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From: "margaret rose" <>
Subject: Re: Russia & an ex-AIF Lieutenant
Date: Sun, 2 Oct 2005 18:27:10 +1000
References: <200510020300.j9230DWG008482@lists2.rootsweb.com>


I found the reference to Russia and the Canadians assisting the White
Russians around 1919-20 intriguing, and wondered if it might hold a key to a
family mystery. The only clue I have is something Dad said many years ago -
"smuggling jewellery out of Russia" - when discussing customs officers and
the thoroughness of their searches.

Dad was a Lieutenant in the 20th Battalion AIF, and managed (I gather rather
against the prevailing AIF policy) to get his discharge in England
(officially demobbed September 1919), last known address c/o RAC, Pall Mall
London. Thomas Cook contacted the Australian Army (in Melbourne) in February
1920 for his address with regard to a parcel he had left with them in 1918,
and in September 1920 the Army itself had tried to forward oak leaf clusters
for MiDs to the RAC address, only to have them returned unclaimed.

In later (1960's) correspondence with the Army in Australia when
re-establishing his real identity after a massive heart attack, and in the
hope of obtaining a Repat pension, he said he had changed his name in 1920.
I have several photos of a lumber camp in Kapuskasing, Ontario, taken, I
believe, in 1924, with an X underneath a figure I'm reasonably sure is Dad,
although referred to only as "the writer", but very definitely in his
handwriting.

An isolated lumber camp in Canada would be an ideal place for someone "on
the run" to hide from possible problems with European "hoods" (did they have
a Mafia in those days?), or police, but it was also apparently a
soldier-settler scheme, although sadly even less successful than some of our
Australian attempts at something similar here, and I wondered if he might
have chummed up with a Canadian veteran.

I'd be very grateful if someone could point me in the right direction for
information on some of the (perhaps) shadier aspects of this period of post
WWI history.

Margaret Rose
Wagga Wagga, NSW

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