Nicholas Roomianzoff

Alias Romanzoff     Russian spelling Николай Румянцев

Born 8.01.1892     Place Sabadash, Kiev, Ukraine     Ethnic origin Russian/Ukrainian     Religion Russian Orthodox

Father -     Mother Ohota, Katherina

Arrived at Australia

            from Far East     on 24.02.1914     per Alderham     disembarked at Brisbane

Residence before enlistment Townsville

Occupation 1914 designer; 1915 labourer, 1939 waterside worker

Service

service number 2206     enlisted 1.04.1915     POE Rockhampton, Qld

unit 9th Battalion, 49th Battalion      rank Private

place Gallipoli, 1915; Western Front, 1916-1918      casualties WIA 1916, 1918

final fate RTA 5.04.1919       discharged 31.07.1919

Naturalisation served as Russian subject

Residence after the war 1919 Brisbane, Mackay, Marian, 1920 Mackay, Haggy Rock Railway Construction, Mackay; 1939 Mackay; 1942 Darwin, Mackay, 1943 Townsville, Mackay, 1944 Townsville, Mackay, 1945 Moore Park, Qld, 1968 Good Samaritan Hospital, Cairns

Materials digitised service records (NAA)

approval of irregular grant (NAA)

alien registration 1      2  (NAA)

From Russian Anzacs in Australian History:

Russians who joined the army together, or who met up at training camp, would often embark together. [...] The Karoola, which left Brisbane on 12 June 1915, carried eight Russians mostly from northern Queensland: Glowacki, Roomianzoff, Sekachoff, Karelin (6/9th Battalion), and Lopaten, Grehoff, Smagin and Volkoff (6/15th Battalion). In Sydney they were joined by three of their countrymen — Kozakoff, Harbert and Kozakovshonok.

    [...] The file of Nicholas Roomianzoff provides an opportunity to jump 20 years ahead to see what became of one of these vagabonds. When Roomianzoff came to Australia via the Far East as a young man, he worked as a labourer until enlisting in April 1915. At Gallipoli he got sick but recovered and rejoined his unit there; subsequently, on the Western Front, he was wounded twice (at Mouquet Farm and Dernancourt), on each occasion rejoining his unit. At the end of the war, after his discharge, he moved to the Mackay area and did railway construction work, shifting from place to place. By the beginning of the Second World War he is still at Mackay but had not become naturalised and, as an alien in war-time, had to register with the police again: his occupation at that stage is recorded as ‘waterside worker’. In 1939 he moved to Darwin, back to Mackay, to Townsville, to Mackay — back and forth, repeating the same pattern again and again. From his photograph of that year on his registration form, on which his fingerprints are also impressed, a tired-looking, withdrawn man gazes out at us as if saying, ‘You don’t trust me — what do I care’. The last trace of him that I can find is at the Good Samaritan Hospital in Cairns, in 1968.

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