00:00:00
Speaker 1: Gooday, everyone, Welcome to conversations. This is an extraordinary story because it's a little known and as we exploit further, I'm sure you'll be as captivated as I was. Because in nineteen nineteen a British expeditionary force headed off to Russia. Now bear in mind this is just after Armistice, you know, World War One had ended, and amongst that expeditionary force were or one hundred and ten Australian volunteers basically, and they headed off to Russia to fight on the side of the Saris, you know, the white Russians. There are a couple of South Australians in it. But there's also a young fellow from Mildura called Samuel Pearce who in an extraordinary act of valor was awarded the Victoria Cross. But then he was killed. This is where the story gets a little bit complicated because he he was buried in Russia and he remains in Russia. But there's lots of circumstances since then which is complicated. And there's a book being written about Australia's lost heroes ANZACs in the Russia. The Russian Civil War in nineteen ninety and the author. It's an assiduously researched book. It's amazing really. The author, Damian Wright joins me in the studio. Damien, how are.
00:01:18
Speaker 2: You very good? Thanks Graham.
00:01:19
Speaker 1: I know where to start. Samuel Peace from Mildura, Yeah, something like that.
00:01:26
Speaker 2: Young Samuel, I guess of the contingent of one hundred and ten Australians that served in North Russia with the British Army in nineteen nineteen. Samuel Peace sticks out. He was born in Wales to English parents in eighteen ninety seven, migrated to Australia in nineteen eleven, settled in Mildura, volunteered for the First World War, served with the Australian Army on Gallipoli and the Western Front, where he was decorated for bravery. And after the end of the First World War in November nineteen eighteen, the Australians were very low priority for shipping home, so by Northern Hemisphere summer the following year they were still waiting for a ship home. Board out of their minds. So that's November till till April May nineteen nineteen. Desperate to get high, they had nothing to do, desperate to get home. And yeah, there was no shipping, for they would have been bought out of their brands and.
00:02:20
Speaker 1: Terribly poorly behaved. I would have thought, no, no Australian soldiers.
00:02:24
Speaker 2: Yeah, there were some random acts of Alaricanism, should we say so? In May April May nineteen nineteen, the British War Office sent out recruiting officers to the Commonwealth camps, the Australians, Canadians, et cetera, to recruit soldiers to volunteer for the North Russia Relief Force, which was being sent to Northern Russia to relieve a British Army force which had been niced in the winter.
00:02:51
Speaker 1: What were they doing in Russia? What were the British doing?
00:02:53
Speaker 2: Soon after the Russian Revolution in November nineteen seventeen, the Czar was abdicated, so Russia left the war, So the entire Eastern Front was closed down and all those German troops went from the Eastern Front fighting the Russians to the Western Front to fight Britain, France and the other allies. So a force was sent to Russia, initially in March nineteen eighteen, but a larger force in August nineteen eighteen to support the white Russians who were essentially supporting the monarchy against the Red Russians who were Lenin's Bolsheviks later known as Soviets.
00:03:34
Speaker 1: The Tsar was still alive, the stage.
00:03:36
Speaker 2: Was at that stage he was He was murdered with his wife and children in July nineteen eighteen on Lenin's orders. So there could never be a return to a Russian monarchy.
00:03:48
Speaker 1: It's think it's so complicated in terms of the Russian Who are the Russians alloy? One stage there with the al that were joing World War War One, they were yeah.
00:04:03
Speaker 2: Nicholas the second was a first cousin of King George the fifth of Great Britain, and they were allies against Germany. So Britain fighting on the Western Front and Russia fighting on the Eastern Front. So they were allied. But due to a number of factors, there was unrest in Russia which ultimately led to the Bolshevik Revolution.
00:04:23
Speaker 1: So the Australian's volunteer probably as a sense of adventure, I.
00:04:29
Speaker 2: Think monetary considerations in boredom with the primary motivation. So the rate of pay was fourteen shillings a day for private soldier, which was more than double what the Australians were receiving. They would also receive two months furlough paid furlough on return from Russia, and they would receive passenger transport back to Australia rather than a troop ship. So most of the volunteers volunteered more for money and boredom rather than anything else. And there's an interesting mix of veterans, very experienced soldiers, many of whom had been decorated and served on Gallepoli in the Western Front, and soldiers that had seen very little service, maybe that arrived just before the war ended, or indeed, as is the case with Arther Sullivan, missed the war entirely and perhaps, having traveled to the other side of the world, thought they couldn't really return home to Australia with their heads held high unless they actually had taken part in some active service.
00:05:29
Speaker 1: So how vicious was the fighting over there?
00:05:33
Speaker 2: Quite vicious mutinies, murders, civilian deaths. There was a typhus epidemic going through Russia at the time. Up until that point, it was the largest number of civilian casualties or civilian deaths in a conflict in modern history. Of course, that was latest.
00:05:57
Speaker 1: In France and Belgium during World War One.
00:06:00
Speaker 2: Yeah, from death, disease, murder, atrocity. The Russian Civil War was brutal, the most brutal conflict up to that time.
00:06:10
Speaker 1: You do make the point in the book that that expeditionary force couldn't really be sure who was on their side amongst the civilian population. Whereas it like in France and Belgium they were always confident that the French was sympathetic and they could go and leave, but in Russia it.
00:06:29
Speaker 2: Was very much so. On the Western front, you knew which direction the enemy was in and that everyone behind you was friendly, whereas in Russia that was certainly not the case. The loyalty of the white Russian troops was very questionable, so they were the Allies, but on a number of significant occasions that actually mutinied and murdered the British officers, one of whom Alan Brown from Queensland was murdered on twentieth of July nineteen nineteen by white Russian troops. He was training and commanding, and he was in fact the last Australian Imperial Force soldier to be killed in action. He was killed in action in Russia in July nineteen nineteen.
00:07:06
Speaker 1: That's a little known for where do we know more about these guys?
00:07:09
Speaker 2: So, coming as it did at the end of the First World War and being an unsuccessful campaign that resulted in a lot of pointless loss, it was not something that people wanted to remember. There was certainly a war fatigue from the end of the First World War. It was a small campaign overshadowed by the First World War, and people generally did not want to remember it. They didn't want to remember the wasteful sacrifice and squandering of lives of soldiers, some of whom had been at Gallipoli.
00:07:45
Speaker 1: The Americans had sent a force in prior to that, hadn't they.
00:07:48
Speaker 2: Yes, So the Americans did send troops to Northern Russia under the command of the British. And that's quite interesting because both Nixon and Reagan US presidents made erroneous claims to their Soviet counterparts that US troops and Soviet troops had never been at war, and that's patently false. They fought a very hot war in nineteen nineteen, and over three hundred US troops died in Northern Russia.
00:08:14
Speaker 1: Initially, they were just supposed to be there was a logistical support. So yes, did you ever find out what happened? They were said to the front.
00:08:22
Speaker 2: President Woodrow Wilson committed the troops on a non interventionist principle that they were only to maintain the peace essentially, but as they were under British command, the British General Edmund Ironside actively committed them to combat, in contravention of the wishes of President Wilson.
00:08:42
Speaker 1: Anyway, So Samuel Pierce and and his mates they arrived in Russia, what's their immediate react Because it's cold.
00:08:51
Speaker 2: Is it cold in most of the year, Yes, but the northern summer is very short and very intense. It's just outside of the Arctic circle, and it's as hot as Australia in summer, but only for about two months, six weeks the two months, so it was One Australian soldier recorded that it was the hottest he'd ever been since Egypt when he got to northern Russia. So they found it very strange. Many had picked up French, but of course that was no use in Russia. They found the Russian language very impenetrable and the Russian civilians very strange. So it was very much a strange alien environment.
00:09:33
Speaker 1: To my guest on conversations is Damien Right. He's written a book about the Anzac soldiers who go to war in Russia and the Civil War, specifically about Samuel Piers, Samuel George Pierce, who was awarded the Victoria Cross for his valor. But there in lies the story. There in lies the campaign that Damien's tried to mount to get his remains returned home back shortly, welcome back, everybody. We're talking with Damien right, South Australian. Well you assume you South Australia.
00:10:03
Speaker 2: I am, indeed born in Port Lincoln, grew up in Port Link and Whaler and adelaide a historian.
00:10:09
Speaker 1: Can you make a living out of being a historian?
00:10:11
Speaker 2: Not really, It's not my profession. I'm not a professional historian or writer. It's very much a passion project for me.
00:10:18
Speaker 1: What's your day job.
00:10:18
Speaker 2: I work at the University of South Australia as an International Student advisor, so working with international students, primarily around student visa compliance and making sure they're doing everything correctly.
