war and received his medals.
- Carl Edgar Collath from Talsen in Latvia came to Sydney in 1908, and worked there as a labourer and a painter.
- He served with the 54th Battalion on the Western Front suffering from a number of ailments and shell shock.
- After the war he married Alice Mary Penman, the girlfriend of his mate killed in action. He was probably Edgar Joseph Goodwin, in whose memory they would place an advertisement in the newspaper on the date of his death. The Collaths had a family in Sydney where Carl worked as a railway employee, occasionally suffering from memory loss caused by shell shock at Paschendale. Their son Lawrence Edgar served in the 2nd AIF in WWII.
- Dr Michael Klatchko, born in St Petersburg, came from a cultural Russian Jewish family. He was a dental surgeon and a specialist in plastic surgery of jaws and face.
- At the outbreak of the war he was stranded in Egypt and attached to the AIF working in Australian hospitals there. In September 1916 he accompanied wounded soldiers being repatriated on the Borda to Australia; upon arrival he was employed by the Russian consulate in recruiting Russians across the country.
- His career ended quite unexpectedly and suddenly: in 1917 he secretly married and left for Vladivostok with a girl, Phyllis Olga Duckett, from an upper-class Melbourne family. They had a daughter, Masha, and finally settled in Shanghai. Sadly his wife committed suicide in 1936, and Michael and Masha endured the Japanese occupation of Shanghai.
- Tobias Oscar Richard Wirta from Abo in Finland worked as a labourer in Kalgoorlie before the war.
- He came to the Western Front with the 48th Battalion in June 1916 and was killed in September 1916 at the battle for Mouquet Farm.
- His mother in Finland was found after the war and received Australian pension.
- John Henry White, a Finnish seaman from Vyborg, came to South Australia in 1905 and worked as a bushman in country NSW.
- He enlisted for the first time in December 1914 in Condobolin, but was soon discharged. The second time he enlisted was in July 1915 in South Australia; he served with the 48th Battalion on the Western Front. In October 1917 he was killed at Passchendaele.
- His family in Vyborg was found after the war.
Nicholson, Puss, Jurgenson, Nylund, Ollgren
- Robert Nicholson, born as Boris Poselnikoff in Odessa, was a son of a Russian colonel. When his parents died he took to sea, landing in Newcastle in 1912 as a sailor aboard a Russian sailing ship; at that time he was just 22. Staying in Newcastle, he worked on fishing boats for 2 months, then spent 4 months in the inner areas of New South Wales working on the farms. Returning to the coast, he signed up as a sailor on a German ship to Hamburg, returning to Sydney 9 months later. After that he decided to try his luck in Melbourne, where he found a scaffolding job – his skill of working with the sails turned out to be useful on shore as well. Then followed a new contract on a German ship to London. In May 1914 he returned to Melbourne and continued with his scaffolding job there. Obviously finding that his long Russian surname was difficult for foreigners to pronounce, he changed his name to Robert Nicholson.
- Enlisting in the AIF, he served as a gunner with the artillery detachments on the Western Front. While being ill in an English hospital, he met a local girl, Bertha Henrietta Grabert, and married just on the eve of the Armistice.
- After the war they stayed in the UK, where Nicholson naturalised, but later on he returned to Australia and served in the garrison battalion in Queensland during WWII.
- Jack Puss, an Estonian seaman and carpenter from Oesel (Saaremaa) Island, before coming to South Australia, worked on German ships.
- Enlisting in the AIF, he served with the 32nd Battalion on the Western Front. He fell under suspiction of pro-Germanism and was immediately discharged without trial and considered ineligible for medals.
- After his discharge he sailed to America.
- Peter Jurgenson, an Estonian seaman from Dago (Hiiumaa) Island, came to Western Australia in 1911 as a sailor and ‘walked off’ the ship, as his son tells. He started farming at Wokalup area in Western Australia.
- Enlisting in the AIF, he served with the 32nd Battalion on the Western Front. In July 1916 he had severe shell shock at the Sugarloaf Battle and became partly blind. He was repatriated to Australia.
- After the war he married an Australian girl, Isabela Florence Sim, and had a family, farming and building at Wokalup.
- Charles Nylund from Abo in Finland was a cook by trade.
- Enlising in the AIF in Sydney, he served in the artillery detachments on the Western Front. In August 1917 he was wounded in the thigh, but recovered and returned to the trenches. In January 1918 he was court martialled for a conflict with an officer, and sentenced to 5 years of penal servitude. The sentence was quashed and he ended up in hospital as mentally sick and was repatriated to Australia.
- In 1921 his mother Hedvig Nylund, who believed that he was killed, tried to find information through military authorities, but their attempts to trace Nylund’s fate after his return to Australia failed.
- Arthur Arvid Ollgren, a seaman from Tammerfors (Tampere) in Finland, came to Australia in 1910. Here he worked on coastal ships.
