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.