00:10:32
Speaker 1: This is so well researched. As I said before, We'll get onto Samuel Pearce and He's action and his subsequent demise, but you virtually talked about every other soldier that volunteered for that force in the yeahoo.
00:10:46
Speaker 2: I've been researching this campaign for more than half my life, so my research file is about twenty five years of work. And also because of the relatively small number of Australians, are only about a hundred and fifty that served in Russia during the Civil War period eighteen nineteen eighteen to twenty. And because Australia has very good archival documents, it's possible to track down and find out not just military service, but there's also a wonderful website called Trove which has digitized a lot of newspapers. You can find out a lot of information about what happened to soldiers after their service on there.
00:11:21
Speaker 1: Well, let's include there are some amazing stories. I mean, how many of those hundred and twenty did you individually mention in here? I know you've got a file at the back.
00:11:30
Speaker 2: That all recorded in a nominal role at the back, which is the most complete and accurate nominal role of Australians in the Russian Civil War. So wherever possible I tried to if there was a small snippet of interest. I tried to include them in the book. For example, there was a soldier, John Kevaan, who was shot in the head on twenty ninth of August nineteen nineteen, the same action that Samuel Pearce was killed, and I received a message from a relative who knew him, describing him and a little bit about his personality and just thanking me because he never knew that his relative had been shot in the head in Russia. Miraculously survived his rooms, his wounds, And the reason I mentioned him in the book is that some years later he was having seizures and a surgery was performed and removed some shrapnel from his brain.
00:12:20
Speaker 1: You described as shrapnel as being like almost like two inches square, or like not two inches, but it was a significant piece. It was quite metal.
00:12:30
Speaker 2: Quite miraculous that he survived.
00:12:34
Speaker 1: Anyway, Samuel Pierce is so he off he goes. He's a brave young fellow from mill Duror. He's been decorated in World War with the ward of the Military.
00:12:43
Speaker 2: Medal, decorated on the Western Front, promoted sergeant for service with the North Russia Relief Force, and on twenty ninth of August nineteen nineteen, the Australians took part in an attack on a Red Army bunker position. One by one, the bunkers were knocked out. There was one blockhouse essentially an above ground bunker, that was holding up the advance. Samuel went forward with wire cutters, cut through Wyre, called for a bag of grenades, charged the bunker through some grenades in, knocked it out and moments later he was mortally wounded by the last shot fired in the engagement. And he had received a letter from his English wife Kitty, only a week or two earlier, letting him know that he was going to be a father.
00:13:31
Speaker 1: Do you given us too much information there? Because if we were because he met Kitty, well.
00:13:35
Speaker 2: Yes, so Kitty was his English sweetheart. As as happened, many Australian soldiers had English sweethearts and they were married only a few months before his death in Dush. Had they met it She was in the Women's Auxiliary Army Corps and that's how they met. Maybe at a social function. I'm not one hundred percent sure of how they actually met. But she was from she was a Geordie. She was from the Thumberland, Philadelphia.
00:14:02
Speaker 1: That would have been a very broad accent.
00:14:03
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:14:04
Speaker 1: So about her accent being once you eventually came to Australia, how her accent was appealing, that's jumping too far ahead. So they marry.
00:14:15
Speaker 2: Yeah. So one of the conditions for the Australians to be able to join the North Russian Relief Force was they had to have no dependence, So if you were married, you could not join. So what because in order to enlist you had to first discharge from the Australian Imperial Force and then enlist in the British Army, so you're given a new army number. How Sam you've got around that is that he discharged from the Australian Imperial Force and then three days later got married and there was no restriction on the British side, so he then enlisted for the North Russia Relief Force British Army.
00:14:47
Speaker 1: So he's mortally wounded.
00:14:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, he dies in the arms of his mates, taken about fifteen kilometers up the railway line to where the British forward base was and he's buried there in a i'm military cemetery at a place called opposite Skaya in a remote part of northern Russia.
00:15:06
Speaker 1: So this is where the guts of your book becomes interesting, because why on earth did his burial place become an issue for you?
00:15:19
Speaker 2: So I guess the story about how I became interested in this campaign is when I was sixteen, I was already interested in Australian military history. I'd get military history books on the ANZACs of birthdays and Christmas. I got a book that had a chronological list of Australian Victoria crosses. The boll wore First World War, Second World War in Vietnam, and there were two strange awards between World War One and World War Two. It said North Russia nineteen nineteen. I didn't know anything about it. I never heard of it. I couldn't find any information about it. Who and when I got my first real job when I was nineteen, it's just at the advent of the Internet, I could buy books from overseas through the Internet. I started building a research line and in two thousand and four I made contact with Samuel's daughter Victoria. And why did you feel you had to start her? Because so little had ever been written about it, and despite the fact two Australians rewarded the Victoria cross out of a contingent of only one hundred and ten. Even the Australian War Memorial had virtually nothing about it, and so that piqued my interest and I wanted to write the story of the Australian Bob.
00:16:34
Speaker 1: She found out he'd been married and then gone off to Russia. He hadn't seen it. He died before his daughter was born.
00:16:42
Speaker 2: So quite sadly he died, and so Kitty was left the widow pregnant. She had her daughter and named her Victoria Catherine Pierce so she would have the initials VCSS in honor of her father. And when she went to Buckingham Palace to receive the Victoria Cross medal from the King, the Queen held baby. Victoria gave her a kiss on the cheek and said, how sad that the baby will grow up without a father. And many years later, eighty four years later, I interviewed Victoria as part of my research for them.
00:17:17
Speaker 1: There's a photo of her and you in the book. So Samuel's dead and buried, yes, okay, well, so we'll leave him dead and buried. Well, I'd like to follow Victoria and Kiddy because they come to Australia to meet Yes, Samuel. Obviously Samuel's mom and dad in Mildura their son's being killed, but they find out he's got a wife and a daughter, have a granddaughter, yes, so she comes to Australia.
00:17:43
Speaker 2: So as a war widow, Vicky was entitled to come to Australia and she brought baby Victoria, went to Mildura, where Samuel's parents, George and Sarah lived, as well as his siblings. And she was quite an exotic a person. Yeah, she was very attractive, pale skin, Jeordi accent. She was an object of attention and some of that attention was male attention, and I think that contributed in no small part to a falling out between Vicky and Samuel's parents. Samuel's parents had waved him off to war in nineteen fifteen and never saw him again, and they had now their daughter in law, and I think they had an expectation that she would live the life of a widow. But she was only twenty with a baby daughter on the other side of the world, no support structure.
00:18:43
Speaker 1: And.
00:18:45
Speaker 2: That led to a falling out. So Kitty left Mildura with baby Victoria, and.
00:18:51
Speaker 1: Ord sounded as you're right, it though, sound as though she was almost inundated with male attention.
00:18:56
Speaker 2: I think so. Yes, Yeah, I think because she was quite exotic, and every weekend George and Sarah Pierce would host a little social function with sandwiches and cakes and tea where returned soldiers could drop by. Yeah, it was perhaps inevitable, so that would happen. But also Kitty's anxieties herself being on the other being so young with an infant on the other side of the world and needing support and structure, and so she shortly thereafter married another Australian return soldier, and once she left miljor Or, George and Sarah never saw their granddaughter again, their only living link.
00:19:35
Speaker 1: That was so sad, obviously you have to understand Kitty's scenario. But the grandparents never saw the Victoria their granddaughter again.
00:19:47
Speaker 2: Yeah. And Sarah died not long after, and George died in a hunting accident not long after as well. So I think they both died quite broken hearted, having suffered the loss of their son Samuel, who should have come back the war was over when he died in Russia, and then also the second loss of their granddaughter Vicky.
00:20:08
Speaker 1: Samuel was awarded posthumously. The Victoria Cross and he remains are still in Russia. We'll get to it. We'll get to the campaign eventually, but the lead up story is just so completely intriguing. Damien Right, local historian is my guest, folkspect shortly my guest on conversations is Damien Right. Damien's I'm saying amateur. I would amateur historian, but.
00:20:33
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's fine.
00:20:34
Speaker 1: But he's written a book. Hopefully he makes some money from a called Australia's Lost Heroes ANZACs and the Russian Civil War in nineteen ninety. I never knew about it, and I guess a lot of people out there didn't die either. But Samuel's killed in an action in Russia. His bravery is rewarded with the Victoria Cross. His wife, who he married just before he went to Russia, and his daughter, who he never knew, immigrate to to meet Samuel's mum and dad, obviously, but they become ostracized because obviously Kitty marries another ex soldier. Now, there's an intriguing story about Victoria the daughter at school one day, can you tell us that when she claimed the class that her father had been awarded the Victoria Cross.
00:21:24
Speaker 2: Yes, so Vicky's mother, Kitty had remarried. So Vicky grew up with a different surname other than the name of her father, Samuel Pierce.
