The Icelandic Canadian - 01.12.2004, Síða 35

Vol. 59 #2
THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
77
Frank Oscar “Buster” Thorsteinson
by Norma (Ingimundson) Busby
Edited by Jim Busby
I often think of my Amma Vilborg
Thorsteinson. She had six children while
married to Gudni Thorsteinson. Only two,
Fanny and Frank, survived to adulthood,
and Frank was killed while serving overseas
in The Great War.
I became intrigued with my great-
uncle Frank - thinking of his death at such
a young age, living in those horrible condi-
tions in the trenches of World War One;
dying all alone in a foreign land, with no
family near. In my search to find out about
Frank, I contacted the National Archives in
Ottawa. They sent me a copy of his service
records. Family obituaries were another
interesting source of information. Frank is
also talked about in another more surpris-
ing forum, but more about that little sur-
prise later.
Frank Oscar Thorsteinson was born
on November 14, 1894, in Gimli. In 1901,
his parents, Gudni and Vilborg, separated,
and Frank moved with his mother and sis-
ter Fanny to Selkirk. In 1905, the family
moved to a house Amma Vilborg pur-
chased at 505 Beverley Street in Winnipeg.
I learned from accounts written by
Nelson Gerrard, a well-known genealogist,
that Frank was an avid hockey player. He
was injured at least once, suffering a per-
manent scar on his right knee after being
hit by a skate blade.
The early spring of 1916 saw Frank in
Swift Current, Saskatchewan. No doubt,
he felt the patriotic fever, or maybe it was
patriotic pressure, to enlist. Whatever the
reason, on March 1, 1916, he signed up
with the 209th Battalion of the Canadian
Expeditionary Force to serve in the army
overseas. His Attestation Paper says he was
55” tall, weighed 140 pounds, with a dark
complexion, hazel eyes, and dark brown
hair. And, of course, he was a Lutheran.
Frank shipped off to the great adventure on
October 31,1916 aboard the RMS Caronia.
(Four years earlier, the RMS Caronia
was involved in another world famous
tragedy. On April 14, 1912, the Caronia
sent a radiotelegraph warning about ice-
bergs which, though acknowledged, was
ignored by the RMS Titanic.)
The 209th Battalion arrived in England
on November 11, 1916, and stationed at
Shorncliffe. However, before being sent off
to the front lines in France, the battalion
was broken up as reinforcements for exist-
ing units. This was a common practice,
caused by the horrible casualty rates aver-
aging about 2000 men each day in the
Commonwealth allies. Frank was assigned
to the Ninth Reserve Battalion at
Bramshott awaiting overseas assignment.
Reserves were normally assigned fol-
lowing major actions. Frank got his chance
just after Canada's most famous action of
World War One. We all know of the
famous attack on Vimy Ridge on Easter
Monday, 1917. Eleven days after the attack,
Frank was assigned to the Tenth Battalion,
as a replacement for one of the 374 men
that battalion lost during the Vimy battles.
Frank would have joined the Tenth while
they were still fighting in the Vimy area. In
early June, the battalion was at a rest camp
at Mont St Eloi, known ironically as the
“Winnipeg Huts”. On July 11, 1917, the
Tenth was reviewed by King George V.
From the end of July to mid October,
Frank's unit was in combat in the Lens-
Arras campaign. From there, the Tenth
fought in the infamous Paaschendaele cam-
paign in November 1917.
Frank's military service was not excep-
tional. His records show no special actions,
no citations or medals, in fact nothing par-
ticularly out of the ordinary. He was never
promoted, remaining a private for his
entire service. He was paid the overseas