[Transcriber's Notes]
Here are the definitions of several unfamiliar (to me) words.
batmen
Soldier assigned to an officer as a servant.
batushka
Village priest.
drosky
Cart
felcher
Second-rate medical student or anyone with some medical knowledge.
hors de combat
Out of the fight; disabled; not able to fight.
junker
Aristocratic Prussian landholder devoted to militarism and
authoritarianism, providing the German military forces with many of
its officers.
knout
Whip with a lash of leather thongs, formerly used in Russia for
flogging criminals. To flog with the knout.
mashie nib
Mashie-Niblick (mah-she nib-lik)--Wood shafted golf club with about
the same loft and length as today's seven iron.
poilus
French common soldier, especially in World War I.
verst
Russian measure of distance; 3500 feet, 0.6629 mile, 1.067 km.
viand
Choice or delicate food.
volplane
Glide in an airplane without power.
I (Don Kostuch) am the son of John Kostuch, then from Detroit, who was
a Mechanic in the 339th, Company M. He saw some action in the fall of
1918 but due to flu, exposure and a dislocated joint, was evacuated to
England on December 1, 1918 before the gruesome winter described in the
book. {sources: "M" Company 339th records and Golden C. Bahr papers,
1918-1919.}
Fort Snelling, Minnesota
The following text is copied from a newspaper clipping in the book. The
Declaration of War is on one side and an incomplete local news item is
on the other side.
From The Indianapolis News, Monday, April 9, 1917
U. S. Declaration of War
Sixty-fifth Congress of the United States of America
At the First Session
Begun and held at the City of Washington on Monday, the second day of
April, one thousand nine hundred and seventeen
JOINT RESOLUTION
Declaring that a state of war exists between the Imperial German
Government and the Government of the people of the United States and
making provision to the same.
Whereas the Imperial German Government has committed repeated acts of
war against the Government and the people of the United States of
America, Therefore be it
Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States
of America in Congress assembled, That the state of war between the
United States and the Imperial German Government which has thus been
thrust upon the United States is hereby formally declared; and that the
President be, and he is hereby, authorized and directed to employ the
entire naval and military forces of the United States and the resources
of the Government to carry on war against the Imperial German
Government; and to bring the conflict to a successful termination all of
the resources of the country are hereby pledged by the Congress of the
United States.
??
Speaker of the House of Representatives
Thomas R. Marshall
Vice President of the United States and President of the Senate
Approved 6 April, 1917
Woodrow Wilson
From The Indianapolis News, Monday, April 9, 1917
COUNTY PLEDGES AID FOR FOOD MOVEMENT
RESOLUTIONS ADOPTED, AT COURTHOUSE MEETING.
APPEAL MADE TO PEOPLE
The movement to make the state of Indiana economically and
agriculturally prepared for war, as recommended by Governor James P,
Goodrich, had its beginning in Marion county at a meeting of farmers and
those interested in soil cultivation held Saturday afternoon in the
criminal courtroom.
The necessity for the efficient utilization of all the soil resources of
Indiana were emphasized in addresses at the meeting, which was the
beginning of a plan to create a county-wide interest in the movement.
Another Meeting Monday.
The general idea of the need for greater food production, as outlined at
the meeting, will be crystallized into definite plans for meeting the
situation at a meeting called for Monday night, to be held in the
criminal court room. Representatives of commercial, labor and civic
bodies and organizations of all kinds are invited and requested to
attend the meeting Monday night and assist in the work.
Stirring appeals to the people of Indianapolis and the county to respond
to the agricultural need which this country faces in the present war
period were made by speakers, including: Charles V. Fairbanks, formerly
Vice-president of the United States; the Rev. Frank L. Loveland, pastor
of the Meridian Street M. E. Church; H. Orme, president of the Better
Farming Association, and Ralph M. Gilbert, county agricultural agent.
Resolutions Adopted.
Resolutions were adopted at the meeting pledging the support of the
citizens of Marion county in all measures taken for the defense of the
nation and urging the people to respond to the resolutions prepared for
greater and efficient food production. The resolutions prepared by a
committee composed of Mord Gardner, Ralph C. Avery, Fred L., Smock, John
E. Shearer, C. C. Osborn, Grace May Stutsman, Charles P. Wright and Leo
Fesler were as follows:
"Whereas, By joint resolution of congress and the proclamation of the
President, war has been declared on Germany, and
"'Whereas, The President has earnestly appealed to all citizens to
support the government in every possible way, and our Governor has
called, for meetings in each county to plan preparedness in every
occupation. "Resolved, That we, the citizens of Marion county, assembled
in meetings at the courthouse do loyally pledge the support... [torn]
The following map was provide by Mike Grobbel (http://grobbel.org) who
photographed it from the Frederick C. O'Dell Map Collection, Folder
Number 9, Map Number 1, Bentley Historical Library, University of
Michigan. Mr. Grobbel is the grandson of "CORP. C. A. GROBBELL, "I"
Co." mentioned on page 284 as a recipient of the French Croix de Guerre.
The correct spelling is "Grobbel".
Corp. Grobbel received the Distinguished Service Cross, not mentioned in
this book.
[End of Transcriber's notes]
Hundreds of Miles Through Solid Forests of Pine and Spruce.
The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki
Campaigning in North Russia
1918-1919
Compiled and Edited by
CAPT. JOEL R. MOORE, 339th U. S. Infantry
LIEUT. HARRY H. MEAD, 339th U. S. Infantry
LIEUT. LEWIS E. JAHNS, 339th U. S. Infantry
Published by
The Polar Bear Publishing Co.
Detroit, Mich.
COPYRIGHT 1920
BY
JOEL R. MOORE
PRESS OF
TOPPING-SANDERS COMPANY
DETROIT
To the men who in North Russia
died in battle and of wounds, or
of sickness due directly to hardship
and exposure, this book is
reverently dedicated.
To Our Comrades and Friends
To our comrades and friends we address these prefatory words. The book
is about to go to the printers and binders. Constantly while writing the
historical account of the American expedition, which fought the
Bolsheviki in North Russia, we have had our comrades in mind. You are
the ones most interested in getting a complete historical account. It is
a wonderful story of your own fighting and hardships, of your own
fortitude and valor. It is a story that will make the eyes of the home
folks shine with pride.
Probably you never could have known how remarkably good is the record of
your outfits in that strange campaign if you had not commissioned three
of your comrades to write the book for you. In the national army, we
happened to be officers; in civil life we are respectively, college
professor, lawyer, and public accountant, in the order in which our
names appear on the title page. But we prefer to come to you now with
the finished product merely as comrades who request you to take the book
at its actual value to you--a faithful description of our part in the
great world war. We are proud of the record the Americans made in the
expedition.
We think that nothing of importance has been omitted. Some sources of
information were not open to us--will be to no one for years. But from
some copies of official reports, from company and individual diaries,
and from special contributions written for us, we have been able to
write a complete narrative of the expedition. In all cases except a few
where the modesty of the writer impelled him to ask us not to mention
his name, we have referred to individuals who have contributed to the
book. To these contributors all, we here make acknowledgment of our debt
to them for their cordial co-operation. For the wealth of
photo-engravures which the book carries, we have given acknowledgment
along with each individual engraving, for furnishing us with the
photographic views of the war scenes and folk scenes of North Russia.
Most of them are, of course, from the official United States Signal
Corps war pictures.
When we started the book, we had no idea that it would develop into the
big book it is, a de luxe edition, of fine materials and fine
workmanship. We have not been able to risk a large edition. Only two
thousand copies are being printed. They are made especially for the boys
who were up there under the Arctic Circle, made as nice as we could get
them made. Of many of the comrades we have lost track, but we trust that
somehow they will hear of this book and become one of the proud
possessors of a copy. To our comrades and friends, we offer this volume
with the expectation that you will be pleased with it and that after you
have read it, you will glow with pride when you pass it over to a
relative or friend to read.
