Swedish Umbau

[Stellan Bojerud (RIP)]

Sweden still has National Service. In the 1960-ies with the "cold war" getting warmer we had an Army of approx 800.000 men on the war estabishment. Conscript age was 19-47 years.

In 2nd Army Corps HQ the conscripted soldiers were all older than 40. One corporal in my unit was 40+. He had a full beard and taught me a lot. I was only 21 and was promoted Warrant Officer just some days before. I am amazed that those "old" men were so loyal to me. Anyhow this Corporal was in charge of the telephone switchboard.

Why I write about him is because he had been poisoned by gengas during WW 2 and still suffered from that. He was also a car collector with his own small museum in Västerås.

The gengas was very dangerous. An uncle of mine died of gengas CO in a garage.

I was just temporarily posted to 2nd Army Corps HQ. My normal unit was 3rd Inf Div Signals Bn. In that Bn we had a lot of ex D-day equipment such as GMC 6x6 wich were called m/46 in the R Sw Army. I remember that one truck had canvas doors wich was horrible because sometimes the temperature fell to - 30 degrees centigrade.

Myself i had a GMC 6x6 with a very comfortable coach built in 1954. The coach was fitted with a) One 250 W shortwave transceiver b) One 3 W ultra-shortwave transceiver c) One 40-lines telephone switchboard d) One Siemens teleprinter e) One electrical generator - and best of all - f) One wood-burning stove (heated from outside of coach).

My unit was just 14 men. We were the Div Cdrs advanced HQ taking orders directly from him. Establishment:

1 Lieutenant
1 GMC 6x6 heavy radio (1-250 W, 1-3 W USW) 1 Sgt, 1 Cpl + 3
1 Volvo 915 "Sugga" (1-10 W SW, 1-3 W USW) 1 Cpl + 2
1 Volkswagen mini-bus (cipher) 1 Cpl + 3
1 Motorcycle orderly (250 cc Java)

Photo: Another ambulance bus. The markings on the side tells us that this bus is going to Germany to evacuate jews from the concentration camps.