Category: Soldiers

I am in full swing in the work of making manuscript for my upcoming tour as a guide, when taking down 35 history interested Swedes to France to follow in the footsteps of the Swedish soldiers who fought for the American Expeditionary Forces in the Great War.

In November 2024 I made the preparation tour in the specific area. It turned out that the plan I made at home before the trip was OK, and I didn’t had to change much at all. If I compare this trip to my former one as a guide, which I performed in Belgium and France in 2023, it is much less places when it comes to convenience sites and similar, which makes it a bit more challenging. I am sure it will turn out well though, it is all about planning and preparation in cooperation with the participants.

One thing that I find interesting with the preparations is to compile all the data that I have about the soldiers and choose which material I want to talk about, together with facts about their units connected to terrain and time, and choose different kind of maps, both in larger size, and smaller for the folders and handouts to the participants.

One station of many will be in the area of Consenvoye, north of Verdun, where I will talk about three Swedes who fell in the terrain. I will talk about their history from Sweden before they emigrated, and also about the situation they were in when they fought for their units in this specific area.

John A Stone (Johan Albert Anderson), John H Erlandson (Johan Herman Erlandson) and Albert Fingal were all connected to the 33rd Division. Fingal and Erlandson belonged to 131st Infantry Regiment, and Stone belonged to the 132nd.

All three of them fell on October 10th, 1918.

I have through Illinois Digital Archives found some interesting maps from the area and the specific dates.

All three of them are buried at the Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery, and on the tour we will stop by their headstones and I will tell their stories. It will feel good to commemorate them and many other Swedes who gave their lives in the fightings on the battlefields.

A lot more Swedish born soldiers will be commemorated during the tour, those three are just one station of many.

May they rest in peace.

(Updated February 15th, 2025)

My talks about my research around different places in Sweden led me into my specific interest in the 54th Pioneer Infantry Regiment, which belonged to the American Expeditionary Forces in the Great War.

One of the participants in the audience, Sven Söderberg, mentioned that he had some friends back home, who have talked about their descendants who they believed participated in the war, survived, and came back to Sweden again.

In the beginning they talked about one Swede, Per Erick Person (Per Erik Persson) but shortly after they remembered that Per Erick’s friend, Erick Larson (Nils Erik Larson), also served in the same unit, the second battalion, in the the 54th Pioneer Infantry Regiment.

Per Erick Person served in “G” Company and Erick Larson served in “F” company. They left Sweden for North America about the same time.

Per Erick Person and Erick Larson left Sweden in 1911. The year is noted in the Swedish church book, when it comes to Per Erick. When I look at Erick Person, I find that he is noted as absent between year 1912-1914, and finally noted as absent in the “book of absent” in year 1914. The family story says they emigrated together in 1911.

In the period of the US Military Service Act, they felt obliged to give their consent to be drafted, and they were, according to the family story, threatened to sign, by the people in the society. It is not known if they would have done it anyway. Per Erick was a “declarant”, but Erick Larson didn’t specify anything on the line on the draft document, except the word “No”, which he probably answered to the question “Have you declared your intention?” He didn’t specify if he was an Alien, Naturalized Citizen or a Natural-born Citizen.

“Foreign-born members of the armed forces in WWI did not gain citizenship through military service alone. However, to encourage immigrant enlistments and to naturalize servicemen before they shipped out, Congress passed laws to expedite military naturalizations. Under the Act of May 9, 1918, service members only needed proof of enlistment and testimony from two witnesses to naturalize.

The law exempted them from having five years of U.S. residency, filing a declaration (or “first papers”), speaking English, and taking history and civics exams. Since soldiers were often stationed far from home, they could become citizens in any naturalization court. To speed up soldier naturalizations, the Bureau of Naturalization dispatched examiners to military bases and enlisted volunteer attorneys and hastily-trained servicemen as temporary examiners.

Often, judges traveled to bases to hold large, open-air naturalization ceremonies. Under this system a foreign-born soldier could become a citizen in just one day. After the war, Congress passed a series of laws extending most of the benefits of military naturalization to veterans. Eventually, more than 300,000 soldiers and veterans of WWI became U.S. citizens under these laws.”

