I continue to write my stories about the soldiers I visited on my last tour to the battlefields in Belgium and France, earlier in July, 2025. This time I will tell you the background of two Swedish born soldiers who fell in the Great War. One of them is particularly interesting.
Axel Mattson and Joseph Edward Nelson
I will start to tell the story about Axel Mattson. Axel was born as Axel Manfred Abrahamsson on May 31st, 1887, in the parish of Backaryd, in the landscape of Blekinge, Sweden. He was raised by his parents Inga Andersdotter and Mattis Abrahamsson.
His military surname Mattson came probably from his father’s name Mattis, and he probably had the surname Mattisson, or Mattsson and that became Mattson when he emigrated to North America in February 1906. They lived in a small farm area called Pinkaremåla, which later became Ekeby. They changed the name to Ekeby in 1907 as “Pinkare” didn’t sound proper (someone who is peeing in english). The word pinkare came from metallurgy work from the beginning.
Axel lived in Mossbank, Saskatchewan, Canada, when he signed his Military attestation papers in Moose Jaw in November 1917. He arrived with his unit in England in April 1918, and was sent to France in August 1918.
He belonged to 1st Canadian Mounted Rifles when he was killed in action, just about a month later, on September 17th, 1918, in the area around Rumaucourt, east of Arras in France. His company were in reserve when they were hit by artillery fire, and Axel was hit by shrapnel and killed instantly.
As his Next of Kin he stated his mother, Inga Mattsson (actually Inga Abrahamsson) and she received the remaining things from her son Axel, and an amount of SEK 511,33. She was then, in 1919, living in the farm of Hjorthålan, just north of Backaryd. She became a widow in 1910.
Joseph Edward Nelson
Joseph Edward Nelson was born as Josef Edvard Nilsson in Torsås parish, in Kalmar, Småland, Sweden, on August 8th, 1893.
He was raised by his mother Ingrid Maria Nilsdotter and his father Nils Gustaf Pettersson. They lived together with a lot of other people in a kind of institution, and they may have been a poor family, which could have been one of the reasons for Josef to emigrate to North America in April 1911.
Joseph signed his Canadian Military attestation papers in March, 1915, as Joseph EDWIN Nelson, not Joseph EDWARD Nelson, and in the Canadian archives there is a mix of these two names which makes it hard to sort out if the documents are connected to EDWIN or EDWARD, as it is a JOSEPH EDWARD NELSON as well who signed up for the Canadian forces but survived the war.
In the attestation papers he wrote “Korsos” as his place of birth, but it should be “Torsås”. I don’t know the reason for why he wrote Edwin instead of Edvard.
In the archives of the Commonwealth Grave Commission, it says that his father is Peter Nelson from Winnipeg, but that is probably wrong.
In the canadian service documents, it says that Joseph got “permission to marry“, and it seems that he went back to Bramshott Camp to marry Gertrude, who is mentioned in his will as his wife, and also in the document over his marriage in October 1917.
Here I can also see that his father is mentioned as Peter Nelson. I wonder who this Peter was? I am still not convinced over who this Joseph Edward Nelson was, but every document in the Canadian archives and the service number of this soldier, correlates with the information connected to the Swedish soldier Josef Edvard Nilsson, who called himself Joseph Edwin Nelson in the attestation papers.
Joseph Edward Nelson fought with his unit, 1st Canadian Mounted Rifles, in the area around Sauchy-Cauchy, east of Arras in France, when he was Killed in Action, September 12, 1918, five days before Axel Mattson.
Will be continued …
Joseph Edward Nelson and his wife Gertrude got a son named Geoffrey Edward Nelson, born in May 1918, who was a Sergeant in a Glider Pilot Regiment, in Army Air Corps. He died in July 1943 and his name is on the Cassino Memorial in Italy. May he rest in peace.
During my last “Swedes at the Western Front” tour as a guide, one of the participants, the Swedish medal collector and historian Lars Ahlkvist, brought some medals with him which had belonged to Swedish born soldiers, and told the stories behind them. The other day we texted each other regarding one of the soldiers, and I remembered that one of the medals he showed us actually belonged to Joseph Edward Nelson!
We did not visited him on that tour, but suddenly the story above, in my blog post, became more alive. Below some photos of the medal which belonged to Joseph Edward.
Both Axel and Joseph fought for the same unit in the offensive movements against the Germans, called the “Hundred days offensive”. They are now buried in the very beautiful cemetery in Vis-en-Artois, south east of Arras.
It will be interesting to continue to search about Joseph Edward Nelson, who he actually was, and who it is that are buried in the cemetery. Maybe we will never be able to solve the issue. However, I took a photo of the headstone with the Swedish flag as I am quite convinced it is the Swedish soldier of Josef Edvard Nilsson.
They are not forgotten.