Detroit, Michigan,
September, 1920
JOEL R. MOORE
HARRY H. MEAD
LEWIS E. JAHNS
Table of Contents
Index to Photo-Engravures
Introduction
U. S. A. Medical Units on the Arctic Ocean
Fall Offensive on the Railroad
River Push for Kotlas
Doughboys on Guard in Archangel
Why American Troops Were Sent to Russia
On the Famous Kodish Front in the Fall
Penetrating to Ust Padenga
Peasantry of the Archangel Province
"H" Company Pushes Up the Onega Valley
"G" Company Far Up the Pinega River
With Wounded and Sick
Armistice Day with Americans in North Russia
Winter Defense of Toulgas
Great White Reaches
Mournful Kodish
Ust Padenga
The Retreat from Shenkursk
Defense of Pinega
The Land and the People
Holding the Onega Valley
Ice-Bound Archangel
Winter on the Railroad
Bolsheozerki
Letting Go the Tail-Holt
The 310th Engineers
"Come Get Your Pills"
Signal Platoon Wins Commendation
The Doughboy's Money in Archangel
Propaganda and Propaganda and--
Real Facts about Alleged Mutiny
Our Allies, French, British and Russian
Felchers, Priests and Icons
Bolshevism
Y. M. C. A. and Y. W. C. A. with Troops
"Dobra" Convalescent Hospital
American Red Cross in North Russia
Captive Doughboys in Bolshevikdom
Military Decorations
Homeward Bound
In Russia's Fields (Poem)
Our Roll of Honored Dead
Map of the Archangel Fighting Area
Index of Photo-Engravures
Hundreds of Miles Through Solid Forests
Surgical Operation, Receiving Hospital, Archangel
Old Glory Protects Our Hospital
Used as 53rd Stationary Hospital
"Olympia" Sailors Fought Reds
After 17-Hour March in Forest
Loading a Drosky at Obozerskaya
Wireless Operators-Signal Platoon
A Shell Screeched Over This Burial Scene
Vickers Machine Gun Helping Hold Lines
Our Armored Train
First Battalion Hurries Up River
Lonely Post in Dense Forest
Statue of Peter the Great and Public Buildings, Archangel
Drawing Rations, Verst 455
List Honors to a Soldier
Olga Barracks
Street Car Strike in Archangel
American Hospitals
"Supply" Co. Canteen "Accommodates" Boys
Red Cross Ambulances, Archangel
"Cootie Mill" Operating at Smolny Annex
Single Flat Strip of Iron on Plow Point
Thankful for What at Home We Feed Pigs
Artillery "O. P." Kodish
Mill for Grinding Grain
Pioneer Platoon Clearing Fire Lane
Testing Vickers Machine Gun
Doughboy Observing Bolo in Pagosta, near Ust Padenga
Cossack Receiving First Aid
Ready for Day's Work
Flax Hung Up to Dry
310th Engineers at Beresnik
Joe Chinzi and Russian Bride
Watching Her Weave Cloth
Doughboy Attends Spinning Bee
Doughboy in Best Bed--On Stove
Defiance to Bolo Advance
337th Hospital at Beresnik
Onega
Y. M. C. A., Obozerskaya
Trench Mortar Crew, Chekuevo--Hand Artillery
Wounded and Sick--Over a Thousand in All
Bolo Killed in Action--For Russia or Trotsky?
Monastery at Pinega
Russian 75's Bound for Pinega
"G" Men near Pinega
Lewis Gun Protects Mess Hall
Something Like Selective Draft
Canadian Artillery, Kurgomin
Watch Tower, Verst 455
Toulgas Outpost
One of a Bolo Patrol
Patrolling
By Reindeer Jitney to Bakaritza
Russian Eskimos at Home near Pinega
Fortified House, Toulgas
To Bolsheozerki
Colonel Morris, at Right
Russian Eskimo Idol
Ambulance Men
Practising Rifle and Pistol Fire, on Onega Front
French Machine Gun Men at Kodish
Dance at Convalescent Hospital--Nurses and "Y" Girls
Subornya Cathedral
Building a Blockhouse
Market Scene, Yemetskoe
Old Russian Prison--Annex to British Hospital
Wash Day--Rinsing in River
Archangel Cab-Men
Minstrels of "I" Company Repeat Program in Y. M. C. A
Archangel Girls Filling Christmas Stockings
Y. M. C. A. Rest Room, Archangel
Russian Masonry Stove--American Convalescent Hospital
Comrade Allikas Finds His Mother in Archangel
Printing "The American Sentinel"
Flashlight of a Doughboy Outpost at Verst 455
Bolo Commander's Sword Taken in Battle of Bolsheozerki
Eight Days without a Shave, near Bolsheozerki
Woodpile Strong-Point, Verst 445
Verst 455--"Fort Nichols"
Back from Patrol
Our Shell Bursts near the Bolo Skirmish Line
Blockhouse at Shred Makrenga
Hot Summer Day at Pinega before the World War
Dvina River Ice Jam in April
Bare Mejinovsky--Near Kodish
Bolo General under Flag Truce at 445, April, 1919
After Prisoner Exchange Parley
Pioneer Platoon Has Fire
310th Engineers Under Canvas near Bolsheozerki with "M" Co
Hospital "K. P.'s"
Red Cross Nurses
Bartering
Mascots
Colonel Dupont (French) at 455 Bestows Many Croix de Guerre Medals on
Americans
Polish Artillery and Mascot
Russian Artillery, Verst 18
Canadian Artillery--Americans Were Strong for Them
Making Khleba--Black Bread
Stout Defense of Kitsa
Christmas Dinner, Convalescent Hospital, Archangel
"Come and Get It" at 455
Orderly Room, Convalescent Hospital, Archangel
American Hospital Scene
Doughboys Entertained by "Y" Girls in Hostess House
Doughboys Drubbed Sailors
Yank and Scot Guarding Bolo Prisoners, Beresnik
View of Archangel in Summer
General Ironside Inspecting Doughboys
Burial of Lt. Clifford Phillips, American Cemetery, Archangel
Major J. Brooks Nichols in his Railway Detachment Field Hq
Ready to Head Memorial Day Parade, Archangel, 1919
American Cemetery, Archangel
Soldiers and Sailors of Six Nations Reverence Dead
Graves of First Three Americans Killed, Obozerskaya, Russia
Sailors Parade on Memorial Day
Through Ice Floes in Arctic Homeward Bound
Out of White Sea into Arctic, under Midnight Sun
INTRODUCTION
The troopships "Somali," "Tydeus," and "Nagoya" rubbed the Bakaritza and
Smolny quays sullenly and listed heavily to port. The American doughboys
grimly marched down the gangplanks and set their feet on the soil of
Russia, September 5th, 1918. The dark waters of the Dvina River were
beaten into fury by the opposing north wind and ocean tide. And the
lowering clouds of the Arctic sky added their dismal bit to this
introduction to the dreadful conflict which these American sons of
liberty were to wage with the Bolsheviki during the year's campaign.
In the rainy fall season by their dash and valor they were to expel the
Red Guards from the cities and villages of the state of Archangel,
pursuing the enemy vigorously up the Dvina, the Vaga, the Onega and the
Pinega Rivers, and up the Archangel-Vologda Railway and the
Kodish-Plesetskaya-Petrograd state highway. They were to plant their
entrenched outposts in a great irregular horseshoe line, one cork at
Chekuevo, the toe at Ust-Padenga, the other cork of the shoe at
Karpagorskaya. They were to run out from the city of Archangel long,
long lines of communication, spread wide like the fingers of a great
hand that sought seemingly to cover as much of North Russia as possible
with Allied military protection.