Source: (PDF – Citizenship and Immigration during the First World War)

Both of them left North America for France on August 30th, 1918, which was quite late into the war. The left on different ships, Italian Liner ships from the port in Newport News in Virginia. They had changed their old Camp gear and clothes to new ones, for their trip over to France.

Both of them went through the war without any physical injuries, and they went back to Sweden around 1921, and at least Per Erick’s family found some gear and other artifacts from that time, when they looked through the attic in the house where they live now in Sweden.

The 54th Pioneer Infantry Regiment were a regiment within the Third Army, together with 1st, 51st and the 56th Pioneer Infantry Regiment, in which they served with the Army of Occupation, after the armistice, in Germany.

Photos Copyright: Sven Söderberg

I have received these photos from the person I met on one of my talks, Sven Söderberg, who became very interested in to try to get as much information as possible from the descendants from the two Swedish soldiers, and their time in the 54th Pioneer Infantry Regiment.

On my upcoming tour to the Argonne area in France, as a guide, we will pass through some of the areas where the soldiers Per Erick Person and Erick Larson served, in the Argonne and Verdun area in France. From the woods of Clermont to Consenvoye, north of Verdun, and their time in Coblenz, Germany, as part of their service in that Defensive sector.

The descendants will follow me on the tour, and it will be great to show them the area where their ancestors participated in the Great war. Sven Söderberg, who told the story about the soldiers, will also participate on the tour!

Last weekend I met Sven, and we exchanged knowledge about the 54th Pioneer Infantry Regiment, and he also brought a very interesting book about the unit. That has driven me into another of these endless rabbit holes and has made me determined to try to find books about other units, to learn as much as I can. The thirst of knowledge never ends when it comes to what the Swedish emigrants went through as soldiers in the American Expeditionary Forces.

I am now reading through the Rosters of the companies who belonged to the regiment, and so far I have discovered a few more Swedish born soldiers, who served in the Unit. I will find more, as I haven’t looked through all the names yet.

So far I have discovered and confirmed these Individuals as Swedish born soldiers, who also served in the 54th Pioneer Infantry Regiment: (Their American names)

Updated: Feb 15, 2025 – 38 individuals

I hope the story about Per Erick Person and Erick Larson will grow during the tour, and that the relatives to the soldiers will find the time worthwhile to spend some days in the terrain of their ancestors, and to see much more about the area in which the the Swedish born soldiers fought in, when they served in the American Expeditionary Forces, during the Great war.

The tour will be done between April 25th to 28th, 2025.

They will be remembered.

I hope you all have had a very good start on 2025, the time flies, and for me it has been a well deserved, if I may say so, winter leave.

I will now take a grip around my research and continue according to my project plan, and I hope you want to follow me along the way.

In the end of 2024 I decided to broaden my limitations to put in those soldiers who fought and fell in the Great War, but are buried outside France and Belgium. I have already added many of the Swedish born soldiers who fought for the American Expeditionary Forces, and I will now continue to add those who fought for the Canadian Expeditionary Forces, who fits into the description above.

In this case I will mention those who met any type of combat situation in the fields, fell in combat or died of disease, and were transported back and buried in England or Canada, or other countries.

A quick search for Swedish born soldiers who in the Canadian National Archives gives a result of a list with 566 names stated to be born in Sweden, of those Swedes who were connected to Canadian Expeditionary Forces, C.E.F. According to the author Elinor Barr, she states in her book – Swedes in Canada-Invisible Immigrants – that over 1680 Swedish immigrants signed up for duty in World War 1. I have only been able to find those 566 connected to C.E.F.

From those 566 Swedish born soldiers, I have been able to confirm at least 117 individuals who died. Elinor Barr says in her book that she have a figure of 122 Individuals. I think some of those can be behind small errors in documents, like individuals born in Stockholm, Saskatchewan or similar. I will look more into that.

Below I add three more individuals to my earlier 114, which gives me 117 so far.

