[Bill Murray]

Nick, Stellan and others:

Thanks for starting this thread on a very little covered part of modern military history. I was generally aware of this conflict, and cannot for the life of me remember what exactly it was called, but you have provided some really useful information. I am somewhat of a buff of these smaller conflicts that rarely get mentioned in the general history books.

I was particularly impressed by the short biography of Herr Ekstroem who was a true "Soldier of Fortune" that would put to shame today's mercenaries that claim that title. If I wrote it down correctly, he served in the Armed Forces of Sweden, Persia, Turkey, Germany, Finland, Estonia and Latvia. That, gentlemen is impressive, especially so as he was an officer and in some cases a high ranking officer. I wondered for a while what language he used in all of these various places and finally settled on German as Germany had been active on the military scene in most of the countries he served in. Any ideas, Stellan.

To return to the White Russian/Bolshevik conflict, my only immediate connection to that part of history is as follows.

I have written here before that I was born in Pekin China in 1940 the son of American parents, my Dad was stationed in Shanghai and then Pekin from 1937-1940 Shanghai at the time and I suppose today, was the most internationalized and cosmopolitan city in probably the entire Far East. A number of Western countries, including Britain, Germany and France, had obtained what were then called "Concessions" which were essentially extraterritorial areas of the city that were ceded to those countries by the Chinese government of the time and were pretty much owned by those countries. Rather like Hong Kong but not quite the same. I am not entirely clear on the situation vis a vis the US and Russia but they had some sort of similar rights as far as I recall.

In any case, many thousands of White Russians fled to Shanghai after the conflict was over in Russia. They were a mixture of the aristocracy, business people and politicians whose lives were at obvious risk had they remained in Russia.

Many of the women were forced to become mistresses of wealthy Chinese or European men who lived in Shanghai, and some suffered a bit worse fate. Others, however got lucky or whatever you wish to call it and married either Chinese or westerners.

Two of these lucky ladies married contemporaries of my father and have remained friends of mine to this day. In fact one of them was well enough to attend my fathe's funeral.

I had never discussed at all their background or history in all of these years but your thread has prompted me to contact both of them and see if I can get a little bit of history out of them. If anything comes of it I will let you know.
Bill