Emigrant till Första Välrdskriget

This story tells about the immigrant Andrew J Ostlund and also about what genealogy can achieve.

By Gordon Agren (CA) and Cenneth Wedin (SWE)
Updated January 16, 2012

Adrian Österlund US Army

Briefly
Johan Adrian Österlund was born on July 9th, 1887, in the village of Överklinten, Bygdeå parish, Västerbotten province in northern Sweden. He was the first of ten children born to Johannes & Karin Louisa (Brändström) Österlund.

Picture left. Andrew’s grave marker in France. Photo 2006 ABMC, Europe.

That we knew, but what happened later? Due to the picture of the family Österlund´s farm photographed in 1906, where Adrian is missing and thanks to genealogy we now know that Johan Adrian left Sweden on January 30th, 1906, to join relatives who had emigrated earlier to Ohio and Michigan, North America. He probably took the same route as most other Swedish emigrants did in those years, crossing Sweden and Norway to England and then sailing from Liverpool to New York. From New York he went to visit his aunt & uncle, Hilda and Thure Mattson, on their farm in Cuyahoga County, Ohio. Sometime later he moved on to Oscola County, Michigan, to visit his aunt & Uncle, Elisabeth and Lars Stenman, who farmed near the village of Tustin. The Stenman’s had grown children of about Adrian’s age still at home, and Adrian probably stayed and worked on the farm with them for a while.

Adrian then moved to the village of Deward, which was located about 70 miles northeast of Tustin in Crawford County. Deward, which is a ghost town today, was founded and named in Honor of David E. Ward for the soul purpose of logging off the last big stand of virgin pine forest in the state. The Deward post office was established in 1901, in addition to a school, church, community hall, boarding house, hotel and stores. There was also a roundhouse for train, depot, warehouse and other facilities connected with the Detroit & Charlevoix railroad yards over which eight engines steamed day and night delivering nearly 1/4 of a million board feet of lumber, the daily output of the sawmills. By 1910, the logging industry was in decline and by 1917 most of the people left.

Adrian married Ethel (called Etta) Lindquist on 10 November, 1909. Ethel was born on June 4th, 1892, in Ludington, Michigan, which was about 40 miles east of Tustin, on Lake Michigan. She was the oldest of 5 known children of Matt & Louise Lindquist. Matt was a Finn-Swede who had emigrated from the Esse area of Österbotten, Finland in 1886. Many Swedes had settled in Finland while it was under Swedish influence for 6 centuries until Russian gained dominance in the 1808-1809 Russian-Swedish war.

Adrian was next found on the Marshall County, Minnesota census taken on May 13th, 1910. He had changed his name to Andrew John Ostlund, and was working as a farm labour, where he declared on the 1910 census that he was not married. On June 29th, 1910, Ethel gave birth to a daughter, Engriad Amelia Osterlund, in Ludington. Adrian no doubt heard that he was a father from his relatives, but probably never saw his daughter. As Ethel had probably not heard from her husband for seven years, by law she could remarry, and in 1917, she married Edward Whitaker, and moved to Grand Rapids, Michigan. Ethel and Edward had no children together. Edward died in 1921.

Andrew had moved west to Walker City, Cass County, Minnesota, where he registered for the WW1 draft. On his register card of 6th May 1917, one can read that he was from “Umoll” (Umeå) City in “Wv” State (Västerbotten County) of “Sweded” (Sweden), and a naturalized citizen of the United States.

Adrian was drafted on June 27, 1918, and along with other draftees from Walker and the surrounding area, was entrained for Camp Grant, Illinois, arriving on July 8 1918. Camp Grant was a depot (infantry training) area, and was the largest training facility in the mid west and named after Ulysses S. Grant, Civil War general and 18th president of the United States. Construction of the camp started in June 1917, and the 86th Infantry Division was activated there on August 3, 1917, under the command of Major General Thomas H. Barry. The first draftees arrived just a few months later in September of the same year. Their primary focus was on infantry-related field skills and would train over 56,000 troops during WWI, with an estimated one million people passing through in some capacity.