- He served in the Royal Australian Naval Bridging Train as a driver,being stationed in Egypt.
- Upon demobilization in Melburne he married an Australian girl, Vera Pearl Teasdale, and settled first in Port Melbourne and then in Adelaide, working as a seaman.
Kotzebue, Adamzewitch, Falck, Alexejew, Wihtol
- Nicholas Kotzebue came from the famous Baltic German family of Kotzebue from Estonia. He was born in Ekaterinburg in the Ural Mountains where his father worked in the goldmining industry. At four, after his father’s death, the family returned to Estonia. As a teenager Nicholas spent some time in Germany, served in the French legion and travelled as a seaman in Asia and America. He came to Western Australia at the turn of the nineteenth century and worked as a labourer and mechanic, moving later to Warrandyte in Victoria.
- Enlisting in the AIF, he served on the Western Front with the 2nd Field Company Engineers, and subsequently studied at the Anzac wireless school. Then he had a brief spell, from April to August 1917, with the 1st Anzac Intelligence Police. He returned to his unit and in early 1918 was invalided back to Australia with a chest penetrating gunshot wound received at Ypres in September 1917. He also suffered from mental disturbance, fearing that he would be ‘disclosed’ as a German.
- Luckily he recovered after the war and enriched Australia with a number of mechanical inventions.
- Marian Adamzewitch, a Belarussian from Minsk, worked as a ship’s fireman on coastal vessels in Australia.
- He enlisted in the AIF in Brisbane, but was discharged a month later as medically unfit.
- He moved to the USA, continuing his employment as a fireman and registered for Army service in Boston.
Paul Richard Eugene Napoleon Nicholas Falck
- Paul Richard Eugene Napoleon Nicholas Falck came from a well-off family in Helsingfors (Helsinki) in Finland, where he received a good education. He came to Australia in 1908 as a sailor.
- Enlisting in the AIF in Tasmania he served with a machine gun detachment on the Western Front with the rank of Lance Corporal. He was gassed twice and in September 1918 was killed by a shell in Bullecourt.
- His family in Finland was found after the war.
- Albert Alfred Alexejew was born in Riga, where his father was working in the City theatre. He came to Melborne in 1911 and worked as a labourer.
- He served on the Western Front with the 57th Battalion. In 1917 he was wounded twice, in January and in May, at the Bullecourt battle. In the latter case he experienced nervous exhaustion from being buried, and shell shock.
- After the war he married Australian girl,Edith Martha Campey, and lived in Macedon Upper, north of Melbourne.
- Bernchard Wihtol from Riga lived in Stockingal, NSW, working as a bricklayer.
- He enlisted in the AIF in Sydney, but did not embark with his 1st Battalion and disappears from the records.
Diaconescu, Levinski, Dofger, Egoroff, Johnson
- George Diaconescu, a Romanian, who lived for a long time in Manchuria, came to Australia in 1914 and worked as a barber in Brisbane, mixing with the Russian community there.
- He enlisted in the AIF as a Russian subject and served with the 31st Battalion on the Western Front. In July 1916 he was wounded in the leg at the Sugarloaf battle near Fleurs and invalided to Australia.
- After the war he married an Irish woman, Hannah Farrell, and lived in Cooroy, Charleville, and Mackay in Queensland, working as a barber.
- Jules Levinski, a Jewish man from Windawa (Ventspils) in Latvia, left Russia as a child and worked as a cook with his uncle in Paris. He came to Australia not long before the war and enlisted in the AIF in Melbourne.
- He served with the 14th Battalion on the Western Front. In April 1917 he was wounded in the right hand and leg at Bullecourt. After recovery he returned to the trenches, was wounded for the second time in August 1917, but remained on duty, and then in September 1918, during the advance south of Peronne, he received a severe gunshot wounds to his right leg, which forced an amputation.
- He was invalided to Australia, but in 1921, upon his own application, he received free passage to join his uncle in France.
- Evan Dofger from Warsaw came to Western Australia in 1913 and worked as a labourer.
- He served with the 4th Division Ammunition Column on the Western Front as a driver. In September 1917 he was returned to Australia, as he had become nearly blind from a trachoma infection.
- After the war he lived in Western Australia, working as a labourer, miner, and a farmer.
- Alexander Egoroff from Bestuzhevo near Riazan came via Vladivostok to Australia in 1909 and tried to establish himself as a farmer and a gardener in the Sydney area; he also worked as a motor driver.
- Enlisting in the AIF, he served with the 17th Battalion on the Western Front. In November 1916 he was wounded at the Somme, but remained on duty. In May 1917 he was wounded in the left arm at the battle of Bullecourt and returned to Australia as medically unfit.
