Alex Alexandroff

Alias Alaxandroff     Russian spelling Александр Семенович Александров

Born 17.04.1893     Place Vladivostok, Far East     Ethnic origin Russian       Religion Russian Orthodox

Father Alexandroff Simon

Arrived at Australia

from Russia   on 1914   per East London   disembarked at Sydney

Residence before enlistment Sydney

Occupation 1916 cook, 1919 chemist, 1940 chef

Service

service number 6823   enlisted 14.08.1916   POE Sydney

unit 4th Battalion   rank Private

place Western Front, 1917-1919

discharged 25.08.1919 in London, enlisted at Middlesex regiment, the North Russian Relief Force (Acting Sergeant)

final fate RTA 1920

Naturalisation 1941

Residence after the war Sydney, 1940 Melbourne, 1943 Sydney

Family 1943 married Doris Fairy Cook, Son Kenneth John (1941-1953), daughter Norma

Died 15.01.1968, St Leonards, Sydney

Materials naturalisation (NAA)

digitised service records (NAA)

From Russian Anzacs in Australian History:

[...] five Russians enlisted in the Middlesex Regiment, mostly as interpreters, and served with the North Russian Relief Force: Alex Alexandroff, from Vladivostok (a former cook), Robert Meerin and Anthony Minkshlin, from the Baltic region (both former seamen), Ivan Odliff, from Nizhny Novgorod (a former boiler-maker), and Paul Smirnoff, a 19-year-old former miner from Vologda, northern Russia. Richard Gregorenko planned to join them but later changed his mind and returned to Australia. They arrived in Archangel in summer 1919 and fought against the pro-Bolshevik forces in the area until the final evacuation of Allied forces a year later. Minkshlin was awarded a Meritorious Service Medal for this campaign.

    [...] Alex Alexandroff [...] was returning by ship in January 1920 after taking part in the military expedition to Russia when he somehow incurred the suspicions of the ship’s commanding officer, who reported that he had ‘caused a great deal of trouble on the voyage and that he was a Bolshevik’. The Intelligence branch wanted his luggage searched and advised that he should be kept under observation after landing in Australia, but the police had no address for him and lost his trail. It was probably a false alarm. Alexandroff subsequently worked as a cook and never again came to the attention of the Intelligence branch. In 1941, when applying to become naturalised, Alexandroff wrote: ‘I cannot be dishonest to this country that I have been in, nearly 30 years’.

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