Category: Soldiers

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)