In June, 1918, it was announced that the 86th “Black Hawk” Division was to be brought up to war strength by the transfer of 10,000 men from Depot Brigade and the arrival of 15,000 recruits from Illinois, Wisconsin and Minnesota. One of these men was Adrian. The men were placed in holding barracks and were given physical and efficiency examinations to weed out physical and mental misfits. They were then issued with their rifles and other equipment and inducted into the various division companies. On July 12, Adrian was put into 171st Infantry Brigade, 341st Regiment, 2nd Battalion, Company H, under the command of Captain Taylor Strawn to begin his infantry training. In August 1, 1918, after which the Judge Kenesaw Landis of Chicago naturalized 800 foreign born soldiers and shook hand with each one of them. Adrian was among the naturalized on that day with his company commander, Captain Strawn, being one of his two witnesses.

When it became evident that the Division would be sent overseas as the American Expeditionary Force, the troops were assembled and required to make a pay allotment to their wives, to which the government would add as much again. If the soldier had no dependents, he was urged to take out government insurance on his life for $10,000 at low rates. The government insurance was almost universally taken advantage of to the limit, over 99 per cent of the Division becoming insured. Adrian signed up for the insurance naming his sister, Hilda Gustafson, of Cleveland, Ohio, as the beneficiary and his next of kin.

On August 8th, the Adjutant General sent a coded message to the commander of the 86th, that he should have his Division ready to entrain for Hoboken, NJ, by August 20th, for deployment to France. All enemy aliens and animals were to be left behind. War propaganda dehumanized Germans and blasted their culture and language. Well over a half-million enemy aliens were screened by the Department of Justice and were restricted in their mobility and access to military and war production sites. Several thousand enemy aliens deemed disloyal were interned until the conflict was over. But the secret was impossible to keep and training was stepped up. It was quickly realized that many of the men would not receive their 16 weeks of training, and the rest would have to be competed in France.

All of the 28,000 troops were assembled and urged to take out government life insurance for $10,000 at low rates. 99% of the division became insured. Adrian signed up for the insurance naming his sister, Hilda Gustafsson of Cleveland, as the beneficiary and his next of kin.
The advance party of the 86th left for Camp Mills and Camp Upton on Long Island on August 13th, and on the 18th, the rest of the division started boarding trains of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad in the camp, each train accommodating about 500 men and each man had to have only the gear necessary for the trip with him. The rest of their gear was to be put in their kit bags and loaded onto the baggage cars.
It was a week before the last train left Camp Grant and upon their arrival at Camp Mills, some of the men were housed in 12 man squad tents which were blown away in a rain storm. They then had to put up with the heat, mosquitoes and poor sanitation. Adrian was in luck this time as the 341st and 342nd Infantry Regiments were comfortably housed in wooden barrack at nearby Camp Upton. However, the troops were kept busy with KP, guard duty, drawing new equipment and training.
On September 7th, the 86th “Black Hawk” Division moved to the port of Hoboken, New Jersey, and the first contingent boarded 9 troop ships. At 10:30 the next morning the convoy lifted anchor and sailed down the Hudson into New York Harbour, passed the Statue of Liberty and sailed out beyond the three mile limit where they were joined by various escorting war ships including a battleship. On September 17th, another 6 ship carrying the division sailed, and on September 24th, and October 2nd, the last 2 ships carrying the remainder of the division sailed.

The 341st sailed on three ships of the first group; the SS Nelus, RMS Canopic and the SS Elpenor, with Adrian sailing on the Canopic along with 1300 members of his battalion. The RMS Canopic was built in 1900 for the White Star Line and was used throughout the war as a troop transport. It was scrapped in 1925. A regular routine was kept on the ship as men were kept busy with did submarine watch, guard duty, kitchen fatigues and training. Due to peculiar odours and poor ventilation, many of the men were allowed to sleep on the deck when the weather permitted.

On the morning of September 20th, the coast of Ireland was spotted, and the shortly after, the coast of Scotland. The first 6 ship entered the North Chanel into the Irish Sea, and during the night they anchored in the Mersey River waiting for a favorable tide to dock at the port of Liverpool.