Emil Lund (Anders Emil Lund)

Emil was born in Ockelbo parish, Gävleborgs county, May 26th, 1883. He belonged to Gävle Naval Corps before he left for North America in 1906. He was heading for Swan River in Manitoba, Canada.

He signed his Canadian Forces Attestation Papers on December 24th, 1915. He later left Canada and arrived in England in April, 1916, belonging to the Canadian Forestry Corps.

Emil seemed to have had a troublesome period during his service, with quite many “AWOL”, but he received a medal for his service that I haven’t seen before. He was awarded the MSM, British Meritorious Service Medal (MSM), in June 1919, in London.

For some reason Emil committed suicide in Canada, according to his casualty card, and died December 31st, 1920. He is now buried in Mountain View Cemetery in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

May Emil rest in peace.

Erik A Eriksson (Erik Albert Eriksson)

Sometimes it is fascinating to read files from the archives, but also very tragic to read about some of the destinies of the soldiers. I can imagine the hard life of the soldier Erik Albert Eriksson. It did not went well for him during his service in the Canadian Forces.

Erik was born in Folkärna parish, Sweden, Sept 18, 1877, and raised by his mother, maid Margreta Juliana Ersdotter. His father is unknown. He left Sweden for Canada in November 1904, and travelled alone for some reason. His address was Calgary when he signed for the Canadian Forces in November 1916.

He left Canada with his unit, 211th Battalion who later became 8th battalion, Canadian railway Troops. He landed in France in June 1917, but it didn’t went well for Erik.

Reading the documents about his medical condition, he suffered from great mental issues which caused his fellow mates some trouble during a normal working day. The documents tells us a quite detailed story, see below:

He was discharged and went back home to Canada and tragically died on September 21, 1918. Erik is buried in New Westminster (Fraser) Cemetery in British Columbia, Canada. I find it sad that his mother still was in Sweden, and her son buried in Canada, I so wonder if someone from his family ever could visit him.

May Erik’s mind be in peace.

Cail Ivar Erickson (Karl Ivar Sanfrid Eriksson)

Ivar was one of quite few soldiers who continued to serve in the units from the C.E.F, who went to the Murmansk region in 1919.

Carl Ivar Erickson was born in Kärna parish, Linköping, Sweden, on August 14th, 1889, and raised by his parents, his mother Hilda Sofia Gustafsson and his father Erik Peter Karlsson. Before he left Sweden for North America in 1914, he was part of the Swedish Infantry for 6 years as a Sergeant, as he also served as in C.E.F.

Carl was initially drafted in the US Draft on June 5th, 1917, but in March 1918 he signed his attestation papers for the C.E.F, arrived in England in May 1918, and later on disembarked in Murmansk in September 28, 1918, as a part of the ‘Syren Party’, in the North Russian Expeditionary Forces, NREF.

One article in a Swedish-American Newspaper seems to explain the situation about Erickson, and about the situation when he died. I have translated the article from Swedish to English. A bit peculiar situation indeed. Imagine the situations they experienced.

Carl Ivar is buried in Murmansk, at Soroka Zavode Cemetery, mentioned on the Archangel Memorial, Murmansk, Russia.

My Carl rest in peace.

This could have been the words from the United States department of war, or the American Battles Memorial Commissions (ABMC), when it was discovered that her brother, who they buried in Siloa Lutheran Church Cemetery in Minnesota, April 18th, 1922, wasn’t the soldier they thought it was.

Gustaf E Hoglund was killed in action in France, November 1st, 1918.

I am amazed over that I haven’t seen more of these cases, where the soldiers have been mixed up during their repatriation back home to the USA, when the relatives had the opportunity to be able to get their sons or husbands repatriated and reburied close to the family, instead of still be buried at their last resting place in France or Belgium, or other places.

It must have been a huge logistic operation to take care of the remains from the soldiers that may have been buried directly after their death, disinterred and reburied into a larger cemetery and then be removed from that burial, to finally be buried in a cemetery, close to their descendants, or other cemeteries, like American Military Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia, depending of the specific situations.

In this case, Frieda Carlson (born Frida Christina Catharina Höglund) received the remains of her brother, Gustaf E Hoglund (Einar Gustaf Höglund), back to Minnesota where Frieda lived at the time. The body was buried in Siloa Lutheran Church Cemetery, April 18th, 1922. It is noted in the church book from that moment. See below.