In the winter, in the long, long nights and black, howling forests and
frozen trenches, with ever-deepening snows and sinking thermometer, with
the rivers and the White Sea and the Arctic Ocean solid ice fifteen feet
thick, these same soldiers now seen disembarking from the troopships,
were to find their enemy greatly increasing his forces every month at
all points on the Allied line. Stern defense everywhere on that
far-flung trench and blockhouse and fortified-village battle line. They
were to feel the overwhelming pressure of superior artillery and
superior equipment and transportation controlled by the enemy and
especially the crushing odds of four to ten times the number of men on
the battle lines. And with it they were to feel the dogged sense of the
grim necessity of fighting for every verst of frozen ground. Their very
lives were to depend upon the stubbornness of their holding retreat.
There could be no retreating beyond Archangel, for the ships were frozen
in the harbor. Indeed a retreat to the city of Archangel itself was
dangerous. It might lead to revulsion of temper among the populace and
enable the Red Guards to secure aid from within the lines so as to carry
out Trotsky's threat of pushing the foreign bayonets all under the ice
of the White Sea. And in that remarkable winter defense these American
soldiers were to make history for American arms, exhibiting courage and
fortitude and heroism, the stories of which are to embellish the annals
of American martial exploits. They were destined, a handful of them
here, a handful there, to successfully baffle the Bolshevik hordes in
their savage drives.
In the spring the great ice crunching up in the rivers and the sea was
to behold those same veteran Yanks still fighting the Red Guard armies
and doing their bit to keep the state of Archangel, the North Russian
Republic, safe, and their own skins whole. The warming sun and bursting
green were to see the olive-drab uniform, tattered and torn as it was,
covering a wearied and hungry and homesick but nevertheless fearless and
valiant American soldier. With deadly effect they were to meet the
onrushing swarms of Bolos on all fronts and slaughter them on their wire
with rifle and machine gun fire and smash up their reserves with
artillery fire. With desperation they were to dispute the overwhelming
columns of infantry who were hurled by no less a renowned old Russian
General than Kuropatkin, and at Malo Bereznik and Bolsheozerki, in
particular, to send them reeling back in bloody disaster. They were to
fight the Bolshevik to a standstill so that they could make their
guarded getaway.
Summer was to see these Americans at last handing over the defenses to
Russian Northern Republic soldiers who had been trained during the
winter at Archangel and gradually during the spring broken in for duty
alongside the American and British troops and later were to hold the
lines in some places by themselves and in others to share the lines with
the new British troops coming in twenty thousand strong "to finish the
bloody show." Gaily decorated Archangel was to bid the Americanski
dasvedanhnia and God-speed in June. Blue rippling waters were to meet
the ocean-bound prows. Music from the Cruiser "Des Moines" (come to see
us out) was to blow fainter and fainter in the distance as they cheered
us out of the Dvina River for home.
Now the troops are hurrying off the transport. They are just facing the
strange, terrible campaign faintly outlined. It is now our duty to
faithfully tell the detailed story of it--"The History of the American
North Russian Expedition," to try to do justice in this short volume to
the gripping story of the American soldiers "Campaigning in North
Russia, 1918-1919."
The American North Russian Expeditionary Force consisted of the 339th
Infantry, which had been known at Camp Custer as "Detroit's Own," one
battalion of the 310th Engineers, the 337th Ambulance Company, and the
337th Field Hospital Company. The force was under the command of Col.
George E. Stewart, 339th Infantry, who was a veteran of the Philippines
and of Alaska. The force numbered in all, with the replacements who came
later, about five thousand five hundred men.
These units had been detached from the 85th Division, the Custer
Division, while it was enroute to France, and had been assembled in
southern England, there re-outfitted for the climate and warfare of the
North of Russia. On August the 25th, the American forces embarked at
Newcastle-on-Tyne in three British troopships, the "Somali," the
"Tydeus" and the "Nagoya" and set sail for Archangel, Russia. A fourth
transport, the "Czar," carried Italian troops who travelled as far as
the Murmansk with our convoy.
The voyage up the North Sea and across the Arctic Ocean, zig-zagging day
and night for fear of the submarines, rounding the North Cape far toward
the pole where the summer sun at midnight scarcely set below the
northwestern horizon, was uneventful save for the occasional alarm of a
floating mine and for the dreadful outbreak of Spanish "flu" on board
the ships. On board one of the ships the supply of yeast ran out and
breadless days stared the soldiers in the face till a resourceful army
cook cudgelled up recollections of seeing his mother use drainings from
the potato kettle in making her bread. Then he put the lightening once
more into the dough. And the boys will remember also the frigid breezes
of the Arctic that made them wish for their overcoats which by order had
been packed in their barrack bags, stowed deep down in the hold of the
ships. And this suffering from the cold as they crossed the Arctic
circle was a foretaste of what they were to be up against in the long
months to come in North Russia.
We had thought to touch the Murmansk coast on our way to Archangel, but
as we zig-zagged through the white-capped Arctic waves we picked up a
wireless from the authorities in command at Archangel which ordered the
American troopships to hasten on at full speed. The handful of American
sailors from the "Olympia," the crippled category men from England and
the little battalion of French troops, which had boldly driven the Red
Guards from Archangel and pursued them up the Dvina and up the
Archangel-Vologda Railway, were threatened with extermination. The Reds
had gathered forces and turned savagely upon them.
So we sped up into the White Sea and into the winding channels of the
broad Dvina. For miles and miles we passed along the shores dotted with
fishing villages and with great lumber camps. The distant domes of the
cathedrals in Archangel came nearer and nearer. At last the water front
of that great lumber port of old Peter the Great lay before us strange
and picturesque. We dropped anchor at 10:00 a. m. on the fourth day of
September, 1918. The anchor chains ran out with a cautious rattle. We
swung on the swift current of the Dvina, studied the shoreline and the
skyline of the city of Archangel, saw the Allied cruisers, bulldogs of
the sea, and turned our eyes southward toward the boundless pine forest
where our American and Allied forces were somewhere beset by the
Bolsheviki, or we turned our eyes northward and westward whence we had
come and wondered what the folks back home would say to hear of our
fighting in North Russia.
I
U. S. A. MEDICAL UNITS ON THE ARCTIC OCEAN
Someone Blunders About Medicine Stores--Spanish Influenza At Sea And No
Medicine--Improvised Hospitals At Time Of Landing--Getting Results In
Spite Of Red Tape--Raising Stars And Stripes To Hold The Hospital--Aid
Of American Red Cross--Doughboys Dislike British Hospital--Starting
American Receiving Hospital--Blessings On The Medical Men.
At Stoney Castle camp in England, inquiry by the Americans had elicited
statement from the British authorities that each ship would be well
supplied with medicines and hospital equipment for the long voyage into
the frigid Arctic. But it happened that none were put on the boat and
all that the medical officers had to use were three or four boxes of
medical supplies that they had clung to all the way from Camp Custer.
Before half the perilous and tedious voyage was completed, the dreaded
Spanish influenza broke out on three of the ships. On the "Somali,"
which is typical of the three ships, every available bed was full on the
fifth day out at sea. Congestion was so bad that men with a temperature
of only 101 or 102 degrees were not put into the hospital but lay in
their hammocks or on the decks. To make matters worse, on the eighth day
out all the "flu" medicines were exhausted.
It was a frantic medical detachment that paced the decks of those three
ships for two days and nights after the ships arrived in the harbor of
Archangel while preparations were being made for the improvisation of
hospitals.
On the 6th of September they debarked in the rain at Bakaritza. About
thirty men could be accommodated in the old Russian Red Cross Hospital,
such as it was, dirt and all. The remainder were temporarily put into
old barracks. What "flu"-weakened soldier will ever forget those double
decked pine board beds, sans mattress, sans linen, sans pillows? If
lucky, a man had two blankets. He could not take off his clothes. Death
stalked gauntly through and many a man died with his boots on in bed.