00:21:34
Speaker 1: And thinking her stepfather was so growing up.
00:21:38
Speaker 2: She believed that her stepfather was her father. And that school that came up to Anzac day and the question went around from the teacher whose dad was in World War One? And Vicky said, yes, my dad was in World War One. He got the Victoria Cross. And the teacher said, stop telling tales. Your dad didn't get the Victoria Cross, because at that point there were only just over sixty Australians that had ever received that, so seemed to be a tall tale. Vicky was adamant, No, my dad got the Victoria Cross. My mum has it at home. She'll bring it in tomorrow. And so Vicky went home and Kitty said, yes, yes, yes, I'll bring it in tomorrow. So the next day Vicki's waiting and her mum never comes with the medal and she gets admonished in front of the class by the teacher for lying about her father having received the Victoria Cross. But of course her mother, Kitty could not bring the medal to school because the name on the back of the medal was not the name of the man that Vicky believed to be her father. So Vicky never forgot that humiliation, and she recounted it to me in person many years later.
00:22:49
Speaker 1: But she found tell us about the strunk.
00:22:52
Speaker 2: So some years later when she was about eleven or about the same time, I'm not sure the exact chronology between the two events, but Vicky found her mother's trunk unlocked, and it was always locked, it was never unlocked, and curiosity got the better of her and she had a look, and she found bundles of love letters from a man who wasn't her father, some photographs of a younger version of her mother with a man who was not her father, And she found the Victoria Cross medal. Wow, and she flipped it over and the name on the back SG. Pearce, which was the same name on the love letters. And so that's how she learned. Well, she confronted her mother, and her mother admitted, yes, that's the man who is your father. Your stepfather is not your biological father. That's how she learned of the true identity of her father. When she was eleven years.
00:23:43
Speaker 1: Old, so you met her much later in life.
00:23:46
Speaker 2: Yes, I met her when she was eighty four.
00:23:48
Speaker 1: So did she recount to you her emotions of that at the time.
00:23:55
Speaker 2: Yet she had a hard life, Vickie. Yeah, she had a difficult life, and she recounted to me that she always believed that. Well, for a long time, she resented the Victoria Cross medal because she had, in her words, a stupid medal instead of her father. She didn't want a medal, she wanted her father, and she always believed that growing up if she had her father in her life, her growing up would have been much easier, growing up during the Depression and a bit of an unsettled family environment.
00:24:29
Speaker 1: So you met her though, you say she had a hard life.
00:24:34
Speaker 2: Yeah, growing up, I think around her identity and her stepfather was a bit of a rogue, bit of.
00:24:43
Speaker 1: A was kitty happy in the end?
00:24:46
Speaker 2: I think yes, yeah, Yeah, I think she was very happy. She was very proud of her father, very proud of her husband who was in the Second World War, and her son who was in the Vietnam conflict. So yeah, I think she was quite content in her final years.
00:25:07
Speaker 1: Look, we'll come back to Vicki because she has an ambition later in life to go and visit the grave of her husband. But look in You also talk in the book about the other Victoria Cross winner or recipient who was a South Australian from crystal brook Brook and that I don't know whether a lot of South Australians would realize that we had a lot Arthur Sullivan from crystal Brook so tell us his story. Yeah.
00:25:35
Speaker 2: So, whereas Samuel Pierce was a very experienced soldier who had been on Gilippi in the Western Front, Arthur Sullivan was the opposite end of the spectrum, where he had arrived in the UK and October nineteen eighteen and did not get to serve on the Western Front before the armistice on eleventh of November nineteen eighteen. So his primary motivation for volunteering for the North Russia Relief Force was likely perhaps a sense of guilt on having traveled to the other side of the world. He'd be coming back to Australia without seeing any active service, and he'd received like a gold watch from the community and a big send off, so he was probably quite anxious and guilty about returning to Australia without seeing active service and the opportunity to serve in North Russia with the British Army gave him that opportunity. So he was born in Crystal Brook, enlisted in Port Pirie, arrived in the UK nineteen eighteen and volunteered for North Russian nineteen nineteen with the same unit as Samuel Pearce, but he served on a different front. So where as Samuel Piers served on the railway, Arthur Sullivan served on the river front. So what did he do to So on tenth of August nineteen nineteen there was a major British attack on both banks of the river. As they were withdrawing, they came under fire and a number of wounded soldiers fell into a swamp. It was a single plank bridge, and Sullivan jumped in and rescued them under fire, and one of those men was an officer of the Irish Guards, Lord set Trington. He was recommended for the Victoria Cross for that act.
00:27:15
Speaker 1: Of bravery and he was awarded it.
00:27:17
Speaker 2: And he was indeed awarded it. He was known as the shi VC because on return to the UK he had the opportunity to receive the medal at an investiture at Buckingham Palace and meet the King and meet the King, but he immediately chose to return to Australia as soon as possible. So when the Victoria Cross was presented by the Prince of Wales at Government House here in Adelaide the following year, the Prince of Wales said, Ah, so you're the man that ran away from my father.
00:27:46
Speaker 1: So what year was that?
00:27:48
Speaker 2: That was nineteen twenty July here at Government.
00:27:50
Speaker 1: The Prince did visit. There was a special carriage made for him to take him around the.
00:27:55
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was that visit.
00:27:56
Speaker 1: So that visit. Yeah, So the following year he does go to England.
00:28:02
Speaker 2: So as a Victoria Cross recipient. The Prince of Wales's brother who would become King George the sixth was being coronated in nineteen thirty seven and the Australian Government was recruiting Victoria Cross recipients to go as part of the Australian coronation contingent with our slatch hats and emia plumes and breaches to take part in the procession, and Arthur Sullivan volunteered and was re enlisted in the Australian Army in nineteen thirty seven for that and about a week before the coronation. He was at Wellington Barracks Birdcage Walk, just opposite Buckingham Palace and he was about to enter the street when he was hit by a bicycle messenger and he fell and hit his head and sadly died of his injuries in a freak access is long later.
00:28:53
Speaker 1: I couldn't get over it. But when I read that part and all these things, you survive your conflict by a bicycle on your diet. Where's his Victoria Cross.
00:29:04
Speaker 2: In the Australian World Memorial His widow donated it.
00:29:08
Speaker 1: Does he have family that you know?
00:29:11
Speaker 2: He certainly had children, but I didn't interview them as part of my research for the book. But I'm sure he's got relatives out there who are quite proud of his achievement.
00:29:21
Speaker 1: Arthur Sullivan south Australian Victoria Cross winner.
00:29:24
Speaker 2: He did move to New South Wales after returning from Russia, and New South Wales claims him as a new Crystal Australian.
00:29:34
Speaker 1: My guest is Damien right. His campaign is to get Samuel Pears Victoria Cross a recipient, get his remains back from Russia. And we'll talk about that campaign and how they happen to still be in Russia after the break back. Shortly, folks, welcome back to conversations, everybody. My guest is Damien, right. Damien's a military historian. I guess he focuses on he told me since he was nineteen, he's been researching this story of Samuel Peace. It's accommodated in a book called Australia's Lost Heroes, and you'll find so much in it flicking through it. So not just about Samuel Peers, because there's lots of other stories. Im in there's some I was intrigued in the story of Heatley Fletcher Gascoyne Roy who back in Australia and he gets mugged in Sydney and his cigarette cases can tell us quickly that's yes.
00:30:26
Speaker 2: He's a very interesting example of an Australian that served in North Russia. So his two brothers served with the Australian Imperial Force, but he was medically rejected, so using his own money, he sailed to England, joined the British Army and was commissioned as an officer in the Border Regiment and served on the Western front end in Italy and at the end of the First World War he volunteered for the North Russia Relief Force relinquished his rank, so he gave up his commission as an officer to serve as a sergeant and was awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal in North Russia. Came back to Australia and a very interesting story that I found was that he was mugged, I think in the domain in Sydney and his gold cigarette case was stolen, which had been given to him as a gift by his soldiers, and sometime later it was inscribed it had been inscribed to Sir to Captain Heatley Fletcher gaskayn roy from the men of e Cooy co Y, which is a military abbreviation for the company so E Company. And the police later recovered the gold cigarette case and the thief claimed that it had been presented to him. It had been presented to his friend whose name was like Ernest Cooy, but being oblivious and ignorant of military abbreviations, that obviously was not the case. So Heatley Fletcher gascon Royd got his gold cigarette case back some time after it was tolen.
00:32:05
Speaker 1: Anyway, we digress, We've got a how on earth did you find Samuel Pearce's remains.