Einar Gustaf Höglund was born in Nysätra parish in Västerbotten County, Sweden, November 12th, 1888. He was raised by his parents, his father Gustaf Höglund, and his wife from a second marriage, Anna Serafia Persdotter, who also was Einar Gustaf’s mother.

There is no specific note in the Swedish church books about when Einar Gustaf left Sweden, but he is noted to have arrived to Ellis Island in the USA in May, 1908, and he also stated that year in his petition for Naturalization, in July 29th, 1918.

Before that he was drafted in June 5th, 1918. He left the USA with the 343rd Infantry regiment 86th Division, who became a reserve unit for other units when they arrived in France. The transport arrived to France around September-October 1918, no specific date is mentioned on Einar’s shipment.

He must have been integrated in the 78th Division, in 311th Infantry regiment, as it is this unit that is mentioned on his Burial Card. He was killed in action November 1st, 1918, and we can read the following from the unit diary:

“On November 1st Hill 180 in the southeastern part of Bois de
Bourgogne was taken. The capture of this position rendered the Bois des-Loges
untenable. and on November 2 these woods were completely cleared of the enemy,
and the division pushed on, capturing the town of Briquenay, advance elements
entering the town of Boult-aux-Bois.”

Einar Gustaf Hoglund was initially buried just around 2 km north of Grandpré, just beside of the road, in the cemetery. It looks like he was the only burial described on the blueprint from that time.

On May 22nd, 1919 he was finally reburied into the Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery, and he should have been shipped to his Next-of-Kin, Mrs Frieda Carlson, his sister, in Braham, Minnesota. The body is noted to have been disinterred in February 22nd, 1922, and then shipped from Le Havre in France, February 27th, 1922, to finally arrive in Hoboken, New York, March 19, 1922.

The body was finally buried in Siloa Lutheran Church cemetery in April 18th, 1922.

But it wasn’t him.

It seems that the body that was shipped the above mentioned dates was the body of William H Scott.

William H Scott seems to have been in the same unit as Einar Gustaf, Company I, 311th Infantry Regiment, 78th Division. The interesting thing is that the same position of the original burial in the woods, north of Grandpré, is also noted on the burial card of William H Scott. But on the blueprint above, I only find Gustaf Hoglund’s name.

I don’t know how or when they discovered that the body was the wrong body, probably through some documents. It must have been after the notes in the Church books from the Siloa Church, from April 1922.

It may have been in 1926, when they shipped, as I can read from the document, the correct body of Gustaf Einar Hoglund, back to the USA. There is also a new note in the church book from Siloa Lutheran Church, which says that he is buried again on September 5th, 1926.

I haven’t been able to find much history about William H Scott, or what happened to his body, which probably was buried in Einar Gustaf’s place in the USA. I can’t find any information or a photo from the last burial of Gustaf Einar Hoglund, but I hope I can follow some more leads, and find it later

Please feel free to give your opinion on my thoughts above.

It makes me glad to read that Einar Gustaf Hoglund finally was buried again in 1926, I wish I could find a photo of his last burial. I also hope that Frieda, his sister could find some peace after the mix up finally was cleared up.

“In the end, more than 45,000 American families opted for repatriation, and throughout the early 1920s ships bearing flag-draped caskets, sometimes thousands at a time, landed in Hoboken, New Jersey, where military and civilian dignitaries, including President Warren G. Harding (1865-1923), were on hand to receive them. From there, the caskets went by rail to cities and towns across the nation, where a posthumous hero’s welcome awaited each one. Behind the patriotic hoopla, however, were gruesome realities.

For understandable reasons, some of the caskets contained the wrong bodies, others no bodies at all – just body parts thought to belong to the same individual.”

(Source: https://verdun1916.eu/?p=7073)

I always want to know who the soldiers were, where they came from and how their life were, before it ended on the battlefields. I seldom give up. This case is not an exception.

I was looking through some lists from the American National Archive, some lists of those who fell in the great war and never came home again. I am looking through the documents about the soldiers from different states, in this case Wisconsin.

