A great podcast about World War one!

In my research about the Swedish born soldiers who fought and fell at the Western Front I always try to find good sources about the historic situation they might have been in, and one very good source of knowledge about the Great War is the Podcast “Old Frontline”.

The episodes are very good composed by Paul Reed, a military historian, that have a great experience of the battlefields, and he have also, back in the eighties, met several of the old WW1 veterans from that period, and recorded their stories, which, according to me, are great treasures!

On this particular day, 1st of July 2021, the 105th anniversary of the first day of the battle of the Somme, he had made an episode about some of the situations from it, and connects it to the terrain. In this episode there is also recordings from one of the old veterans.

In my own research I am inspired by his work, and I look very much into some of the structures he has in his books about walking the battlefields at the Western Front, and will try, in my little project, make a structure that look likes a bit of his, when I will try to document the faith of the Swedes who fell on the battlefield at the Western Front.

You can follow his work at the web page mentioned above, and also follow him at Twitter through this link.

I wish Paul good luck in the upcoming work, and I appreciate very much the work he does!

Locations through old maps

I was looking through some archives, as I use to do, and looked for some names that still are Scandinavian, but not so common, and I found the Swedish born soldier David Gerhard Lydell, born April 16th, 1892 in Norra Hestra Parish, Gislaved, Sweden. He was born in an old “Soldattorp” as his father, Josef Lydell, was a soldier in “Jönköpings regemente”, “Mo Härads Kompani 5”.

David left Sweden in 1910 with only $25 in his pocket. He went to France in August 1918, and Died of Decease not even a month after he arrived, age 26.

I decided to try to find the location of this “soldattorp”, in the small village of Flahult, Norra Hestra, and I think I have located it through some old maps from the Swedish Map Service “Lantmäteriet”. This place is only about 50 km from where I live. Below you can see some snippets from the old maps that I have found, and some from map sites at Internet. The area “Cb” in the small map looks exactly like the area in the larger old map.

Next step will be to try to visit these areas to collect information for my upcoming Battlefield Guide, that also will contain information about each individual, about their history connected to Sweden.