The glory of dying in France to lie under a field of poppies had come to
this drear mystery of dying in Russia under a dread disease in a strange
and unlovely place. Nearly a hundred of them died and the wonder is that
more men did not die. What stamina and courage the American soldier
showed, to recover in those first dreadful weeks!
No attempt is made to fasten blame for this upon the American medical
officers, nor upon the British for that matter. Many a soldier, though,
was wont to wish that Major Longley had not himself been nearly dead of
the disease when the ships arrived. To the credit of Adjutant Kiley,
Captains Hall, Kinyon, Martin and Greenleaf and Lieutenants Lowenstein
and Danzinger and the enlisted medical men, let it be said that they
performed prodigies of labor trying to serve the sick men who were
crowded into the five hastily improvised hospitals.
The big American Red Cross Hospital, receiving hospital at the base, was
started at Archangel November 22nd by Captain Pyle under orders of Major
Longley. The latter had been striving for quite a while to start a
separate receiving hospital for American wounded, but had been blocked
by the British medical authorities in Archangel. They declared that it
was not feasible as the Americans had no equipment, supplies or medical
personnel.
However, the officer in charge of the American Red Cross force in
Archangel offered to supply the needed things, either by purchasing them
from the stores of British medical supplies in Archangel or by sending
back to England for them. It is said that the repeated letters of Major
Longley to SOS in England somehow were always tangled in the British and
American red tape, in going through military channels.
At last Major Longley took the bull by the horns and accepted the aid
the Red Cross and selected and trained a personnel to run the hospital
from among the officers and men who had been wounded and were recovered
or partially recovered and were not fit for further heavy duty on the
fighting line. He had the valuable assistance also of the two American
Red Cross nurses, Miss Foerster and Miss Gosling, the former later being
one of five American women who, for services in the World War, were
awarded the Florence Nightingale Medal.
On September 10th, we opened the first Red Cross Hospital which was also
used in connection with the Russian Red Cross Hospital and was served by
Russian Red Cross nurses. Captain Hall and Lieutenant Kiley were in
charge of the hospital.
A few days later an infirmary was opened for the machine gunners and
Company "C" of the engineers at Solombola.
A good story goes in connection with this piece of history of the little
Red Cross hospital on Troitsky near Olga barracks. There had been rumor
and more or less open declaration of the British medical authorities
that the Americans would not be permitted to start a hospital of their
own in Archangel. The Russian sisters who owned the building were
interested observers as to the outcome of this clash in authority. It
was settled one morning about ten o'clock in a spectacular manner much
to the satisfaction of the Americans and Russians. Captain Wynn of the
American Red Cross came to the assistance of Captain Hall, supplying the
American flag and helping raise it over the building and dared the
British to take it down. Then he supplied the hospital with beds and
linen and other supplies and comfort bags for the men, dishes, etc. This
little hospital is a haven of rest that appears in the dreams today of
many a doughboy who went through those dismal days of the first month in
Archangel. There they got American treatment and as far as possible food
cooked in American style.
In October the number of sick and wounded men was so large that another
hospital for the exclusive use of convalescents was opened in an old
Russian sailor's home in the near vicinity of American Headquarters.
RED CROSS PHOTO
Surgical Operation American Receiving Hospital, Archangel, 1918.
U. S. OFFICIAL PHOTO
Old Glory Protects Our Hospital.
U. S. OFFICIAL PHOTO
Used as 53rd Stationary Hospital.
U. S OFFICIAL PHOTO
Sailors from "Olympia" Fought Reds.
U. S. OFFICIAL PHOTO
After 17-Hour March in Forest.
U.S. Official Photo
Loading a Drosky at Obozerskaya
U.S. Official Photo
Wireless operators--Signal Platoon
During this controversy with the British medical authorities, the head
American medical officer was always handicapped, as indeed was many a
fighting line officer, by the fact that the British medical officer
outranked him. Let it be understood right here that many a British
officer was decorated with insignia of high rank but drew pay of low
rank. It was actually done over and over again to give the British
officer ranking authority over the American officers.
What American doughboy who ever went through the old 53rd Stationary
hospital will ever forget his homesickness and feeling of outrage at the
treatment by the perhaps well-meaning but nevertheless callous and
coarse British personnel. Think of tea, jam and bread for sick and
wounded men. An American medical sergeant who has often eaten with the
British sergeants at that hospital, Sergeant Glenn Winslow, who made out
the medical record for every wounded and sick man of the Americans who
went through the various hospitals at Archangel, and who was frequently
present at the British sergeant's mess at the hospital, relates that
there were plenty of fine foods and delicacies and drink for the
sergeant's messes, corroborated by Mess Sgt. Vincent of. "F" Company.
And a similar story was told by an American medical officer who was
invalided home in charge of over fifty wounded Americans. He had often
heard that the comforts and delicacies among the British hospital
supplies went to the British officers' messes. Captain Pyle was in
command on the icebreaker "Canada" and saw to it that the limited supply
of delicacies went to the wounded men most in need of it. There were
several British officers on the icebreaker enroute to Murmansk who set
up a pitiful cry that they had seen none of the extras to which they
were accustomed, thinking doubtless that the American officer was
holding back on them. Captain Pyle on the big ship out of Murmansk took
occasion to request of the British skipper that the American wounded on
board the ship be given more food and more palatable food. He was asked
if he expected more for the doughboy than was given to the Tommie. The
American officer's reply was characteristic of the difference between
the attitude of British and American officers toward the enlisted man:
"No, sir, it is not a question of different treatment as between Tommie
and doughboy. It is difference in the feeding of the wounded and sick
American officers and the feeding of wounded and sick American enlisted
men. My government makes no such great difference. I demand that my
American wounded men be fed more like the way in which the officers on
this ship are fed."
Lest we forget, this same medical officer in charge at one time of a
temporary hospital at a key point in the field, was over-ranked and put
under a British medical officer who brought about the American officer's
recall to the base because he refused to put the limited American
medical personnel of enlisted men to digging latrines for the British
officers' quarters.
Many a man discharged from the British 53rd Stationary Hospital as fit
for duty, was examined by American medical officers and put either into
our own Red Cross Hospital or into the American Convalescent Hospital
for proper treatment and nourishment back to fighting condition. It was
openly charged by the Americans that several Americans in the British
hospital were neglected till they were bedsore and their lives
endangered. Sick and wounded men were required to do orderly work. When
a sturdy American corporal refused to do work or to supervise work of
that nature in the hospital, he was court-martialed by order of the
American colonel commanding the American forces in North Russia. Of
course it must needs be said that there were many fine men among the
British medical officers and enlisted personnel. But what they did to
serve the American doughboys was overborne by the mistreatment of the
others.
Finally no more wounded Americans were sent to the British hospital and
no sick except those sick under G. O. 45. These latter found themselves
cooped up in an old Russian prison, partially cleaned up for a hospital
ward. This was a real chamber of horrors to many an unfortunate soldier
who was buffetted from hospital to Major Young's summary court to
hospital or back to the guardhouse, all the while worrying about the
ineffectiveness of his treatment.
So the American soldiers at last got their own receiving hospital and
their own convalescent hospital. Of course at the fighting fronts they
were nearly always in the hands of their own American medical officers
and enlisted men. The bright story of the Convalescent Hospital appears
in another place. This receiving hospital was a fine old building which
one time had been a meteorological institute, a Russian imperial
educational institution. Its great stone exterior had gathered a
venerable look in its two hundred years. The Americans were to give its
interior a sanitary improvement by way of a set of modern plumbing. But
the thing that pleased the wounded doughboy most was to find himself,
when in dreadful need of the probe or knife, under the familiar and
understanding and sympathetic eyes of Majors Henry or Longley or some
other American officer, to find his wants answered by an enlisted man
who knew the slang of Broadway and Hamtramck and the small town slang of
"back home in Michigan, down on the farm," and to find his food cooked
and served as near as possible like it was "back home" to a sick man.