00:32:10
Speaker 2: So I can't claim credit for that myself. That credit belongs to a battlefield archaeologist in Russia by the name of Alexeis Sukonovsky in Arkangelsk in northern Russia. He's a local historian journalist. He had been looking for the lost Obbosiskaya burial ground since two thousand and seven two thousand and eight, and we've been in contact because of our mutual interest, and he would ask me questions about some of the casualties that were known to be buried there, and so it wasn't out of the normal for him to be asking me very specific questions about this soldier, where did they serve, what injuries did they have or things like that, And out of the blue, he sent me a message in twenty eighteen saying the quest that we've on for a decade, we have completed it. We have found the lost burial of Samuel Pearce.
00:33:07
Speaker 1: So you were specifically looking for Samuel Peers yes burial.
00:33:10
Speaker 2: Yes, And there's about fifteen other burials in that same location. So what happened was he was buried in nineteen nineteen and then through the revolution and being a remote area of Russia. The location of the grave was lost, and it was Vicki's Samuel Pierce's daughter. It was her lifelong wish to visit her father's grave, and she actually had a visa to visit the Soviet Union in the nineteen eighties, but about a week before she was going to fly out, the Soviet embassy advised that the location of the grave is lost, and so in the knowledge that she could not visit her father's grave, she canceled her trip and she passed away in twenty sixteen, never having the opportunity to fulfill her lifelong wish to visit her father's grave. The grave was discovered by Alexi in twenty eighteen. It was exhumed and some key indicators that the remains of those of Samuel Peace became apparent. There were the remains of what appeared to be a slatchat around the crown of the skull, but critically there was a middle toe right foot missing, and we do know from Samuel Pearce's Australian Army Service record that his middle toe right foot had been amputated as a result of an injury during his army service. So the remains were exhumed, forensically examined by a Russian pathologist in the presence of the British military attache who had flown up from Moscow, and the remains were securely stored and kept in a secure Russian morgue. He is twenty nineteen where they have remained ever since.
00:34:53
Speaker 1: You describe it, though in a unpleasant way, of how they are.
00:34:57
Speaker 2: Kept well, I describe it as a most undignified condition. They are in a black plastic bag, in a plastic crate, in a nondescript temperature controlled room, and they've been kept there for six years, stuck in a literal and metaphorical no man's land.
00:35:20
Speaker 1: So the Australian is what have you done? Who have you notified? Who have you asked? Who have you lobbied?
00:35:26
Speaker 2: So as a result of the impasse, with the guidance of some people involved in the veterans community in South Australia, we have started the Samuel Pearce VCMN burial campaign. So we're actively lobbying for the Australian government to take ownership of the matter of Samuel Pearce's remains and ensuring that he receives a dignified burial appropriate.
00:35:51
Speaker 1: Now Victoria Cross is in our war memorial.
00:35:54
Speaker 2: Yes, so after the not the British one. No, so after Vicki's death, the medal was donated to the Australian warm Moral, where it is on public display with Samuel's photograph in the Hall of Valor in Canberra.
00:36:09
Speaker 1: So the Australian Australian government washing their hands of it. So I can understand because he was serving as a British soldier, wasn't he.
00:36:17
Speaker 2: So in order to go to North Russia, the North Russia Relief Force volunteers had to discharge from the Australian Army and enlist in the British Army. But they were allowed to maintain their Australian identity. They were allowed to continue wearing their slouch hats that were known on the British Order of Battle as the Australian Company. They could even wear that Australian Imperial Force insignia, so they very much were identified as Australian. But the position that the Australian government is taking now is that although Samuel Pierce's medals are in the warm Memorial, although he's recorded on Department of Veterans Affairs website as an Australian BC that because he enlisted in the British Army for North Russia, it's not the Australian Army, excuse me, the Australian government's responsibility to take the matter further with regards to what happens to the remains. They're deferring that responsibility to the UK authorities, who are either unwilling or unable due to the current geop.
00:37:17
Speaker 1: So Wargraves Commission responsible for all war graves. I suppose would they want him to be interred in one of those and they can be all over the world.
00:37:28
Speaker 2: There is a Commonwealth War Graves cemetery existing in Archangel, North Russia, about one hundred and sixty kilometers from where his body was discovered. They are primarily concerned with burial and commemoration, not identification. That responsibility lies with the British Ministry of Defense.
00:37:46
Speaker 1: Are they saying you haven't completely identified.
00:37:49
Speaker 2: Him, so he has not been DNA identified, so that's the next step. But the remains are currently held under a joint agreement between the UK Embassy Moscow and the Russian government in that northern region. Are they talking to each other and they're not talking to each other. So I did have a meeting with the Russian ambassador here in Canberra very well. He was very cordial and he described it as a very noble thing that we were trying to do, and he expressed that he expects that the situation is that one side needs to make the first move in the negotiation, but neither side might be willing to be the first in the current.
00:38:35
Speaker 1: Which politicians have you lobbied you?
00:38:38
Speaker 2: So I've received the disappointing letter from Minister for Veterans Affairs Matt Keoh, describing that the Australian government's position is to defer all responsibility from here to the UK authorities Matt and so I replied, pointing out the untenable position that you cannot simultaneously claim Samuel Pierce as an Australian Victoria Cross for the esteem of prestige, whilst also deferring any responsibility for the further identification or burial of his remains to the UK.
00:39:11
Speaker 1: So what do you think it would cost to get him back?
00:39:14
Speaker 2: Well, it is the family's wish for the remains to be brought back to Australia and buried here at Mildura. There's a statue of Samuel in Mildura as a local hero. The reality is that the most likely outcome is that he would be buried there in Russia and the Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery, but he won't be buried individually. There's at least fifteen other burials, so the matter of Samuel Pierce needs to be resolved before the other burials can also be recovered, and they would likely all be buried together with full military on the Wargrave cemetery.
00:39:48
Speaker 1: This is digressing. I know. I've been to several wargraves w Wargrave cemeteries and they're all administered and look beautifully maintained. Who would do that in Russia? If it's just in Russia has access to that, it's.
00:40:03
Speaker 2: Still the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. Do they employ local Yeah, they employ local caretakers who do the best with what they have. It's a very old and run down cemetery in comparison to the Western Front which are immaculate.
00:40:20
Speaker 1: The one in New Guineas. The ones in New Guinea are amazing.
00:40:25
Speaker 2: So it's quite extreme climactic conditions and the there cemetery shows wear and tear.
00:40:33
Speaker 1: And so to wrap up, which is an intriguing story, what do you want? What do you hope? What do you think is you've said maybe he's going to be buried over there anyway, But what do you hope? Is?
00:40:47
Speaker 2: I hope? And the Samuel ps VCMM Beryl campaign is campaigning that the Israelian government take ownership of the matter, take ownership of our Victoria Cross recipient. And I hope that one day myself and Samuel Pierce's grandson Richard can be at the burial with full military honors, as I expect that will be in Russia at a date in the future. If anyone's interested in the campaign, we have a website Samuel PEARCEVC dot com dot au, where there's a video there that explains a bit of the situation and also a petition if anyone wants to sign up.
00:41:27
Speaker 1: What's the emotion of his grandson, Richard?
00:41:30
Speaker 2: What's for Richard's getting on? He's eighty four, fit as a fiddle mad cricketer. So where does he live in Sydney?
00:41:42
Speaker 1: Okay?
00:41:43
Speaker 2: So, I mean, he obviously knows he's not going to be around forever. And I sense that there's some anxiety there for a resolution. He does hope to be able to do with his mother, never had the opportunity to do to to be able to be with his grandfather when he's buried. Richard and I traveled to Russia in twenty nineteen and we got to visit the remains of Samuel Pears and how were you received? Very generously and friendly, and it was quite an incredible experience. On the exact one hundredth anniversary of Samuel Pierce's death, were able to stand at the spot where he died one hundred years later and we held a commemoration service a Russian Orthodox priest. There's a little bit of a remains of a bunker, but it's mostly just forest. It's a remote corner of Russia.
00:42:33
Speaker 1: Well, it's an amazing story, David, thank you for sharing it, and folks, if you'd like to know more, read the book. It's intriguing. There's so many little other stories shooting out from it. And I'm wondering what are you thinking. Are you thinking to yourself that yes, the Australian should get him back or is it the responsibility of the British. But can't help but think it's such a. It's not such a big deal to commemorate one of our own who's been He was awarded the Military Medal serving for Australia and by necessity joining the British Expeditionary Force as a British soldier, award of the highest military honor for valor, the Victoria Cross, and he sits in limbo in a warehouse. I think we should get him back, Damien, right, thank you so much for your time.
00:43:23
Speaker 2: Thank you very much.