Upon landing on the 21st, the troops marched 5-6 miles in the drenching rain to the Knotty Pine rest camp. There they found ankle deep mud and leaky misshapen 12 man tents to live in. The next day the sun came out and the troops were marched to a nearby soccer field where they were addressed by an English Colonel and given greeting cards from King George. As one man commented “We also had a message to send to George about his ships, grub and the rest camps, but no one could be found to deliver it”. One can only guess at what Adrian was thinking at this time as he was back in Liverpool for the first time in more than 12 years.

The dash across the Channel was made under the cover of darkness with most of the Division landing a Le Havre. From there the Black Hawks hiked to another rest camp only to find the conditions worse than the camps back in England. After a short stay, the troops were marched by night to a dark rail road yard and boarded long darkened trains made up of tiny French engines and railcars marked ”Hommes 40- Chevaux 8” which served them for all of their continental travels. The troops soon labelled them “side door Pullmans”. The trip, which should have taken only twelve or fifteen hours, finally reached the wine growing district of Medoc in the department of Gironde after two days of travel.

The HQ of the 171st Brigade was set up in Cubzac-les- Ponts, 20 kilometres north-east of Bordeaux. Many of the men were lodged in tents while the rest were billeted in with the local population. A few fortunate ones had bunks, while others slept in the out buildings under the same roof as the farm animals. Due to the presence of quantities of manure and other filth in the streets, these towns were extremely unsanitary. All the water was contaminated and had to be chlorinated before being used for drinking purposes.

The new men of the Division were issued more equipment to begin training. The time-honored campaign hat had already been discarded for the overseas cap. Russet shoes were exchanged for field boots, and wrap leggings replaced the ones of canvas. Some of the machine gun companies in the regiments were issued the French Chauchat light machine guns until enough of the far superior Browning 30 calibre automatic rifles could be produced. The last two articles that produced the more hateful of first impressions eventually became the inseparable friends of every soldier – the steel helmet and the gas mask.

On about October 8th, orders arrived that replacement troops were needed in the combat divisions and 9000 men were to be sent to the 1st, 2nd, 32nd and 89th Divisions in preparation for the Meuse Argonne Offensive. This came as a shock to the 86th as most of the men had formed close friendships and would lose their identity as a division. At war’s end, all the men had been transferred to fighting units and only the headquarters remained.

The 89th Division was called the Middle West Division, as most of the draftees were from the mid-west and 39% of them were first or second generation immigrants to America. The 89th had been in a rest camp at the surrounding area for only a few days after the St. Mihiel Offensive, and shortly after Adrian arrived, they received new mobilization orders to move out the next morning at 7 am reducing their rest period from 3 week to 3 days. The new men from the 86th had received very little training so far and would have to learn on the job, which was a dangerous way of doing things in a war zone. This mobilization order resulted in a reorganization of the AEF (American Expeditionary Force) in which the 89th was transferred from the 3rd Corps to the 5th Corps and the timetable for the 89th to return to the front lines was advanced. Many of the combat divisions that had initiated the Meuse Argonne offensive on September 26th were badly exhausted and reduced to 25% of their original strength. Some divisions had already been taken out of the line and sent to the rear for rest and refitting. Because the Germans had been fighting in the area since 1915, the few remaining shell cratered roads caused constant traffic jams and the only way for Adrian and his fellow soldiers to get to the front to take part in the Meuse Argonne offensive was by “hob nails”, i.e., on foot. Most of the men were accustomed to the horrors of war and felt sorry for the new recruits who did not know what they were in for. It had started to rain on the evening before the 89th was to move out, and the land over which the 354th was to move to their new area 22 kilometers away, was devastated. Adrian’s regiment covered this distance on the night of October 13-14, 1918. The movement was “cross-country” and very slow because the ground was so difficult – old trenches, mud, blasted shell holes, barbed wire, shattered trees and stumps all created obstacles that slowed progress. These types of obstacles would be common for the rest of the offensive. On September 14-15th, the American forces began to prepare for the St. Mihiel Offensive and which was to last until October 19th. During this time they straightened out a dangerous salient, captured 16,000 prisoners, 443 guns and liberated 240 sq. miles of French territory.

