Author: Jocke Hallberg

Jocke Hallberg, a Swedish amateur historian, specialized in Swedish born soldiers who fought, fell in the Great War and are buried at the Western Front in Belgium and France.
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Book release!

click here to order the book!

Or:

Special offer for Great War Group Conference in Brighton 2023 – See below!

So finally, my first book about the Swedish born soldiers, who fought and fell in the Great War, at the Western Front, is almost finished! It is ready for the printer, and the first copy will be finished for printing next week!

This book is about those Swedish born soldiers who fought and fell in the Great War and are buried or Commemorated in Belgium. The book describes my passion, project and my research, Swedish emigration to the countries they served for, and small stories about those 48 soldiers who fought in WW1 at the Western Front, fell and are buried or commemorated in Belgium.

Special offer!

On October 20th to 22nd, 2023, I will participate in the Great War Group Conference in Brighton, and I will be able to bring a limited amount of books, to bring over to those who wants to buy my book, and have it handed over to them at the conference.

In this case it is only possible to pay in advance, so I don’t have to handle any payments at the conference!

This one time special offer for Brighton Conference is:

£15

€18

$19

The original price for the book will be:

SEK 249:- + SEK 70:- for Shipping (Shipping abroad SEK 130:-)

If you will visit the conference, and want me to bring your copy, email me on the email below, to get the special offer payment link! The payment will be able to do with PayPal and Google Pay or card through Stripe!

As my space on the plane will be limited it will be first come, first served!

order@westernfront.se

For those who are not able to visit the conference, the book will shortly be available here on my website, through the “shop” link in the main menu. It will be available to order on demand within two to three weeks, if everything goes according to plan.

Thank you very much for your support!

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In the footsteps of the Swedes – France 2023

I am now home from the trip that was planned with the purpose to follow up some of the Swedish born soldiers who fought for the American Expeditionary Forces in WW1, some of the Swedish born soldiers who fought for the Commonwealth, but also to visit places, related to WW1, that I always have wanted to visit.

It became an amazing trip in the company of Wendy Maddocks, who supported me through all the activities that we planned. We saw almost everything we wanted, and it became quite hectic, but very interesting.

We started the trip by flying to Brussels, and then take the rental car down to the Somme region in France. We spent a few days in the Somme region before heading south to Belleau Wood region. We continued later on east through the Champagne region towards the southern Ardenne region and looked into the areas of Argonne and Verdun. Later on we turned back west back to the Somme through Champagne and ended up in Cambrai before we went to Brussels again, to start our trip back home. Before we went home we spent a day i Le Quesnoy to commemorate the New Zealanders liberation of the town . All this in 10 days with nice weather most of the time.

Below you will find some photos from the different places. They are not marked with any specific locations but please don’t hesitate to comment, and I will explain more about them, if needed.

I am very glad that I was able to do this trip, which also gave me a lot of info and understanding about where the Swedish soldiers fought and where they ended up to have their final resting place. I will definitely do this again, and in spring 2025 I will have a guided tour to some of the places in the photos. More about that later on.