- After the discharge from the Army he married an Australian girl, Lillian Hampson, in Sydney, and raised a large family with ten children while working as a gardener at Plumpton. During WWII he had to register as an alien, at the same time as his elder children served in the 2nd AIF. In 2001 his large Australian family reunited with their Russian relatives from Bestuzhevo, with whom they had lost contact after the war. Alexander Egoroff’s life was commemorated with a reserve named after him in Plumpton, where his farm once stood.
- Karl Johannes Johnson from Nagu in Finland came to Australia in 1905 as a seaman. He worked as a labourer at Mornington Mills in Western Australia.
- He came to the Western Front with the 51st Battalion and was killed in the battle for Mouquet Farm in September 1916, leaving his fiancée Emily Nelson in Australia.
Kodak, Bunke, Cooper, Pettersson, Egoroff
- Arthur Kodak, an Estonian from Revel (Tallinn) came to Australia in 1910 as a seaman. He had a trade of compositor and worked in Brisbane.
- He served with the 26th Battalion on the Western Front as Arthur Kadak. He was severely wounded at Pozières (with gunshot wounds to the head and chest) in August 1916. After recovery in Brisbane he served in the Royal Australian Naval Brigade.
- After the war he worked in sugar mills in Queensland, and later settled in Sydney, where he married an Australian woman, Alice Lynch. He worked as a labourer and storeman and had a hard time during the Depression, when he lived in the unemployment camp at La Perouse.
- John Bunke, a seaman from Libava (Liepaja) in Latvia, spent 25 years at sea before he landed at Busselton in Western Australia in 1911. He settled at Geraldton, working as a fisherman and living in a fishing boat there.
- Enlisting in the AIF in Melborne, he was discharged five months later as medically unfit (he was about 47 years old by that time).
- Harry Cooper, a Jewish man from Kovno (Kaunas) in Lithuania, came to Melbourne probably from South Africa, where his father lived. He worked as a commercial traveller in Victoria.
- He tried to enlist in the AIF at the beginning of the war, but was rejected. In July 1915, after the second attempt, he was finally accepted and sailed to the front with the 7th Battalion. Later he was transferred to the 3rd Battalion and fought at the Western Front. In January 1918 he was wounded in the head and received a knife wound to the left hand, probably while in direct combat with the enemy.
- While convalescing in London, he met a Jewish girl, Lena Heller. They married in January 1919, sailed together to South Africa, and lived in Johannesburg.
- August Pettersson, a Latvian from Livonia, was a pastry cook by trade. He came to Australia in 1914 and lived in Melbourne.
- Enlisting in the AIF he was allocated to the 4th Field bakery, but while in England fell ill with tuberculosis and returned to Australia.
- After the war he lived in Victoria and Queensland.
- Andrew Egoroff, a Russian from Saratov on Volga River, was an engine driver in the Russian Navy. He came to Western Australia in 1913 and worked as a bush timber worker in North Dandalup.
- Enlisting in the AIF, he was allocated to the 4th Field bakery and served on the Western Front. In May 1918 he commited suicide in Rouen.
- The Australian authorities made a number of attempts to find his mother in Saratov after the war.
Kills, Siwczynski, Fredrickson, Edman, Mattson
- Carl Kills was born, most likely, in Voskovtsy village in Volyn Province in Ukraine and was probably an Orthodox Ukrainian. He came to South Australia from South Africa in 1910 and worked in Port Pirie, later moving to Melbourne.
- Enlisiting in the AIF, he was discharged four months later with the formula ‘unlikely to become an efficient soldier’.
- After the war lived in Melbourne, where he married and worked as a carrier and later as a goods dealer.
- Stanley John Siwczynski was born in Tomaszów in Poland; he was a saddler by trade. Leaving Poland, he spent a year in Germany and then came to Brisbane in 1912.
- Enlisting in the AIF as John Stanislaw Siwezynski, he served on the Western Front in the 49th Battalion as a saddler; in 1917 he was appointed corporal. In January 1918 he was awarded the Belgian decoration Croix de Guerre. In September 1918 he was withdrawn from the battlefront and returned to Australia with a group of Russians ‘on account of Russian nationality’.
- After the war he spent three years in the USA, working at the motor vehicle factory in Michigan. He married there and in 1924 brought his wife and daughter to Australia. They lived in the Northern Territory and Sydney, but the marriage broke up and Stanley took the daughter with him to Queensland, where he had a hard time during the depression working as a motor mechanic and cane cutter.
- Albert Benjamin Fredrickson from Finland came to Australia in the late nineteenth century and worked in Western Australia as a prospector.
- Enlisting in the AIF in Norseman, he served with the 32nd Battalion on the Western Front, attaining the rank of Lance-Corporal. In October 1917 he was wounded in the head in the battle for Passchendaele and invalided to Australia.
- In 1921 he died in the sanatorium of Wooroloo, in Western Australia.