Blessings on the medical men!
II
FALL OFFENSIVE ON THE RAILROAD
Third Battalion Hurries From Troopship To Troop-Train Bound For
Obozerskaya--We Relieve Wearied French Battalion--"We Are Fighting An
Offensive War"--First Engagement--Memorable Night March Ends At Edge Of
Lake--Our Enemy Compels Respect At Verst 458--American Major Hangs
On--Successful Flank March Takes Verst 455--Front Line Is Set At 445 By
Dashing Attack--We Hold It Despite Severe Bombardments And Heavy
Assaults.
On the afternoon of September the fifth the 3rd Battalion of the 339th
Infantry debarked hurriedly at Bakaritza. Doughboys marched down the
gangplank with their full field equipment ready for movement to the
fighting front. Somewhere deep in the forest beyond that skyline of pine
tree tops a handful of French and Scots and American sailors were
battling the Bolos for their lives. The anxiety of the British staff
officer--we know it was one of General Poole's staff, for we remember
the red band on his cap, was evidenced by his impatience to get the
Americans aboard the string of tiny freight cars.
Doughboys stretched their sea legs comfortably and formed in column of
squads under the empty supply shed on the quay, to escape the cold
drizzle of rain, while Major Young explained in detail how Captain
Donoghue was to conduct the second train.
All night long the two troop trains rattled along the Russki railway or
stood interminably at strange-looking stations. The bare box cars were
corded deep with sitting and curled up soldiers fitfully sleeping and
starting to consciousness at the jerking and swaying of the train. Once
at a weird log station by the flaring torchlights they had stood for a
few minutes beside a northbound train loaded with Bolshevik prisoners
and deserters gathered in that day after the successful Allied
engagement. Morning found them at a big bridge that had been destroyed
by artillery fire of the Red Guards the afternoon before, not far from
the important village of Obozerskaya, a vital keypoint which just now we
were to endeavor to organize the defense of, and use as a depot and
junction point for other forces.
No one who was there will forget the initial scene at Obozerskaya when
two companies of Americans, "I" and "L", proceeded' up the railroad
track in column of twos and halted in ranks before the tall station
building, with their battalion commander holding officers call at
command of the bugle. An excited little French officer popped out of his
dugout and pointed at the shell holes in the ground and in the station
and spoke a terse phrase in French to the British field staff officer
who was gnawing his mustache. The latter overcame his embarrassment
enough to tell Major Young that the French officer feared the Bolo any
minute would reopen artillery fire. Then we realized we were in the
fighting zone. The major shouted orders out and shooed the platoons off
into the woods.
Later into the woods the French officers led the Americans who relieved
them of their circle of fortified outposts. Some few in the vicinity of
the scattered village made use of buildings, but most of the men stood
guard in the drizzly rain in water up to their knees and between
listening post tricks labored to cut branches enough to build up a dry
platform for rest. The veteran French soldier had built him a fire at
each post to dry his socks and breeches legs, but "the strict old
disciplinarian," Major Young, ordered "No fires on the outpost."
And this was war. Far up the railroad track "at the military crest" an
outpost trench was dug in strict accordance with army book plans. The
first night we had a casualty, a painful wound in a doughboy's leg from
the rifle of a sentry who cried halt and fired at the same time. An
officer and party on a handcar had been rattling in from a visit to the
front outguard. All the surrounding roads and trails were patrolled.
Armed escorts went with British intelligence officers to outlying
villages to assemble the peasants and tell them why the soldiers were
coming into North Russia and enlist their civil co-operation and inspire
them to enlist their young men in the Slavo-British Allied Legion, that
is to put on brass buttoned khaki, eat British army rations, and drill
for the day when they should go with the Allies to clear the country of
the detested Bolsheviki. To the American doughboys it did not seem as
though the peasants' wearied-of-war countenances showed much elation
nor much inclination to join up.
The inhabitants of Obozerskaya had fled for the most part before the
Reds. Some of the men and women had been forced to go with the Red
Guards. They now crept back into their villages, stolidly accepted the
occupancy of their homes by the Americans, hunted up their horses which
they had driven into the wilderness to save them from the plundering
Bolo, greased up their funny looking little droskies, or carts, and
began hauling supplies for the Allied command and begging tobacco from
the American soldiers.
Captain Donoghue with two platoons of "K" Company, the other two having
been dropped temporarily at Issaka Gorka to guard that railroad repair
shop and wireless station, now moved right out by order of Colonel
Guard, on September seventh, on a trail leading off toward Tiogra and
Seletskoe. Somewhere in the wilds he would find traces of or might
succor the handful of American sailors and Scots who, under Col.
Hazelden, a British officer, had been cornered by the Red Guards.
"Reece, reece," said the excited drosky driver as he greedily accepted
his handful of driver's rations. He had not seen rice for three years.
Thankfully he took the food. His family left at home would also learn
how to barter with the
and crackers, which at times, very rarely of course, in the advanced
sectors, he was lucky enough to exchange for handfuls of vegetables that
the old women plucked out of their caches in the rich black mould of the
small garden, or from a cellar-like hole under a loose board in the log
house.
"Guard duty at Archangel" was aiming now to be a real war, on a small
scale but intensive. Obozerskaya, about one hundred miles south of
Archangel, in a few days took on the appearance of an active field base
for aggressive advance on the enemy. Here were the rapid assembling of
fighting units; of transport and supply units; of railroad repairing
crews, Russian, under British officers; of signals; of armored
automobile, our nearest approach to a tank, which stuck in the mud and
broke through the frail Russki bridges and was useless; of the feverish
clearing and smoothing of a landing field near the station for our
supply of spavined air-planes that had already done their bit on the
Western Front; of the improvement of our ferocious-looking armored
train, with its coal-car mounted naval guns, buttressed with sand bags
and preceded by a similar car bristling with machine guns and Lewis
automatics in the hands of a motley crew of Polish gunners and Russki
gunners and a British sergeant or two. This armored train was under the
command of the blue-coated, one-armed old commander Young, hero of the
Zeebrugge Raid, who parked his train every night on the switch track
next to the British Headquarters car, the Blue Car with the Union Jack
flying over it and the whole Allied force. Secretly, he itched to get
his armored train into point-blank engagement with the Bolshevik armored
train.
"All patrols must be aggressive," directed a secret order of Col. Guard,
the British officer commanding this "A" Force on the railroad, "and it
must be impressed on all ranks that we are fighting an offensive war,
and not a defensive one, although for the time being it is the duty of
everybody to get the present area in a sound state of defense. All posts
must be held to the last as we do not intend to give up any ground which
we have made good."
And within a week after landing in Russia the American soldier was
indeed making head on an offensive campaign, for on September 11th two
platoons of "M" Company reconnoitering in force met a heavy force of
Bolos on similar mission and fought the first engagement with the Red
Guards, driving the Reds from the station at Verst 466 and taking
possession of the bridge at Verst 464.
We had ridden out past the outguard on the armored train, left it and
proceeded along the railway. Remember that first Bolo shell? Well, yes.
That thing far down the straight track three miles away Col. Guard,
before going to the rear, derisively told Lieut. Danley could not be a
Bolo armored train but was a sawmill smoke stack. Suddenly it flashed.
Then came the distant boom. Came then the whining, twist-whistling shell
that passed over us and showered shrapnel near the trenches where lay
our reserves. He shortened his range but we hurried on and closed with
his infantry with the decision in the American doughboy's favor in his
first fight. He had learned that it takes many shrapnel shells and
bullets to hit one man, that to be hit is not necessarily to be killed.