00:43:24
Speaker 1: Gram Damien's book is called Australia's Lost Heroes Anzaks in the Russian Civil War. Thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 1: Gooday, everyone, Welcome to conversations. This is an extraordinary story because it's a little known and as we exploit further, I'm sure you'll be as captivated as I was. Because in nineteen nineteen a British expeditionary force headed off to Russia. Now bear in mind this is just after Armistice, you know, World War One had ended, and amongst that expeditionary force were or one hundred and ten Australian volunteers basically, and they headed off to Russia to fight on the side of the Saris, you know, the white Russians. There are a couple of South Australians in it. But there's also a young fellow from Mildura called Samuel Pearce who in an extraordinary act of valor was awarded the Victoria Cross. But then he was killed. This is where the story gets a little bit complicated because he he was buried in Russia and he remains in Russia. But there's lots of circumstances since then which is complicated. And there's a book being written about Australia's lost heroes ANZACs in the Russia. The Russian Civil War in nineteen ninety and the author. It's an assiduously researched book. It's amazing really. The author, Damian Wright joins me in the studio. Damien, how are.
00:01:18
Speaker 2: You very good? Thanks Graham.
00:01:19
Speaker 1: I know where to start. Samuel Peace from Mildura, Yeah, something like that.
00:01:26
Speaker 2: Young Samuel, I guess of the contingent of one hundred and ten Australians that served in North Russia with the British Army in nineteen nineteen. Samuel Peace sticks out. He was born in Wales to English parents in eighteen ninety seven, migrated to Australia in nineteen eleven, settled in Mildura, volunteered for the First World War, served with the Australian Army on Gallipoli and the Western Front, where he was decorated for bravery. And after the end of the First World War in November nineteen eighteen, the Australians were very low priority for shipping home, so by Northern Hemisphere summer the following year they were still waiting for a ship home. Board out of their minds. So that's November till till April May nineteen nineteen. Desperate to get high, they had nothing to do, desperate to get home. And yeah, there was no shipping, for they would have been bought out of their brands and.
00:02:20
Speaker 1: Terribly poorly behaved. I would have thought, no, no Australian soldiers.
00:02:24
Speaker 2: Yeah, there were some random acts of Alaricanism, should we say so? In May April May nineteen nineteen, the British War Office sent out recruiting officers to the Commonwealth camps, the Australians, Canadians, et cetera, to recruit soldiers to volunteer for the North Russia Relief Force, which was being sent to Northern Russia to relieve a British Army force which had been niced in the winter.
00:02:51
Speaker 1: What were they doing in Russia? What were the British doing?
00:02:53
Speaker 2: Soon after the Russian Revolution in November nineteen seventeen, the Czar was abdicated, so Russia left the war, So the entire Eastern Front was closed down and all those German troops went from the Eastern Front fighting the Russians to the Western Front to fight Britain, France and the other allies. So a force was sent to Russia, initially in March nineteen eighteen, but a larger force in August nineteen eighteen to support the white Russians who were essentially supporting the monarchy against the Red Russians who were Lenin's Bolsheviks later known as Soviets.
00:03:34
Speaker 1: The Tsar was still alive, the stage.
00:03:36
Speaker 2: Was at that stage he was He was murdered with his wife and children in July nineteen eighteen on Lenin's orders. So there could never be a return to a Russian monarchy.
00:03:48
Speaker 1: It's think it's so complicated in terms of the Russian Who are the Russians alloy? One stage there with the al that were joing World War War One, they were yeah.
00:04:03
Speaker 2: Nicholas the second was a first cousin of King George the fifth of Great Britain, and they were allies against Germany. So Britain fighting on the Western Front and Russia fighting on the Eastern Front. So they were allied. But due to a number of factors, there was unrest in Russia which ultimately led to the Bolshevik Revolution.
00:04:23
Speaker 1: So the Australian's volunteer probably as a sense of adventure, I.
00:04:29
Speaker 2: Think monetary considerations in boredom with the primary motivation. So the rate of pay was fourteen shillings a day for private soldier, which was more than double what the Australians were receiving. They would also receive two months furlough paid furlough on return from Russia, and they would receive passenger transport back to Australia rather than a troop ship. So most of the volunteers volunteered more for money and boredom rather than anything else. And there's an interesting mix of veterans, very experienced soldiers, many of whom had been decorated and served on Gallepoli in the Western Front, and soldiers that had seen very little service, maybe that arrived just before the war ended, or indeed, as is the case with Arther Sullivan, missed the war entirely and perhaps, having traveled to the other side of the world, thought they couldn't really return home to Australia with their heads held high unless they actually had taken part in some active service.
00:05:29
Speaker 1: So how vicious was the fighting over there?
00:05:33
Speaker 2: Quite vicious mutinies, murders, civilian deaths. There was a typhus epidemic going through Russia at the time. Up until that point, it was the largest number of civilian casualties or civilian deaths in a conflict in modern history. Of course, that was latest.
00:05:57
Speaker 1: In France and Belgium during World War One.
00:06:00
Speaker 2: Yeah, from death, disease, murder, atrocity. The Russian Civil War was brutal, the most brutal conflict up to that time.
00:06:10
Speaker 1: You do make the point in the book that that expeditionary force couldn't really be sure who was on their side amongst the civilian population. Whereas it like in France and Belgium they were always confident that the French was sympathetic and they could go and leave, but in Russia it.
00:06:29
Speaker 2: Was very much so. On the Western front, you knew which direction the enemy was in and that everyone behind you was friendly, whereas in Russia that was certainly not the case. The loyalty of the white Russian troops was very questionable, so they were the Allies, but on a number of significant occasions that actually mutinied and murdered the British officers, one of whom Alan Brown from Queensland was murdered on twentieth of July nineteen nineteen by white Russian troops. He was training and commanding, and he was in fact the last Australian Imperial Force soldier to be killed in action. He was killed in action in Russia in July nineteen nineteen.
00:07:06
Speaker 1: That's a little known for where do we know more about these guys?
00:07:09
Speaker 2: So, coming as it did at the end of the First World War and being an unsuccessful campaign that resulted in a lot of pointless loss, it was not something that people wanted to remember. There was certainly a war fatigue from the end of the First World War. It was a small campaign overshadowed by the First World War, and people generally did not want to remember it. They didn't want to remember the wasteful sacrifice and squandering of lives of soldiers, some of whom had been at Gallipoli.
00:07:45
Speaker 1: The Americans had sent a force in prior to that, hadn't they.
00:07:48
Speaker 2: Yes, So the Americans did send troops to Northern Russia under the command of the British. And that's quite interesting because both Nixon and Reagan US presidents made erroneous claims to their Soviet counterparts that US troops and Soviet troops had never been at war, and that's patently false. They fought a very hot war in nineteen nineteen, and over three hundred US troops died in Northern Russia.
00:08:14
Speaker 1: Initially, they were just supposed to be there was a logistical support. So yes, did you ever find out what happened? They were said to the front.
00:08:22
Speaker 2: President Woodrow Wilson committed the troops on a non interventionist principle that they were only to maintain the peace essentially, but as they were under British command, the British General Edmund Ironside actively committed them to combat, in contravention of the wishes of President Wilson.
00:08:42
Speaker 1: Anyway, So Samuel Pierce and and his mates they arrived in Russia, what's their immediate react Because it's cold.
00:08:51
Speaker 2: Is it cold in most of the year, Yes, but the northern summer is very short and very intense. It's just outside of the Arctic circle, and it's as hot as Australia in summer, but only for about two months, six weeks the two months, so it was One Australian soldier recorded that it was the hottest he'd ever been since Egypt when he got to northern Russia. So they found it very strange. Many had picked up French, but of course that was no use in Russia. They found the Russian language very impenetrable and the Russian civilians very strange. So it was very much a strange alien environment.
00:09:33
Speaker 1: To my guest on conversations is Damien Right. He's written a book about the Anzac soldiers who go to war in Russia and the Civil War, specifically about Samuel Piers, Samuel George Pierce, who was awarded the Victoria Cross for his valor. But there in lies the story. There in lies the campaign that Damien's tried to mount to get his remains returned home back shortly, welcome back, everybody. We're talking with Damien right, South Australian. Well you assume you South Australia.
00:10:03
Speaker 2: I am, indeed born in Port Lincoln, grew up in Port Link and Whaler and adelaide a historian.
00:10:09
Speaker 1: Can you make a living out of being a historian?
00:10:11
Speaker 2: Not really, It's not my profession. I'm not a professional historian or writer. It's very much a passion project for me.
00:10:18
Speaker 1: What's your day job.
00:10:18
Speaker 2: I work at the University of South Australia as an International Student advisor, so working with international students, primarily around student visa compliance and making sure they're doing everything correctly.