The days were cold and rainy, and the horse dawn kitchens were not able to keep up because of congested roads, which meant that the soldiers only had their reserve rations to eat. It consisted of 12 ounces of fresh bacon or a one pound of canned meat, usually corned beef (bully beef). Additionally, there were two 8-ounce cans of hard bread or hardtack biscuits, a packet of 1.16 ounces of preground coffee, a packet of 2.4 ounces of granulated sugar, and a packet of 0.16 ounces of salt. There were also 0.4 ounces of tobacco and 10 cigarette rolling papers.

They arrived at their bivouac in the area of Epinonville late that night and pitched their shelter halves in well camouflaged spots. According to Col. Babcock, commander of the 177th Brigade, the area “was a miserable bivouac”. Though the weather was generally good until just before the Division went into the line, they had to camp in the mud for the next 5 days and used this time to rest, clean their equipment, brush up on training and reconnoiter forward with the view of taking over the sector of the 32nd Division. The 89th Division Chaplains with their burial parties buried the many dead soldiers (both American and German) who had been killed in the American offensive that they were about to become part of. The many shell holes came in handy for burying the dead horses still lying about. Later on, details of prisoners were used to bury dead animals.

The Americans would next strike further north east on September 25th, in what would become known as the Meuse Argonne Offensive, which was the greatest American battle of the First World War. In six weeks the AEF lost 26,277 killed and 95,786 wounded. It was a very complex operation involving the majority of the AEF ground forces fighting through rough, hilly terrain that the German Army had spent four years fortifying. Its objective was the capture of the railroad hub at Sedan which would break the rail net supporting the German Army in France and Flanders and forces the enemy’s withdrawal from the occupied territories. This part of north eastern France had been fought over by France and Germany since 1914, with the heaviest fighting having taken place around the fortified city of Verdun.

The Final Meuse Argonne Offensive started on November 1st, and in the evening of that day, when Andrew’s regiment moved into the area of the Bantheville Woods they discover mustard gas in a large area shelled in by the German artillery during the 177th Infantry brigade advance with the 354th up front fighting the German troops. It was a great mess in that wood, all the shelling and the insidious sticky gas costs many soldiers life when the advance went on towards the upper area of the next wood, the Barricourt Woods south of the town Barricourt. From there, the terrain was open and hilly and where encountered by heavy German resistance, machine gun and artillery fire.

On the 2nd of November daylight was created by German artillery in the chilled morning, damaging soldiers and communication wires. At about noon when the Americans started their delayed advance they did suffer heavy losses. When the second battalion of 353rd infantry Regiment begun to advance out of the woods supporting the attack of the 354th Regiment over the Barricourt Hill; Company G, H, and F at once reported heavy losses. The attacking units where lack of supporting artillery and 177th COS, Col Lee, is pressing hard on the artillery Regiment to bring forward the canons. The artillery was reduced to one third, due to damage, lack of ammo and sufficient roads but gave the promises that two light batteries and one heavy battery would be in position for fire at 1440 hours.

This change the plan and new orders where sent out by a running liaison officer who did not reach the units concerned, because they were already in full advance over the hills and out on the fields. In panic the liaison officer runs back to the nearest BN PC and made an emergency call to stop a friendly fire upon the advancing troops. The call went through just about 15 minutes before the 164th Field artillery Brigade planned to starts its fire. The artillery fire sector was change and the artillery fire could start.

The advance went on however and in a few hours the Americans succeeded to get the Germans take of in a rather rapidly retreat. On the evening of November 2nd at about 2000 hours 177th had reach their main objectives, and would next advance to the city of Stenay where the armistice was declared at 11 o’clock AM on November 11th, 1918.