A few days later "L" Company supported in the nick of time by two
platoons of "I" Company repulsed a savage counter-attack staged by the
Red Guards, September 16th, on a morning that followed the capture of a
crashing Red bombing plane in the evening and the midnight conflagration
in "L" Company's fortified camp that might have been misinterpreted as
an evacuation by the Bolo. In this engagement Lieut. Gordon B. Reese and
his platoon of "I" Company marked themselves with distinction by
charging the Reds as a last resort when ammunition had been exhausted in
a vain attempt to gain fire superiority against the overwhelming and
enveloping Red line, and gave the Bolshevik soldiers a sample of the
fighting spirit of the Americans. And the Reds broke and ran. Also our
little graveyard of brave American soldiers at Obozerskaya began to
grow.
It was the evening before when the Bolo airman, who had dropped two
small bombs at the Americans at Obozerskaya, was obliged to volplane to
earth on the railroad near the 464 outguard. Major Young was there at
the time. He declared the approaching bomb-plane by its markings was
certainly an Allied plane, ordered the men not to discharge their Lewis
gun which they had trained upon it, and as the Bolos hit the dirt two
hundred yards away, he rushed out shouting his command, which afterwards
became famous, "Don't fire! We are Americans." But the Bolo did not
pahneemahya and answered with his own Lewis gun sending the impetuous
American officer to cover where he lay even after the Bolo had darted
into the woods and the doughboys ran up and pulled the moss off their
battalion commander whom they thought had been killed by the short burst
of the Bolo's automatic fire, as the major had not arisen to reply with
his trusty six shooter.
Meanwhile "K" Company had met the enemy on the Seletskoe-Kodish front as
will be related later, and plans were being laid for a converging attack
by the Kodish, Onega and Railroad columns upon Plesetskaya. "L" Company
was sent to support "K" Company and the Railroad Force marked time till
the other two columns could get into position for the joint drive.
Machine gun men and medical men coming to us from Archangel brought
unverified stories of fighting far up the Dvina and Onega Rivers where
the Bolshevik was gathering forces for a determined stand and had caused
the digging of American graves and the sending back to Archangel of
wounded men. This is told elsewhere. Our patrols daily kept in contact
with Red Guard outposts on the railroad, occasionally bringing in
wounded Bolos or deserters, who informed us of intrenchments and armored
trains and augmenting Bolshevik regiments.
Our Allied force of Cossacks proved unreliable and officer's patrols of
Americans served better but owing to lack of maps or guides were able to
gain but little information of the forest trails of the area. British
intelligence officers depending on old forester's maps and on deserters
and prisoners and neutral natives allowed the time for "Pat Rooney's
work," personal reconnaissance, to go by till one day, September 28th,
General Finlayson arrived at Obozerskaya in person at noon and
peremptorily ordered an advance to be started that afternoon on the
enemy's works at Versts 458 and 455. Col. Sutherland was caught
unprepared but had to obey.
Calling up one company of the resting French troops under the veteran
African fighter, Captain Alliez, for support, Col. Sutherland asked
Major Young to divide his two American companies into two detachments
for making the flank marches and attacks upon the Red positions. The
marches to be made to position in the afternoon and night and the
attacks to were be put on at dawn. The armored train and other guns
manned by the Poles were to give a barrage on the frontal positions as
soon as the American soldiers had opened their surprise flank and rear
attacks. Then the Bolos were supposed to run away and a French company
supported by a section of American machine guns and a "Hq." section that
had been trained hastily into a Stokes mortar section, were to rush in
and assist in consolidating the positions gained.
But this hurriedly contrived advance was doomed to failure before it
started. There had not been proper preparations. The main force
consisting of "M" Company and two platoons of "I" Company and a small
detachment of Engineers to blow the track in rear of the Bolo position
at 455 was to march many miles by the flank in the afternoon and night
but were not provided with even a map that showed anything but the
merest outlines. The other detachment consisting of two remaining
platoons of "I" Company were little better off only they had no such
great distance to go. Both detachments after long hours were unable to
reach the objective.
This was so memorable a night march and so typical of the fall
operations everywhere that space has been allowed to describe it. No one
had been over the proposed route of march ordered by Col. Sutherland. No
Russian guide could be provided. We must follow the blazed trail of an
east-and-west forest line till we came to a certain broad
north-and-south cutting laid out in the days of Peter the Great. Down
this cutting we were to march so many versts, told by the decaying old
notched posts, till we passed the enemy's flank at 455, then turn in
toward the railroad, camp for the night in the woods and attack him in
the rear at 6:00 a. m.
At five o'clock in the afternoon the detachment struck into the woods.
Lieut. Chantrill, the pleasant British intelligence officer who acted as
interpreter, volunteered to go as guide although he had no familiarity
with the swamp-infested forest area. It was dark long before we reached
the broad cutting. No one will forget the ordeal of that night march.
Could not see the man ahead of you. Ears told you he was tripping over
fallen timber or sloshing in knee-deep bog hole. Hard breathing told the
story of exertion. Only above and forward was there a faint streak of
starlight that uncertainly led us on and on south toward the vicinity of
the Bolo positions.
Hours later we emerge from the woods cutting into a great marsh. Far in
the dark on the other side we must hit the cutting in the heavy pine
woods. For two hours we struggle on. We lose our direction. The marsh is
a bog. To the right, to the left, in front the tantalizing optical
illusion lures us on toward an apparently firmer footing. But ever the
same, or worse, treacherous mire. We cannot stand a moment in a spot. We
must flounder on. The column has to spread. Distress comes from every
side. Men are down and groggy. Some one who is responsible for that body
of men sweats blood and swears hatred to the muddler who is to blame.
How clearly sounds the exhaust of the locomotives in the Bolo camp on
the nearby railroad. Will their outguards hear us? Courage, men, we must
get on.
This is a fine end. D--- that unverified old map the Colonel has. It did
not show this lake that baffles our further struggles to advance. Detour
of the unknown lake without a guide, especially in our present exhausted
condition, is impossible. (Two weeks later with two Russian guides and
American officers who had explored the way, we thought it a wonderful
feat to thread our way around with a column). Judgment now dictates that
it is best to retrace our steps and cut in at 461 to be in position to
be of use in the reserve or in the consolidation. We have failed to
reach our objective but it is not our fault. We followed orders and
directions but they were faulty. It is a story that was to be duplicated
over and over by one American force after another on the various fronts
in the rainy fall season, operating under British officers who took
desperate chances and acted on the theory that "You Americans," as Col.
Sutherland said, "can do it somehow, you know." And as to numbers, why,
"Ten Americans are as good as a hundred Bolos, aren't they?"
But how shall we extricate ourselves? Who knows where the cutting may be
found? Can staggering men again survive the treacherous morass? It is
lighter now. We will pick our way better. But where is the cutting?
Chantrill and the Captain despair. Have we missed it in, the dark? Then
we are done for. Where is the "I" Co. detachment again? Lost? Here
Corporal Grahek, and you, Sgt. Getzloff, you old woodsmen from north
Michigan pines, scout around here and find the cutting and that rear
party. Who is it that you men are carrying?
No trace of the rear part of the column nor of the cutting! One thing
remains to do. We must risk a shout, though the Reds may hear.
"Danley! eeyohoh!"
"Yes, h-e-e-e-r-r-e on the c-u-t-t-i-n-g!"
Did ever the straight and narrow way seem so good. The column is soon
united again and the back trail despondingly begun. Daylight of a Sunday
morning aids our footsteps. We cross again the stream we had waded waist
deep in the pitch dark and wondered that no one had been drowned.
Zero hour arrives and we listen to the artillery of both sides and for
the rat-tat-tat of the Bolo machine guns when our forces move on the
bridgehead. We hurry on. The battle is joined. Pine woods roar and
reverberate with roar. By taking a nearer blazed trail we may come out
to the railway somewhere near the battle line.
