Alexander Sast
Russian spelling Александр Саст
Born 27.10.1888 Place Odessa, Ukraine Ethnic origin Russian Religion Church of England
Residence before arrival at Australia served in the Russian Navy on Baltic Sea for 5 years
Arrived at Australia
from Odessa on 3.08.1912 per Etharekiners disembarked at Port Adelaide
Residence before enlistment Port Pirie, Kilkenny, Broken Hill, Port Augusta
Occupation motor mechanic, fitter
Service
service number 919 enlisted 31.08.1914 POE Morphettville, SA
unit 10th Battalion, 3rd Australian Ammunition Sub Park, 3rd MT Company rank Private, MT Driver
place Gallipoli, 1915; Western Front, 1917-1918 casualties WIA 1915 (twice), POW Gallipoli, escaped 1916, reached Britain via Archangel 1916
final fate RTA 24.09.1918 discharged 22.01.1919
Naturalisation 1914
Residence after the war 1924 Melbourne
Materials naturalisation (NAA)
digitised service records (NAA)
Records of the Assistant Provost Marshal (AWM)
army payfile (NAA)
From Russian Anzacs in Australian History:
The very first contingent [...] — this First Fleet of the new Australian nationhood — left Australian waters in early November 1914 with at least 12 Russians: the Finns Baer and Hiltunen, the ethnic Russians Arn, Kamishansky, Sast and Sindeeff, the Polish-born Markowicz and Watson, the Jews Zander and Levene, and the Russian-born Englishmen Ball and Dyson.
[...] Alexander Sast, a former motor mechanic, was from Odessa; he arrived at Gallipoli with the 10th Battalion. Soon after landing he was wounded in the foot and sent to Egypt to recover, rejoining his unit in July. Then, on 18 July — as he testified a year later before a court of enquiry — he ‘was sent out in front of the trenches … to try and drop a sniper’. In the course of doing this, he was wounded in the leg by a shell. ‘The wound bled freely and I was very much in pain. I shouted out to my own men but am not sure they could hear me owing to the great noise.’ At night a Turk appeared and was about to bayonet him but Sast grabbed hold of the bayonet (Sast was able to produce the piece of shrapnel and show the scar on his fingers from the bayonet). As he was wounded, the Turks carried him to their trenches and finally to a hospital. When Sast had recovered a little, he was taken off for interrogation but refused to provide any information; he was then transferred to Scutari (Üsküdar). There, he underwent torture: ‘They tied my hands behind my back and hung me up to a ring on the post with my toes just clear of the floor for two hours’. Each time he fainted he was brought round and the torture continued: ‘This went on for four days’. Finally he was sent to a camp, where he met several other Australians, and they worked 12 hours a day, being given just one hot meal a day. In December, with other prisoners-of-war, Sast was transferred to Bulgaria, where they dug trenches under the command of a German officer.
At this camp there was a Bulgarian soldier who was anxious to escape from the army, and Sast made friends with him (‘I understood his language for it is like Russian’). So, with the Bulgarian leading the way, together they fled across the frozen Danube and were soon in Romania, where the Bulgarian joined up with other Bulgarian deserters. Sast, who had several gold coins hidden on his person, changed into civilian clothes and travelled to Bucharest, where he met two other Russians. Together, they reached the River Prut and, with the help of a Jewish guide, crossed it and entered Russia. Sast was determined to continue his war, but the only army he wanted to fight in was the Australian army. So, avoiding contact with Russian authorities and with his relatives, too, he decided to get to Archangel in the north of Russia, where British troops had landed. He had to work his way across Russia to get there. ‘I saw the way to Archangel on the map and went by train. There I reported. I thought it was the only way I could get back to England. I was afraid to report before as the British Consul might have handed me over to the Russian Military Authorities.’ Finally, in June 1916, almost a year after he’d gone out to ‘drop a sniper’ in the Dardanelles, the British took him to England, where he faced a court of enquiry. However incredible his adventures might appear, even more incredibly 10th Battalion command was unable to confirm that Sast was with the battalion at the time of his capture! The court believed him, however, and he was sent to join an Australian army unit in France, where he served as a driver.
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