00:10:32
Speaker 1: This is so well researched. As I said before, We'll get onto Samuel Pearce and He's action and his subsequent demise, but you virtually talked about every other soldier that volunteered for that force in the yeahoo.
00:10:46
Speaker 2: I've been researching this campaign for more than half my life, so my research file is about twenty five years of work. And also because of the relatively small number of Australians, are only about a hundred and fifty that served in Russia during the Civil War period eighteen nineteen eighteen to twenty. And because Australia has very good archival documents, it's possible to track down and find out not just military service, but there's also a wonderful website called Trove which has digitized a lot of newspapers. You can find out a lot of information about what happened to soldiers after their service on there.
00:11:21
Speaker 1: Well, let's include there are some amazing stories. I mean, how many of those hundred and twenty did you individually mention in here? I know you've got a file at the back.
00:11:30
Speaker 2: That all recorded in a nominal role at the back, which is the most complete and accurate nominal role of Australians in the Russian Civil War. So wherever possible I tried to if there was a small snippet of interest. I tried to include them in the book. For example, there was a soldier, John Kevaan, who was shot in the head on twenty ninth of August nineteen nineteen, the same action that Samuel Pearce was killed, and I received a message from a relative who knew him, describing him and a little bit about his personality and just thanking me because he never knew that his relative had been shot in the head in Russia. Miraculously survived his rooms, his wounds, And the reason I mentioned him in the book is that some years later he was having seizures and a surgery was performed and removed some shrapnel from his brain.
00:12:20
Speaker 1: You described as shrapnel as being like almost like two inches square, or like not two inches, but it was a significant piece. It was quite metal.
00:12:30
Speaker 2: Quite miraculous that he survived.
00:12:34
Speaker 1: Anyway, Samuel Pierce is so he off he goes. He's a brave young fellow from mill Duror. He's been decorated in World War with the ward of the Military.
00:12:43
Speaker 2: Medal, decorated on the Western Front, promoted sergeant for service with the North Russia Relief Force, and on twenty ninth of August nineteen nineteen, the Australians took part in an attack on a Red Army bunker position. One by one, the bunkers were knocked out. There was one blockhouse essentially an above ground bunker, that was holding up the advance. Samuel went forward with wire cutters, cut through Wyre, called for a bag of grenades, charged the bunker through some grenades in, knocked it out and moments later he was mortally wounded by the last shot fired in the engagement. And he had received a letter from his English wife Kitty, only a week or two earlier, letting him know that he was going to be a father.
00:13:31
Speaker 1: Do you given us too much information there? Because if we were because he met Kitty, well.
00:13:35
Speaker 2: Yes, so Kitty was his English sweetheart. As as happened, many Australian soldiers had English sweethearts and they were married only a few months before his death in Dush. Had they met it She was in the Women's Auxiliary Army Corps and that's how they met. Maybe at a social function. I'm not one hundred percent sure of how they actually met. But she was from she was a Geordie. She was from the Thumberland, Philadelphia.
00:14:02
Speaker 1: That would have been a very broad accent.
00:14:03
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:14:04
Speaker 1: So about her accent being once you eventually came to Australia, how her accent was appealing, that's jumping too far ahead. So they marry.
00:14:15
Speaker 2: Yeah. So one of the conditions for the Australians to be able to join the North Russian Relief Force was they had to have no dependence, So if you were married, you could not join. So what because in order to enlist you had to first discharge from the Australian Imperial Force and then enlist in the British Army, so you're given a new army number. How Sam you've got around that is that he discharged from the Australian Imperial Force and then three days later got married and there was no restriction on the British side, so he then enlisted for the North Russia Relief Force British Army.
00:14:47
Speaker 1: So he's mortally wounded.
00:14:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, he dies in the arms of his mates, taken about fifteen kilometers up the railway line to where the British forward base was and he's buried there in a i'm military cemetery at a place called opposite Skaya in a remote part of northern Russia.
00:15:06
Speaker 1: So this is where the guts of your book becomes interesting, because why on earth did his burial place become an issue for you?
00:15:19
Speaker 2: So I guess the story about how I became interested in this campaign is when I was sixteen, I was already interested in Australian military history. I'd get military history books on the ANZACs of birthdays and Christmas. I got a book that had a chronological list of Australian Victoria crosses. The boll wore First World War, Second World War in Vietnam, and there were two strange awards between World War One and World War Two. It said North Russia nineteen nineteen. I didn't know anything about it. I never heard of it. I couldn't find any information about it. Who and when I got my first real job when I was nineteen, it's just at the advent of the Internet, I could buy books from overseas through the Internet. I started building a research line and in two thousand and four I made contact with Samuel's daughter Victoria. And why did you feel you had to start her? Because so little had ever been written about it, and despite the fact two Australians rewarded the Victoria cross out of a contingent of only one hundred and ten. Even the Australian War Memorial had virtually nothing about it, and so that piqued my interest and I wanted to write the story of the Australian Bob.
00:16:34
Speaker 1: She found out he'd been married and then gone off to Russia. He hadn't seen it. He died before his daughter was born.
00:16:42
Speaker 2: So quite sadly he died, and so Kitty was left the widow pregnant. She had her daughter and named her Victoria Catherine Pierce so she would have the initials VCSS in honor of her father. And when she went to Buckingham Palace to receive the Victoria Cross medal from the King, the Queen held baby. Victoria gave her a kiss on the cheek and said, how sad that the baby will grow up without a father. And many years later, eighty four years later, I interviewed Victoria as part of my research for them.
00:17:17
Speaker 1: There's a photo of her and you in the book. So Samuel's dead and buried, yes, okay, well, so we'll leave him dead and buried. Well, I'd like to follow Victoria and Kiddy because they come to Australia to meet Yes, Samuel. Obviously Samuel's mom and dad in Mildura their son's being killed, but they find out he's got a wife and a daughter, have a granddaughter, yes, so she comes to Australia.
00:17:43
Speaker 2: So as a war widow, Vicky was entitled to come to Australia and she brought baby Victoria, went to Mildura, where Samuel's parents, George and Sarah lived, as well as his siblings. And she was quite an exotic a person. Yeah, she was very attractive, pale skin, Jeordi accent. She was an object of attention and some of that attention was male attention, and I think that contributed in no small part to a falling out between Vicky and Samuel's parents. Samuel's parents had waved him off to war in nineteen fifteen and never saw him again, and they had now their daughter in law, and I think they had an expectation that she would live the life of a widow. But she was only twenty with a baby daughter on the other side of the world, no support structure.
00:18:43
Speaker 1: And.
00:18:45
Speaker 2: That led to a falling out. So Kitty left Mildura with baby Victoria, and.
00:18:51
Speaker 1: Ord sounded as you're right, it though, sound as though she was almost inundated with male attention.
00:18:56
Speaker 2: I think so. Yes, Yeah, I think because she was quite exotic, and every weekend George and Sarah Pierce would host a little social function with sandwiches and cakes and tea where returned soldiers could drop by. Yeah, it was perhaps inevitable, so that would happen. But also Kitty's anxieties herself being on the other being so young with an infant on the other side of the world and needing support and structure, and so she shortly thereafter married another Australian return soldier, and once she left miljor Or, George and Sarah never saw their granddaughter again, their only living link.
00:19:35
Speaker 1: That was so sad, obviously you have to understand Kitty's scenario. But the grandparents never saw the Victoria their granddaughter again.
00:19:47
Speaker 2: Yeah. And Sarah died not long after, and George died in a hunting accident not long after as well. So I think they both died quite broken hearted, having suffered the loss of their son Samuel, who should have come back the war was over when he died in Russia, and then also the second loss of their granddaughter Vicky.
00:20:08
Speaker 1: Samuel was awarded posthumously. The Victoria Cross and he remains are still in Russia. We'll get to it. We'll get to the campaign eventually, but the lead up story is just so completely intriguing. Damien Right, local historian is my guest, folkspect shortly my guest on conversations is Damien Right. Damien's I'm saying amateur. I would amateur historian, but.
00:20:33
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's fine.
00:20:34
Speaker 1: But he's written a book. Hopefully he makes some money from a called Australia's Lost Heroes ANZACs and the Russian Civil War in nineteen ninety. I never knew about it, and I guess a lot of people out there didn't die either. But Samuel's killed in an action in Russia. His bravery is rewarded with the Victoria Cross. His wife, who he married just before he went to Russia, and his daughter, who he never knew, immigrate to to meet Samuel's mum and dad, obviously, but they become ostracized because obviously Kitty marries another ex soldier. Now, there's an intriguing story about Victoria the daughter at school one day, can you tell us that when she claimed the class that her father had been awarded the Victoria Cross.
00:21:24
Speaker 2: Yes, so Vicky's mother, Kitty had remarried. So Vicky grew up with a different surname other than the name of her father, Samuel Pierce.