At 8:40 a. m. we emerge from the woods near our armored train. At field
headquarters, Major Nichols, who in the thick of the battle has arrived
to relieve Major Young, orders every man at once to be made as
comfortable as possible. Men build fires and warm and dry their clammy
water-soaked feet, picture of which is shown in this volume. Bully and
tea and hard tack revive a good many. It is well they do, for the fight
is going against us and two detachments of volunteers from these men are
soon, to be asked for to go forward to the battle line.
Considerable detail has been given about this march of "I" and "M"
because writer was familiar with it, but a similar story might be told
of "H" in the swamps on the Onega, or of "K" or "L" and "M. G." at
Kodish, or of "A," "B," "C" or "D" on the River Fronts, and with equal
praise for the hardihood of the American doughboy hopelessly mired in
swamps and lost in the dense forests, baffled in his attempts because of
no fault of his own, but ready after an hour's rest to go at it again,
as in this case when a volunteer platoon went forward to support the
badly suffering line. The Red Guards composed of the Letts and sailors
were fiercely counter-attacking and threatening to sweep back the line
and capture field-headquarters.
During the preceding hours the French company had pressed in gallantly
after the artillery and machine gun barrage and captured the bridgehead,
and, supported by the American machine gun men and the trench mortar
men, had taken the Bolo's first trench line, seeking to consolidate the
position.
Lieut. Keith of "Hq." Company with twenty-one men and three Stokes
mortars had gone through the woods and taking a lucky direction, avoided
the swamp and cut in to the railroad, arriving in the morning just after
the barrage and the French infantry attack had driven the Reds from
their first line. They took possession of three Bolshevik shacks and a
German machine gun, using hand grenades in driving the Reds out. Then
they placed their trench mortars in position to meet the Bolo
counter-attack.
The Bolos came in on the left flank under cover of the woods, the French
infantry at that time being on the right flank in the woods, and two
platoons of Americans being lost somewhere on the left in the swamp.
This counterattack of the Reds was repulsed by the trench mortar boys
who, however, found themselves at the end of the attack with no more
ammunition for
the sending of reserve ammunition to the mortars from Obozerskaya.
Consequently the second attack of the Reds was waited with anxiety. The
Reds were in great force and well led. They came in at a new angle and
divided the Americans and French, completely overwhelming the trench
mortar men's rifle fire and putting Costello's valiant machine guns out
of action, too. Lieut Keith was severely wounded, one man was killed,
four wounded and three missing. Sgt. Kolbe and Pvt. Driscoll after
prodigies of valor with their machine guns were obliged to fall back
with the French. Kolbe was severely wounded. So the Bolo yells that day
sounded in triumph as they won back their positions from the Americans
and French.
The writer knows, for he heard those hellish yells. Under cover of the
single "M" Company platoon rushed up to the bridge, the Americans and
French whose gallant efforts had gone for naught because Col.
Sutherland's battle plan was a "dud," retired to field headquarters at
461. A half platoon of "I" men hurried up to support. The veteran Alliez
encouraged the American officer Captain Moore, to hang on to the bridge.
Lieut. Spitler came on with a machine gun and the position was
consolidated and held in spite of heavy shelling by the Bolo armored
trains and his desperate raids at night and in the morning, for the
purpose of destroying the bridge. His high explosive tore up the track
but did no damage to the bridge. His infantry recoiled from the Lewis
gun and machine gun fire of the Americans that covered the bridge and
its approaches.
The day's operations had been costly. The French had lost eight, killed
and wounded and missing. The Americans had lost four killed, fourteen
wounded, among whom were Lieuts. Lawrence Keith and James R. Donovan,
and five missing. Many of these casualties were suffered by the resolute
platoon at the bridge. There Lieut. Donovan was caught by machine gun
fire and a private by shrapnel from a searching barrage of the Bolos, as
was also a sergeant of "F" Company who was attached for observation. But
the eight others who were wounded, two of them mortally, owed their
unfortunate condition to the altogether unnecessary and ill-advised
attempt by Col. Sutherland to shell the bridge which was being held by
his own troops. He had the panicky idea that the Red Guards were coming
or going to come across that bridge and ordered the shrapnel which cut
up the platoon of "M" Company with its hail of lead instead of the Reds
who had halted 700 yards away and themselves were shelling the bridge
but to no effect. Not only that but when Col. Sutherland was informed
that his artillery was getting his own troops, he first asked on one
telephone for another quart of whisky and later called up his artillery
officer and ordered the deadly fire to lengthen range. This was observed
by an American soldier, Ernest Roleau, at Verst 466, who acted as
interpreter and orderly in Sutherland's headquarters that day.
The British officer sadly retired to his Blue Car headquarters at Verst
466, thinking the Reds would surely recapture the bridge. But Major
Nichols in command at field headquarters at Verst 461 thought
differently. When the order came over the wire for him to withdraw his
Americans from the bridge, this infantry reserve officer whose
previously most desperate battle, outside of a melee between the Bulls
and Bears on Wall Street, had been to mashie nib out of a double
bunkered trap on the Detroit Country Club golf course, as usual with
him, took "plenty of sand." He shoved the order to one side till he
heard from the officer at the front and then requested a countermanding
order. He made use of the veteran Alliez's counsel. And for two dubious
nights and days with "M" and "I" Companies he held on to the scant three
miles of advance which had been paid for so dearly. And the Reds never
did get back the important bridge.
Now it was evident that the Bolshevik rear-guard action was not to be
scared out. It was bent on regaining its ground. During these last
September days of supposed converging drive in three columns on
Plesetskaya our widely separated forces had all met with stiff
resistance and been worsted in action. The Bolshevik had earned our
respect as a fighter. More fighting units were hurried up. Our "A" Force
Command began careful reconnaissance and plans of advance. American
officers and doughboys had their first experiences, of the many
experiences to follow, of taking out Russian guides and from their own
observations and the crude old maps and from doubtful hearsay to piece
together a workable military sketch of the densely forested area.
Artillery actions and patrol actions were almost daily diet till, with
the advance two weeks later on October thirteenth, the offensive
movement started again. This time French and Americans closely
co-operated. The Reds evidently had some inkling of it, for on the
morning when the amalgamated "M"-"Boyer" force entered the woods, inside
fifteen minutes the long, thin column of horizon blue and olive drab was
under shrapnel fire of the Bolo. With careful march this force gained
the flank and rear of the enemy at Verst 455, and camped in a hollow
square, munched on hardtack and slept on their arms in the cold rain.
Lieut. Stoner, Capt. Boyer, the irrepressible French fun-maker, Capt.
Moore and Lieut. Giffels slept on the same patch of wet moss with the
same log for a pillow, unregardful of the TNT in the Engineer officer's
pocket, which was for use the next morning in blowing the enemy's
armored train.
At last 5:00 a. m. comes but it is still dark and foggy. Men stretch
their cold and cramped limbs after the interminable night. No smokes. No
eats. In ten minutes of whispering the columns are under way. The
leading platoon gets out of our reach. Delay while we get a new guide
lets them get on ahead of the other platoons. Too bad. It spoils the
plan. The main part of the attacking forces can not press forward fast
enough to catch up. The engineers will be too late to blow the track in
rear of the Bolo train.
The Red Guard listening posts and his big tower on the flank now stand
him in good stead. He sees the little platoon of Franco-Americans
approaching in line, and sends out a superior force to meet the attack.
Ten minutes of stiff fire fight ensues during which the other attacking
platoons strive to get up to their positions in rear and rear flank. But
our comrades are evidently out-numbered and being worsted. We must
spring our attack to save them.
