Swedes at The Western Front

… The work with trying to find all the small pieces in every individial puzzle is not so easy as it look sometimes. You think you are close to some information just to close the gap for a moment, but then you cant find the last information you need to make the initial picture clear enough. Then it is time to try to ask the outer world for some tips, but that can also take some time.

One thing that is good with this work is that you learn a lot of how to find information, and you are also getting better and better to try other ways of finding data.

But the most interesting thing is that you are getting thoughts in your head that opens up other perspectives on things that you bring up in your research. This job will never end, it is so interesting, and will keep me busy for years and years to come.

The Soldiers list is now updated with more positions in the Google Earth Project. I will soon continue to develop the soldiers own personal pages. Please come back soon for more info.

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During this week the google earth project is updated with some more locations of the soldiers in the project. There are still some more to put up there. After that the update of the personal pages will continue.

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I have now almost found the date of birth of every soldier in my research, in the Swedish National Archive “Riksarkivet”. It is very fascinating to do this detective kind of work, to find their real names, and to get it verified that they were born in Sweden, which is one of my cornerstones in my research.

I have also now removed three of the names from my list, because I found out they were born in another country, but had Swedish parents though.

I still have my around 100 names to continue my work with, and I so long for the next opportunity to continue down to Belgium and France to document where they fell and where they are buried or commemorated.

Please feel free to follow my work here on my page, I will keep it updated with the latest facts along the way!

… the October 4th 1917, Lance Corporal Peter William Olsens Unit, the 9th Coy of the 2nd Infantry Bn of New Zealand Wellington Regiment, was fighting in the area of Passschendaele in Belgium. Probably they took part in the fightings of Broodseinde Ridge and Gravenstafel Spur, south and west of Passchendaele.

Peter William Olsen was born the February 24th in 1890 in Sweden, according to fact that I have researched and he was enlisted to New Zealand Army the April 22nd 1916. He was Taken on strength in the 2nd battalion in France after has arrived from New Zealand in June 2nd 1917.

After fightings he was declared mising but sooner reported Killed in action the same day, and in buried in Tyne Cot Cemetery north of Ypres in Belgium.

Today we remember Peter William Olsen, and what he did as a native Swede, for his new country New Zealand. #LestWeForget.

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In the soldiers menu, you will now find that the list is updated with 100 names. I will now stop for a moment, in trying to find more Swedish soldiers who fell at the Western Front, and instead complete the summary of each soldier, to bring you the information of who they were, and where they fell, stated in the google earth project.

I am so deicated to this project, and for me it is very important to commemorate these men who moved from Sweden and participated on any side in The Great War, to fight for what they beleived was right and important. Thank you for following me on this trip.

Feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

… found through simple name search in the archives. It will be nice to take care of them and put their information up on this page. I am pretty sure it will be a lot mor to find through this quite heavy, but important, method. More will follow.

If the Covid-19 situation will be as it is now in Belgium I am planning to visit 11 of the places where the soldiers fell, which all are in the area east-south east of Ypres (Ieper). The trip will take place in the end of october, and following sites will be documented.

• Karl Olson
• Edvin Olson
• Andrew Bergman
• Tage Ågren (Richardson)
• Peter Nord
• Oscar Wikström
• Martin Swedberg
• Bertil Lindh
• Conrad Hedberg
• Johan Hallberg
• Nils Otto Lundius

The places I will visit are the places where they are assumed to have been when they fell, it is more like an area than an exact spot, but based on names on trenches on the Trench Maps I have found together with notes from the diaries.

I have already been at the sites where they are commemorated or buried. The region in France that I was planning to visit at the same time, is closed for the moment, it will be done in next trip. In the future it will of course be possible to join me if wanted! 🙂

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