Kelly, John Robert Cowan (Sergeant, b.1893 - d.1985)

Collection relating to the First World War service and Russian Intervention Force service of 453 Sergeant John Robert Cowan Kelly, 30th Battalion, AIF and Elope Force, North Russian Expeditionary Force, Russia, England, Egypt, 1915-1979.

Collection consists of the memoir of John Robert Cowan Kelly, detailing the 1918-1919 mission to Northern Russia as part of the Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War. He describes volunteering for 'Elope' Force, transport to Russia, the mission to organise and train 'White' Russian forces and capture strategic locations before the Germans, including operations at Murmansk and Arkhangelsk, observations on the local people, photographs, and his eventual repatriation to Australia via the United States. He includes a list of Australian members of Elope force and a map of northern Russia with his own annotations. The memoir was written in 1969.

Collection also includes a bible presented to Kelly in 1915; an English-Russian conversation book, c.1915; Letter from Vera Deakin to John Robert Cowan Kelly, 1916; photograph of Elope Force, 1918; newspaper cuttings and other ephemera compiled by Kelly, 1915-1919.

• Bible presented to John Robert Cowan Kelly in 1915
• English-Russian conversation book belonging to John Robert Cowan Kelly, [c. 1915]
• Pay book belonging to John Robert Cowan Kelly, 1916
• Letter from Vera Deakin to John Robert Cowan Kelly, 9 September 1916
• Photograph of members of "Elope" Force, 1918
• Newspaper cuttings and ephemera collected by John Robert Cowan Kelly, 1915-1919
• Memoir of John Robert Cowan Kelly, 1969