Oh, those bugles! Who ever heard of a half mile charge? And such a
melee. Firing and yelling and tooting like ten thousand the main party
goes in. What would the first "old man" of the 339th, our beloved
Colonel John W. Craig, have said at sight of that confused swarm of
soldiers heading straight for the Bolo positions. Lucky for us the Bolo
does not hold his fire till we swarm out of the woods. As it is in his
panic he blazes away into the woods pointblank with his artillery
mounted on the trains and with his machine guns, two of which only are
on ground positions. And his excited aim is characteristically high,
Slavo Bogga. We surge in. He jumps to his troop trains, tries to cover
his withdrawal by the two machine guns, and gets away, but with hundreds
of casualties from our fire that we pour into the moving trains.
Marvellous luck, we have monkeyed with a buzz saw and suffered only
slight casualties, one American killed and four wounded. Two French
wounded.
The surprise at 455 threw "the wind" up the Bolo's back at his forward
positions, 457 and 457-1/2, and Lieuts. Primm and Soyer's amalgamated
French-American attacking party won a quick victory. The armored train
came on through over the precious bridge at Verst 458, the track was
repaired and our artillery came up to 455 and answered the Red armored
train that was shelling us while we consolidated the position. Lieut.
Anselmi's resolute American signal men unmindful of the straggling Bolos
who were working south in the woods along the railroad, "ran" the
railway telephone lines back to field headquarters at 458 and
established communications with Major Nichols.
As soon as transportation was open "I" Company and Apsche's company of
French moved up and went on through to battle the Reds in the same
afternoon out of their position at Verst 450 where they had rallied and
to advance on the fifteenth to a position at 448, where the Americans
dug in. Trouble with the French battalion was brewing for the British
Command. The poilus had heard of the proposed armistice on the Western
Front. "La guerre finis," they declared, and refused to remain with "I"
Company on the line.
So on October sixteenth this company found itself single-handed holding
the advanced position against the counter-attack of the reinforced Reds.
After a severe artillery barrage of the Reds, Captain Winslow pushed
forward to meet the attack of the Bolos and fought a drawn battle with
them in the woods in the afternoon. Both sides dug in. "I" Company lost
one killed and four wounded.
Meanwhile "M" Company, after one day to reorganize and rest, hurried up
during the afternoon fight and prepared to relieve "I" Company. Sleeping
on their arms around the dull-burning fires at 448 between noisy periods
of night exchanges of fire by the Americans and Red Guards, this company
next morning at 6:00 a. m. went through under a rolling barrage of Major
Lee's artillery, which had been able to improve its position during the
night, thanks to the resolute work of Lieut. Giffels and his American
Engineers on the railroad track. Stoner's platoon destroyed the heavy
outpost of Bolos with a sharp fire fight and a charge and swept on, only
halting when he reached a large stream. Beyond this was a half-mile
square clearing with characteristic woodpiles and station and woodmen's
houses, occupied by a heavy force of six hundred Red Guards, themselves
preparing for attack on the Americans. Here Captain Moore timed his
three platoons and Lieut. Spitler's machine guns for a rush on three
sides with intent to gain a foothold at least within the clearing. The
very impetuosity of the doughboy's noisy attack struck panic into the
poorly led Bolsheviks and they won an easy victory, having possession of
the position inside half an hour. The Reds were routed and pursued
beyond the objectives set by Col. Sutherland. And the old company horse
shoe again worked. Though many men had their clothes riddled not a man
was scratched.
The position was consolidated. An hour after the engagement two sections
of the French Company that had sulked the preceding day came smilingly
up and helped fortify the flanks. Their beloved old battalion commander,
Major Alabernarde, had shamed them out of their mutinous conduct and
they were satisfied again to help their much admired American comrades
in this strange, faraway side show of the great world war.
One or two interesting reminiscences here crowd in. It was during the
charge on 445 that Lieut. Stoner missed a dugout door by a foot with his
hand grenade and his tender heart near froze with horror an hour
afterward when he came back from pursuit of the Reds to find that with
the one Bolo soldier in the dugout were cowering twenty-seven women and
children, one eight days old. The red-whiskered old Bolo soldier had a
hand grenade in his pocket and Sergeant Dundon nearly shook his yellow
teeth loose trying to make him reply to questions in English. And the
poor varlet nearly expired with terror later in the day when Lieut. Riis
of the American Embassy stood him up with his back against a shack.
"Comrades, have mercy on me! My wife and my children," he begged as he
fell on his knees before the click of the camera.
Another good story was often told about the alleged "Bolo Spy Dog
Patrols" first discovered when the British officer led his Royal Scots,
most of them raw Russian recruits, to the front posts at 445 to
reinforce "M" Co. "Old Ruble" had been a familiar sight to the
Americans. At this time he had picked up a couple of cur buddies, and
was staying with the Americans at the front, having perpetual pass good
at any part of the four-square outpost. But the British officer reported
him to the American officer as a sure-enough trained Bolshevik patrol
dog and threatened to shoot him. And at four o'clock the next morning
they did fire at the dogs and started up the nervous Red Guards into
machine gun fire from their not distant trench line and brought everyone
out to man our lines for defense. And the heavy enemy shelling cut up
Scots (Russians) as well as Americans.
Here the fall advance on the Archangel-Vologda Railway ended. We were a
few versts north of Emtsa, but "mnoga, mnoga versts," many versts,
distant from Vologda, the objective picked by General Poole for this
handful of men. Emtsa was a railroad repair shop village. We wanted it.
General Ironside who relieved Poole, however, had issued a general order
to hold up further advances on all the fronts. So we dug in. Winter
would soon be on, anyway.
The Red Guards, however, meant to punish us for the capture of this
position. He thoroughly and savagely shelled the position repeatedly and
the British artillery moved up as the Yankee engineers restored the
destroyed railroad track and duelled daily with the very efficient Red
artillery. We have to admit that with his knowledge of the area the Red
artillery officer had the best of the strategy and the shooting. He had
the most guns too.
Major Nichols was heard to remark the day after he had been through the
severe six gun barrage of the Reds who poured their wrath on the
Americans at 445 before they could but more than get slight shrapnel
shelters made, and had suffered four casualties, and the Royal Scots had
lost a fine Scotch lieutenant and two Russian soldiers. "This shelling
of course would be small peanuts to the French and British soldiers who
were on the Western Front, but to us Americans fresh from the fields and
city offices and shops of Michigan it is a little hell." And so the
digging was good at 445 during the last of October and the first of
November while Major Nichols with "M" and "I" and French and American
machine gun sections held this front.
On the fourth of November "I" Company supported by the French machine
gunners sustained a terrific attack by the Reds in powerful force,
repulsed them finally after several hours, with great losses, and gained
from General Ironside a telegram of congratulations. "I" Co. lost one
killed, one missing, two wounded, one of which was Lieut. Reese. After
that big attack the enemy left us in possession and we began to fear
winter as much as we did the enemy. The only event that broke the
routine of patrols and artillery duels was the accidental bombing by our
Allied airplane of our position instead of the half-mile distant enemy
trenches, one of the two 112-lb. bombs taking the life of Floyd Sickles,
"M" Company's barber and wounding another
Amusing things also are recalled. The American medical officer at the
front line one morning looked at a French soldier who seemed to be
coming down with a heavy cold and generously doped him up with hot water
and whiskey. Next morning the whole machine gun section of French were
on sick call. But Collins was wise, and perhaps his bottle was empty.
One day a big, husky Yank in "I" Company was brokenly "parlevooing" with
a little French gunner, who was seen to leap excitedly into the air and
drape himself about the doughboy's neck exclaiming with joy, "My son, my
son, my dear sister's son." This is the truth. And he took the Yank over
to his dugout for a celebration of this strange family meeting, filled
him up with sour wine, and his pockets with pictures of dancing girls.
Of course we were to learn to our discomfort and peril that winter was
the time chosen by Trotsky for his counter-offensive against the Allied
forces in the North. Of that winter campaign we shall tell in later
chapters. We leave the Americans now on the railroad associated with
their French comrades and 310th Engineers building blockhouses for
defense and quarters to keep warm.