As you have seen in my earlier blog posts, I am telling the stories about the soldiers I visited on my last tour to the battlefields in Belgium and France, earlier in July, 2025
This is the story about the sixth soldier I visited during my tour. In this story I will also mention another soldier that I visited as well, who claimed to be born in Sweden, but I haven’t manage to confirm him in the Swedish church books. I will begin with Walter, or was he actually Walter?
Walter Natanael Peterson
Walter was a sailor who ended up in Australia and he signed up for the Australian Imperial Force in May 25th, 1917. There is a lot of information to catch up regarding this individual, which makes everything interesting, from my point of view.
Walter is assumed to have arrived in Australia in around 1916, and then he stated that he was born in Sweden. However, when he wrote his information in the Military attestation papers, he stated that he was born in Brookland in North America. Maybe he misunderstood the questions, who knows.
Walter Natanael Peterson was actually born in Sweden as Waldemar Natanael Pettersson on August 4th, 1894. He was born in the parish of Väddö, Norrtälje, north of Stockholm.
If I look at the Next of Kin in the document above, I can see “Guhin” Peterson, who most likely is his father Johan Pettersson, and I also see his mothers name, Carolina, who most likely is Ulrika Carolina Pettersson.
The information correlates well with the information in the Swedish church books. As in many cases, when it comes to Swedish sailors who jumped ship in Australia, it is not mentioned when he emigrated from Sweden.
He probably passed North America on his journey around the world, on his way to Australia.
In the notes in the papers from the Swedish church books, it is also mentioned that he died April 11th 1918, but according to the Australian Casualty documents he died of wounds on March 28th, 1918, when he was fighting in the 16th Australian Infantry Battalion.
The unit was fighting in the area of Hebuterne, south of Arras in France, during the German Spring Offensive. They defended the area together with the fourth New Zealand battalion from the first NZEF brigade. In the diary from the unit on the date of March 28th, it is mentioned one killed and one wounded. Walter can be the soldier who became wounded, and later died the same day.
Waldemar is buried in La Cauchie Communal Cemetery, and his headstone was a bit hard to find. The sign that says it is a part of the cemetery that belongs to CWGC is not large. And all the way in the rear end of the cemetery I found 14 headstones of soldiers who fought for the commonwealth.
On my way to Waldemars headstone I passed the Anzin St.Aubin British Cemetery, to visit one of the soldiers that I have in my research, who I haven’t been able to confirm in the Swedish Church books.
It has been very difficult to find any information at all about him. The name on the Headstone says F Malin, which is Frans Malin.
Frans stated in his Canadian attestation papers that he was born in Stockholm, Sweden, with a man called Alec or Alex Malin, from Stockholm, as his Next of Kin.
I have put many, many hours during my research to try to find this Frans Malin. I have search for the surname of Malm, Melin, Molin and even Malin, without any luck. I have tried to combine date of birth with different names, I have looked for his brother Alex, who can be Alexander, Axel, but I haven’t managed to find anything.
If any individual from Canada is able to find any more information about this soldier, please let me know. Even if the information is not confirmed I took a photo of the headstone with a Swedish flag. Maybe he told the truth?
It is not always the correct information in the documents, as we can see in both of these cases. It would be very interesting to know the reason for every input.
But they will never be forgotten.