I know that I won’t find many soldiers that I don’t already have in my database, but there are other things to learn from these lists, such as finding those Swedish born soldiers who were brought home to America and reburied in a new American Cemetery, or in another local cemetery.

I look for Scandinavian names, and I can see a lot of Swedish, Norwegian and also some Finnish names, and this gives me a good picture over where the immigrants lived, in what county, in what state, and learn from where the different groups settled.

In this case I found the name Fred Orquist, and “quist” gives me a clue that this might be a Swedish born soldier, or a soldier from a Swedish family, born in America.

I searched for more information about Fred on Ancestry, but that gave me quite few results,. I managed to find some notes from Veterans Administration Master Index, that gave me some date of birth, and date of death. The date of death was the same as in the list over dead soldiers from Wisconsin. Now I also had some other dates to look for.

I also find a photo of his headstone, from “Findagrave”, and also the document over his present burial on Arlington American Cemetery in Virginia. On the card it says “White European, Died in France”

I decided to stay on Ancestry and search for Swedish versions of his surname. This is when I use my earlier experience.

Could it be Örquist? No, no more result from that. Maybe Årquist? No, not at all. I start to take away information, to find more clues, but no result.

I tried Öquist. without the “R”. Ah, another hit, here I get his draft document, and in this case it says Fred Oquist. The date of birth is also the same. This must be the same soldier as Fred Orquist. When did they put in the extra “R”?

Fred Oquist was from Sweden, but from where in Sweden? “Hökenso”? Hm, can it be “Hökensås” a place quite near to where I live today?

I decided to look in the Swedish Archives, but Fred is not a common name in Sweden at that time, not now either, so Fred must a nickname from something else, more Swedish like.

I know from earlier that Fred has been “Fredrik”, “Gottfrid” or “Enfrid” before, but this time I use only the surname, “Öquist”, to search for more clues. It gives me a quite long list as it seems to have been a quite common surname at that time.

I decided to take the chance to search for “Fredrik”, and also use the date of birth, December 22nd, 1891. I don’t use “Fredrik Öquist”, as it seldom comes up with both name and surname in those cases, as they mostly only had the name in the church books, and the surname on the row of the father or mother.

I get several hits, and then something suddenly caught my eye. I saw the name of a farm, “Håkansö”. Could this be “Hökenso”?

On one row I find an individual whose name was Fredrik August, born December 22nd, 1891, in Piteå parish, Norrbotten county, on the farm of Håkansö. Could Fredrik August Öquist be “Fred Orquist”?

Yes, most likely Fred Orquist was Fredrik August Öquist from Håkansö. The name on the list of Wisconsin dead soldiers, has now become an known individual.

Fredrik August Öquist is noted in the church books to have left Sweden in 1910, but I went back to Ancestry and used the real name, and found passenger lists from 1907, when he went over to North America. I can read a weak note in the church book, that he is in Kalix, and that correlates with the destination in the passenger list, Nederkalix.

He first went to Chicago, via Copenhagen, and later ended up in Sandstone, Minnesota, where he lived when he was drafted.

Fred went over to France in February 1918, and as his Next of Kin, he gave his friend’s wife, as his friend, Archibald R Mix, also were on the ship. Fred seems to have been in the States alone, without any relatives. Fred belonged to Company “G”, 127th Infantry Regiment.

Fred seems to have been involved in heavy fighting around the area of Juvigny in France, when he was killed in action. Fred was buried in the field among other Americans who also fell in the region. He seems to have been moved directly from his first grave to the site he has now on Arlington Cemetery, and I find that quite unusual.

Maybe that was a common thing, but I think it was more common that the soldiers were moved to the larger American cemeteries in France, and then moved to another locations, depending on what their relatives wanted.

On his casualty card we can also see his friend’s wife’s name, Mrs A. R. Mix, the same as on the passenger list.

“I now know who you were, Fred Orquist. I really wonder how you were as a person, and what you did in North America, except working as a Concrete Labourer. Maybe I will find out more about you, but most of all I want you to rest in peace.”