Denis Papchuck

Alias Daniel     Russian spelling Денис (Даниил) Папчук

Born 3.09.1891     Place Berezdov, Volyn, Ukraine     Ethnic origin Ukrainian     Religion Russian Orthodox

Father -     Mother Papchuck, Ulyana

Residence before arrival at Australia was in South America 08.1912 - 01.1913

Arrived at Australia

            from South America (?)    on 20.03.1913     per Marie     disembarked at Geraldton

Residence before enlistment Geraldton, WA

Occupation 1915 farmer, 1952 painter and docker

Service

service number 2358     enlisted 16.10.1915     POE Blackboy Hill, WA

unit Mining corps, 3rd Tunnelling Company        rank Sapper

place Western Front, 1916-1918      casualties WIA 1918

discharged 18.07.1919 in London        final fate RTA 12.03.1920

Naturalisation 1952

Residence after the war Geraldton, Busselton, Churchman's Brook, Perth, Fremantle, WA

Wife Edith Papchuk; Olive Emily Papchuck, married 1949

Materials naturalisation 1    2   (NAA)

digitised service records (NAA)

court martial file 1   2  (NAA)

alien registration 1     2  (NAA)

wife's alien registration (NAA)

Investigation Branch file (NAA)

From Russian Anzacs in Australian History:

On 25 September [1918] two sappers from the 3rd Tunnelling Company — Denis Papchuck, a Russian with a faultless service record, and his Australian comrade T.W. Johnson — refused to get into a lorry that was to take them to the trenches, without their paybooks, arguing that they were acting in accordance with company orders. They were court-martialled together and, finally, given suspended sentences.

    [...] some Russians considered that taking an oath of allegiance to the king at enlistment dispensed with the need to take another oath for naturalisation — in the words of Peter Swirgsdin, who had been severely wounded at Passchendaele in 1917: ‘I have taken the Oath of Alligian to His Majesty the King once and I consider it true for all times’. One of the last of these Russians to take out naturalisation papers (in 1952), Denis Papchuck, was reported as expressing similar sentiments: ‘Having served with the A.I.F. in France and Egypt for three and a half years and been gassed and wounded, … said he had regarded his honourable discharge as sufficient proof of naturalisation’.

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