- Alfonso Eugen Edman, a Finnish seaman from Helsingfors (Helsinki), came to Australia in 1914.
- Enlisting in the AIF in Sydney, he served with the 18th Battalion at Gallipoli and then on the Western Front. In June 1916 he took part in a raid on enemy trenches; a month later he was severely wounded at Pozieres, receiving wounds to his leg, head and right arm. After two months in hospitals he was returned to the trenches and killed in the Somme battle in December 1916.
- His mother received his awards after the war.
- Fradolf Mattson from Mariehamn in Finland came to Newcasltle in NSW as a seaman in 1913.
- He enlisted in the AIF in Sydney on the same day with his countryman Alfonso Edman and they sailed on the same ship, Runic, to the battlefront, but they served in different battalions. Mattson served with the 13th Battalion at Gallipoli and with the 45th Battalion on the Western Front, where in 1917 he was transferred to the machine gun company.
- Returning to Australia, he settled in the Newcastle area, working as a labourer, married an Australian girl, Esther Annie Smith, and had a family.
Zangey, Shlipnekoff, Brostrom, Poppel
- Alexander Zangey, an Ossetian from Vladikavkaz, came to Australia before the war and worked in Queensland as a labourer.
- Enlisting in the AIF, he served on the Western Front with an artillery division, having the ranks of gunner, acting corporal and driver. In November 1916 he was killed at the Somme.
- After the war the Australian authorities made a number of unsuccessful attempts to find his family in Ossetia.
- Conrad Shlipnekoff, an engine fitter from Voznesensk near Vladimir in Central Russia, enlisted in the AIF in Brisbane.
- He served with the 25th Battalion at Gallipoli and with the 49th Battalion on the Western Front. In November 1916 he received gun shot wounds to his side at the Somme and, after months in English hospitals, he was evacuated to Australia as medically unfit.
- After the war he lived in Brisbane in Spring Hill and Wooloongabba.
- John Brostrom was born in Svarto in Finland. He came to Australia in 1912, most likely as a seaman, and worked as a labourer in Bundaberg in Queensland and Grenfell in NSW.
- He came to Gallipoli with the reinforcements to the 15th Battalion in October 1915. In November he fell ill with typhoid and was evacuated to Australia. Recovering, he returned to the service, arriving at the Western Front in June 1916. In August he was killed in the battle for Pozieres.
- His father Fredrik Fritof Brostrom was found after the war in Finland.
- Edward Poppel, an Estonian from Dago (Hiiumaa) Island, came to South Australia in 1911. He worked as a labourer in Edithburgh on the Yorke Peninsula.
- He came to Gallipoli with the reinforcements to the 10th Battalion. In April 1916, on the way to the Western Front, he became sick with nephritis and pleurisy and was sent to an English hospital and then back to Australia.
- After the war he served in the merchant navy, working in South Australia from Ceduna to Port Elliot, and was active in local RSSILA branches.
Gamson, Limbek, Pollejuke
- Edgar Gamson, a Frenchman born in Moscow, enlisted in the AIF in Brisbane.
- With his 9th Battalion he served at Gallipoli, but upon return to Egypt he got sick and when discharged from the hospital became an illegal absentee.
- He was never found.
- Jack Limbek from Dago (Hiiumaa) Island in Estonia came to South Australia in 1910. He worked as a labourer and carpenter in the area between Quorn and Petersburg, as well as at Port Pirie.
- Enlisiting in the AIF, he served with the 27th Battalion on the Western Front. In May 1916 he was court martialled for absence without leave, which was qualified as desertion. The sentence of three years was quashed in two weeks and Limbek was sent back to trenches. In November 1916 he was wounded in the right arm at the battle for Somme. In September 1917, at the Menin Gate battle, he was wounded for the second time, in the left hand, and evacuated to Australia as medically unfit.
- After the war he lived in Port Pirie, working as a fisherman and occasionally getting into trouble with police as a result of excessive drinking.
- Huon Pollejuke had deserted from the Russian naval ship Gromoboi when it visited Australia to take part in the celebrations for Federation in 1901. At the time of desertion his name was recorded by the police as Ivan Polyxhonk, he also appeared in the documents as Pologouck and his original name can be reconstrusted as Ivan Poleshchuk, while in Australia he was known as Jack Pollock. He was a Ukrainian from ‘Ollenow, Podolia’, which probably was Olenevka in Podolsk Province. After his desertion, Pollejuke stayed in townships north-east of Melbourne and made trips to Tasmania and New South Wales. Later on he settled in Melbourne working as a kitchen hand and a cook.
- Enlisting in the AIF, he deserted three weeks later, probably finding the service too hard for him, as he was already not a young man.
- The latest records about him relate to 1940, when he died in Sydney, a lonely man, working in Surry Hills as a hawker.