Andrew was killed in action on November 2nd on Barricourt Hill, as witnessed by his platoon sergeant, and was after the battle buried temporary on the left side of the road on Barricourt Hill. Then he was moved on Nov 3rd to the local Charpentry American Military Cemetery and buried in a chest. His remains were later disinterred and reburied in the newly established American Meuse-Argonne Military Cemetery in Romage, France on April 23, 1919, and then it is stated on the Grave form an other date of death, Nov 11 1918. His remains are moved one more time within the American Meuse-Argonne Military Cemetery, on January 22nd, 1922 to a permanent grave. No autopsy was done as the remains were badly decomposed. Andrew was buried in full uniform in a simple pine casket. He was awarded the Purple Heart, World War 1 Victory Medal with the Meuse-Argonne Battle Clasp and the World War 1 Victory Button in Silver, which was to be worn on the lapel of civilian clothing, to denote an American WW 1 veteran. Silver denoted a wounded veteran.

On November 24th, the 89th Division commenced its march into Germany to begin the occupation of that county. On April 15th, 1919, the Division entrained for ports in France to begin sailings for the United States.

More than 2 million US troops eventually reached Europe but a large number arrived too late to see any action. The American Expeditionary Force suffered 116,000 dead, 206,000 wounded and 4,500 prisoners. About 200,000 Afro-Americans served in the US Army in Europe, but only 42,000 were classified as combat troops. Completely segregated, they fought with the French Army during the war.

* Although military & cemetery records state that Pvt. Ostlund was killed on November 11th, 1918, he was actually killed on November 2nd, 1918, as attested to by his platoon sergeant, August Duennes, of Company G. The different dates were also questioned by the office of Quartermaster General of the Army in April 17, 1920.

*The original Purple Heart, designated as the Badge of Military Merit, was established by General George Washington by order from his headquarters at Newburgh, New York, August 7th, 1782. After April 5th, 1917, the Purple Heart was awarded in the name of the President of the United States to any member of an Armed Force who, while serving with the U.S. Armed Services after April 5th , 1917, and has been wounded or killed, or who has died or may hereafter die after being wounded.

* Camp Funston was established as one of sixteen Divisional Cantonment Training Camps during World War I. Construction of the 2,000 acre camp began during the summer of 1917 and eventually encompassed approximately 1,400 buildings.
Major General Leonard Wood commanded the camp. During World War I, nearly 50,000 recruits from the Great Plains trained here. They became part of the 89th Division that deployed to France in the spring of 1918. In addition, the 10th Division and black soldiers assigned to the 92nd Division received their basic training at Camp Funston.

The first recorded cases of what came to be the world-wide influenza epidemic were first reported here in March 1918. (Fort Riley Historical and Archaeological Society 1998)

* Swedish immigrant second generation, George A Carlson, a soldier in Company A, 353 Infantry, 89th Division, did survive the war and came back home to Denver, Colorado, USA. George wrote a diary during the war and it is still preserved. The 353rd Infantry was a ”Sister Regiment” to the 354th Infantry Regiment where Adrian served. These two regiments supported each other in the Mueuse-Argonne, and where almost at the same spot at the same time.

George’s grandson, Jeff Lowdermilk, has been to France several times in order to visit and photograph the places mentioned in the diary. As of 2008, Jeff has finished and published a book called ”Saluting America’s World War I Heroes” Armistice Day, Meuse-Argonne, France. Jeff will be back even this year at the Meuse-Argonne at the American Cemetery on the Armistice Day. To read more about it, go to: www.jefflowdermilk.blogspot.com

Sources:
The Österlund family of Sweden.
Ludington Public Library, Ludington, Michigan. (Obituaries)
The Swedish-Finnish Historical Society of America.
1910 Minnesota Federal census.
1920 & 1930 Michigan Federal census.
WW1 draft registration cards.
Brief History of the 89th Division, by Maj. C. J. Masseck.
National Personnel records Centre, (Military Personnel Records) St. Louis, Missouri.
Camp Funston and the 89th in France;

http://pages.suddenlink.net/tjohnston7/ww1hist/photo.html

The American battle Monuments Commission, Arlington, Virginia.
War department, The Adjutant General’s Office, Washington.
Social Security Death Index Records. (Old age pension records)