00:21:34
Speaker 1: And thinking her stepfather was so growing up.
00:21:38
Speaker 2: She believed that her stepfather was her father. And that school that came up to Anzac day and the question went around from the teacher whose dad was in World War One? And Vicky said, yes, my dad was in World War One. He got the Victoria Cross. And the teacher said, stop telling tales. Your dad didn't get the Victoria Cross, because at that point there were only just over sixty Australians that had ever received that, so seemed to be a tall tale. Vicky was adamant, No, my dad got the Victoria Cross. My mum has it at home. She'll bring it in tomorrow. And so Vicky went home and Kitty said, yes, yes, yes, I'll bring it in tomorrow. So the next day Vicki's waiting and her mum never comes with the medal and she gets admonished in front of the class by the teacher for lying about her father having received the Victoria Cross. But of course her mother, Kitty could not bring the medal to school because the name on the back of the medal was not the name of the man that Vicky believed to be her father. So Vicky never forgot that humiliation, and she recounted it to me in person many years later.
00:22:49
Speaker 1: But she found tell us about the strunk.
00:22:52
Speaker 2: So some years later when she was about eleven or about the same time, I'm not sure the exact chronology between the two events, but Vicky found her mother's trunk unlocked, and it was always locked, it was never unlocked, and curiosity got the better of her and she had a look, and she found bundles of love letters from a man who wasn't her father, some photographs of a younger version of her mother with a man who was not her father, And she found the Victoria Cross medal. Wow, and she flipped it over and the name on the back SG. Pearce, which was the same name on the love letters. And so that's how she learned. Well, she confronted her mother, and her mother admitted, yes, that's the man who is your father. Your stepfather is not your biological father. That's how she learned of the true identity of her father. When she was eleven years.
00:23:43
Speaker 1: Old, so you met her much later in life.
00:23:46
Speaker 2: Yes, I met her when she was eighty four.
00:23:48
Speaker 1: So did she recount to you her emotions of that at the time.
00:23:55
Speaker 2: Yet she had a hard life, Vickie. Yeah, she had a difficult life, and she recounted to me that she always believed that. Well, for a long time, she resented the Victoria Cross medal because she had, in her words, a stupid medal instead of her father. She didn't want a medal, she wanted her father, and she always believed that growing up if she had her father in her life, her growing up would have been much easier, growing up during the Depression and a bit of an unsettled family environment.
00:24:29
Speaker 1: So you met her though, you say she had a hard life.
00:24:34
Speaker 2: Yeah, growing up, I think around her identity and her stepfather was a bit of a rogue, bit of.
00:24:43
Speaker 1: A was kitty happy in the end?
00:24:46
Speaker 2: I think yes, yeah, Yeah, I think she was very happy. She was very proud of her father, very proud of her husband who was in the Second World War, and her son who was in the Vietnam conflict. So yeah, I think she was quite content in her final years.
00:25:07
Speaker 1: Look, we'll come back to Vicki because she has an ambition later in life to go and visit the grave of her husband. But look in You also talk in the book about the other Victoria Cross winner or recipient who was a South Australian from crystal brook Brook and that I don't know whether a lot of South Australians would realize that we had a lot Arthur Sullivan from crystal Brook so tell us his story. Yeah.
00:25:35
Speaker 2: So, whereas Samuel Pierce was a very experienced soldier who had been on Gilippi in the Western Front, Arthur Sullivan was the opposite end of the spectrum, where he had arrived in the UK and October nineteen eighteen and did not get to serve on the Western Front before the armistice on eleventh of November nineteen eighteen. So his primary motivation for volunteering for the North Russia Relief Force was likely perhaps a sense of guilt on having traveled to the other side of the world. He'd be coming back to Australia without seeing any active service, and he'd received like a gold watch from the community and a big send off, so he was probably quite anxious and guilty about returning to Australia without seeing active service and the opportunity to serve in North Russia with the British Army gave him that opportunity. So he was born in Crystal Brook, enlisted in Port Pirie, arrived in the UK nineteen eighteen and volunteered for North Russian nineteen nineteen with the same unit as Samuel Pearce, but he served on a different front. So where as Samuel Piers served on the railway, Arthur Sullivan served on the river front. So what did he do to So on tenth of August nineteen nineteen there was a major British attack on both banks of the river. As they were withdrawing, they came under fire and a number of wounded soldiers fell into a swamp. It was a single plank bridge, and Sullivan jumped in and rescued them under fire, and one of those men was an officer of the Irish Guards, Lord set Trington. He was recommended for the Victoria Cross for that act.
00:27:15
Speaker 1: Of bravery and he was awarded it.
00:27:17
Speaker 2: And he was indeed awarded it. He was known as the shi VC because on return to the UK he had the opportunity to receive the medal at an investiture at Buckingham Palace and meet the King and meet the King, but he immediately chose to return to Australia as soon as possible. So when the Victoria Cross was presented by the Prince of Wales at Government House here in Adelaide the following year, the Prince of Wales said, Ah, so you're the man that ran away from my father.
00:27:46
Speaker 1: So what year was that?
00:27:48
Speaker 2: That was nineteen twenty July here at Government.
00:27:50
Speaker 1: The Prince did visit. There was a special carriage made for him to take him around the.
00:27:55
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was that visit.
00:27:56
Speaker 1: So that visit. Yeah, So the following year he does go to England.
00:28:02
Speaker 2: So as a Victoria Cross recipient. The Prince of Wales's brother who would become King George the sixth was being coronated in nineteen thirty seven and the Australian Government was recruiting Victoria Cross recipients to go as part of the Australian coronation contingent with our slatch hats and emia plumes and breaches to take part in the procession, and Arthur Sullivan volunteered and was re enlisted in the Australian Army in nineteen thirty seven for that and about a week before the coronation. He was at Wellington Barracks Birdcage Walk, just opposite Buckingham Palace and he was about to enter the street when he was hit by a bicycle messenger and he fell and hit his head and sadly died of his injuries in a freak access is long later.
00:28:53
Speaker 1: I couldn't get over it. But when I read that part and all these things, you survive your conflict by a bicycle on your diet. Where's his Victoria Cross.
00:29:04
Speaker 2: In the Australian World Memorial His widow donated it.
00:29:08
Speaker 1: Does he have family that you know?
00:29:11
Speaker 2: He certainly had children, but I didn't interview them as part of my research for the book. But I'm sure he's got relatives out there who are quite proud of his achievement.
00:29:21
Speaker 1: Arthur Sullivan south Australian Victoria Cross winner.
00:29:24
Speaker 2: He did move to New South Wales after returning from Russia, and New South Wales claims him as a new Crystal Australian.
00:29:34
Speaker 1: My guest is Damien right. His campaign is to get Samuel Pears Victoria Cross a recipient, get his remains back from Russia. And we'll talk about that campaign and how they happen to still be in Russia after the break back. Shortly, folks, welcome back to conversations, everybody. My guest is Damien, right. Damien's a military historian. I guess he focuses on he told me since he was nineteen, he's been researching this story of Samuel Peace. It's accommodated in a book called Australia's Lost Heroes, and you'll find so much in it flicking through it. So not just about Samuel Peers, because there's lots of other stories. Im in there's some I was intrigued in the story of Heatley Fletcher Gascoyne Roy who back in Australia and he gets mugged in Sydney and his cigarette cases can tell us quickly that's yes.
00:30:26
Speaker 2: He's a very interesting example of an Australian that served in North Russia. So his two brothers served with the Australian Imperial Force, but he was medically rejected, so using his own money, he sailed to England, joined the British Army and was commissioned as an officer in the Border Regiment and served on the Western front end in Italy and at the end of the First World War he volunteered for the North Russia Relief Force relinquished his rank, so he gave up his commission as an officer to serve as a sergeant and was awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal in North Russia. Came back to Australia and a very interesting story that I found was that he was mugged, I think in the domain in Sydney and his gold cigarette case was stolen, which had been given to him as a gift by his soldiers, and sometime later it was inscribed it had been inscribed to Sir to Captain Heatley Fletcher gaskayn roy from the men of e Cooy co Y, which is a military abbreviation for the company so E Company. And the police later recovered the gold cigarette case and the thief claimed that it had been presented to him. It had been presented to his friend whose name was like Ernest Cooy, but being oblivious and ignorant of military abbreviations, that obviously was not the case. So Heatley Fletcher gascon Royd got his gold cigarette case back some time after it was tolen.
00:32:05
Speaker 1: Anyway, we digress, We've got a how on earth did you find Samuel Pearce's remains.
00:32:10
Speaker 2: So I can't claim credit for that myself. That credit belongs to a battlefield archaeologist in Russia by the name of Alexeis Sukonovsky in Arkangelsk in northern Russia. He's a local historian journalist. He had been looking for the lost Obbosiskaya burial ground since two thousand and seven two thousand and eight, and we've been in contact because of our mutual interest, and he would ask me questions about some of the casualties that were known to be buried there, and so it wasn't out of the normal for him to be asking me very specific questions about this soldier, where did they serve, what injuries did they have or things like that, And out of the blue, he sent me a message in twenty eighteen saying the quest that we've on for a decade, we have completed it. We have found the lost burial of Samuel Pearce.
00:33:07
Speaker 1: So you were specifically looking for Samuel Peers yes burial.
00:33:10
Speaker 2: Yes, And there's about fifteen other burials in that same location. So what happened was he was buried in nineteen nineteen and then through the revolution and being a remote area of Russia. The location of the grave was lost, and it was Vicki's Samuel Pierce's daughter. It was her lifelong wish to visit her father's grave, and she actually had a visa to visit the Soviet Union in the nineteen eighties, but about a week before she was going to fly out, the Soviet embassy advised that the location of the grave is lost, and so in the knowledge that she could not visit her father's grave, she canceled her trip and she passed away in twenty sixteen, never having the opportunity to fulfill her lifelong wish to visit her father's grave. The grave was discovered by Alexi in twenty eighteen. It was exhumed and some key indicators that the remains of those of Samuel Peace became apparent. There were the remains of what appeared to be a slatchat around the crown of the skull, but critically there was a middle toe right foot missing, and we do know from Samuel Pearce's Australian Army Service record that his middle toe right foot had been amputated as a result of an injury during his army service. So the remains were exhumed, forensically examined by a Russian pathologist in the presence of the British military attache who had flown up from Moscow, and the remains were securely stored and kept in a secure Russian morgue. He is twenty nineteen where they have remained ever since.
00:34:53
Speaker 1: You describe it, though in a unpleasant way, of how they are.
00:34:57
Speaker 2: Kept well, I describe it as a most undignified condition. They are in a black plastic bag, in a plastic crate, in a nondescript temperature controlled room, and they've been kept there for six years, stuck in a literal and metaphorical no man's land.
00:35:20
Speaker 1: So the Australian is what have you done? Who have you notified? Who have you asked? Who have you lobbied?
00:35:26
Speaker 2: So as a result of the impasse, with the guidance of some people involved in the veterans community in South Australia, we have started the Samuel Pearce VCMN burial campaign. So we're actively lobbying for the Australian government to take ownership of the matter of Samuel Pearce's remains and ensuring that he receives a dignified burial appropriate.
00:35:51
Speaker 1: Now Victoria Cross is in our war memorial.
00:35:54
Speaker 2: Yes, so after the not the British one. No, so after Vicki's death, the medal was donated to the Australian warm Moral, where it is on public display with Samuel's photograph in the Hall of Valor in Canberra.
00:36:09
Speaker 1: So the Australian Australian government washing their hands of it. So I can understand because he was serving as a British soldier, wasn't he.
00:36:17
Speaker 2: So in order to go to North Russia, the North Russia Relief Force volunteers had to discharge from the Australian Army and enlist in the British Army. But they were allowed to maintain their Australian identity. They were allowed to continue wearing their slouch hats that were known on the British Order of Battle as the Australian Company. They could even wear that Australian Imperial Force insignia, so they very much were identified as Australian. But the position that the Australian government is taking now is that although Samuel Pierce's medals are in the warm Memorial, although he's recorded on Department of Veterans Affairs website as an Australian BC that because he enlisted in the British Army for North Russia, it's not the Australian Army, excuse me, the Australian government's responsibility to take the matter further with regards to what happens to the remains. They're deferring that responsibility to the UK authorities, who are either unwilling or unable due to the current geop.
00:37:17
Speaker 1: So Wargraves Commission responsible for all war graves. I suppose would they want him to be interred in one of those and they can be all over the world.
00:37:28
Speaker 2: There is a Commonwealth War Graves cemetery existing in Archangel, North Russia, about one hundred and sixty kilometers from where his body was discovered. They are primarily concerned with burial and commemoration, not identification. That responsibility lies with the British Ministry of Defense.
00:37:46
Speaker 1: Are they saying you haven't completely identified.
00:37:49
Speaker 2: Him, so he has not been DNA identified, so that's the next step. But the remains are currently held under a joint agreement between the UK Embassy Moscow and the Russian government in that northern region. Are they talking to each other and they're not talking to each other. So I did have a meeting with the Russian ambassador here in Canberra very well. He was very cordial and he described it as a very noble thing that we were trying to do, and he expressed that he expects that the situation is that one side needs to make the first move in the negotiation, but neither side might be willing to be the first in the current.
00:38:35
Speaker 1: Which politicians have you lobbied you?
00:38:38
Speaker 2: So I've received the disappointing letter from Minister for Veterans Affairs Matt Keoh, describing that the Australian government's position is to defer all responsibility from here to the UK authorities Matt and so I replied, pointing out the untenable position that you cannot simultaneously claim Samuel Pierce as an Australian Victoria Cross for the esteem of prestige, whilst also deferring any responsibility for the further identification or burial of his remains to the UK.
00:39:11
Speaker 1: So what do you think it would cost to get him back?
00:39:14
Speaker 2: Well, it is the family's wish for the remains to be brought back to Australia and buried here at Mildura. There's a statue of Samuel in Mildura as a local hero. The reality is that the most likely outcome is that he would be buried there in Russia and the Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery, but he won't be buried individually. There's at least fifteen other burials, so the matter of Samuel Pierce needs to be resolved before the other burials can also be recovered, and they would likely all be buried together with full military on the Wargrave cemetery.
00:39:48
Speaker 1: This is digressing. I know. I've been to several wargraves w Wargrave cemeteries and they're all administered and look beautifully maintained. Who would do that in Russia? If it's just in Russia has access to that, it's.
00:40:03
Speaker 2: Still the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. Do they employ local Yeah, they employ local caretakers who do the best with what they have. It's a very old and run down cemetery in comparison to the Western Front which are immaculate.
00:40:20
Speaker 1: The one in New Guineas. The ones in New Guinea are amazing.
00:40:25
Speaker 2: So it's quite extreme climactic conditions and the there cemetery shows wear and tear.
00:40:33
Speaker 1: And so to wrap up, which is an intriguing story, what do you want? What do you hope? What do you think is you've said maybe he's going to be buried over there anyway, But what do you hope? Is?
00:40:47
Speaker 2: I hope? And the Samuel ps VCMM Beryl campaign is campaigning that the Israelian government take ownership of the matter, take ownership of our Victoria Cross recipient. And I hope that one day myself and Samuel Pierce's grandson Richard can be at the burial with full military honors, as I expect that will be in Russia at a date in the future. If anyone's interested in the campaign, we have a website Samuel PEARCEVC dot com dot au, where there's a video there that explains a bit of the situation and also a petition if anyone wants to sign up.
00:41:27
Speaker 1: What's the emotion of his grandson, Richard?
00:41:30
Speaker 2: What's for Richard's getting on? He's eighty four, fit as a fiddle mad cricketer. So where does he live in Sydney?
00:41:42
Speaker 1: Okay?
00:41:43
Speaker 2: So, I mean, he obviously knows he's not going to be around forever. And I sense that there's some anxiety there for a resolution. He does hope to be able to do with his mother, never had the opportunity to do to to be able to be with his grandfather when he's buried. Richard and I traveled to Russia in twenty nineteen and we got to visit the remains of Samuel Pears and how were you received? Very generously and friendly, and it was quite an incredible experience. On the exact one hundredth anniversary of Samuel Pierce's death, were able to stand at the spot where he died one hundred years later and we held a commemoration service a Russian Orthodox priest. There's a little bit of a remains of a bunker, but it's mostly just forest. It's a remote corner of Russia.
00:42:33
Speaker 1: Well, it's an amazing story, David, thank you for sharing it, and folks, if you'd like to know more, read the book. It's intriguing. There's so many little other stories shooting out from it. And I'm wondering what are you thinking. Are you thinking to yourself that yes, the Australian should get him back or is it the responsibility of the British. But can't help but think it's such a. It's not such a big deal to commemorate one of our own who's been He was awarded the Military Medal serving for Australia and by necessity joining the British Expeditionary Force as a British soldier, award of the highest military honor for valor, the Victoria Cross, and he sits in limbo in a warehouse. I think we should get him back, Damien, right, thank you so much for your time.
00:43:23
Speaker 2: Thank you very much.
00:43:24
Speaker 1: Gram Damien's book is called Australia's Lost Heroes Anzaks in the Russian Civil War. Thank you so much for joining us.
