Russian Sideshow

by Robert L Willett

  On August 2, a coup, instigated by the British, removed the Bolshevik government and replaced it with a Socialist revolutionary government headed by an old Russian socialist named N. V. Chaikovsky. The entire invasion was neatly orchestrated. The British had employed several revolutionaries in Archangel to stage the coup as the Allied military expedition moved toward the city. The coup, led by George E. Chaplin, a mysterious former Imperial Russian Navy commander who sometimes posed as a British naval officer, was a smashing success. When the Red government and its loyal supporters heard the gunfire from the fleet attacking the shore batteries and saw the strafing by Allied seaplanes, they headed south in panic.4

  The Allied flotilla sailed upriver on the winding, sprawling Dvina River, some twenty-five miles from its mouth on the White Sea, past islands and shore batteries, to Archangel, arriving as the successful coup ended. Both the coup and the invasion were synchronized perfectly to affect an almost bloodless landing. According to Captain Bierer, “when the Salvator anchored, river craft, tugs and steamers blew their whistles and the other officers landed by General Poole; Admiral Kemp, myself and other officers landed by invitation. . . . The people went simply wild with joy to an extent almost beyond imagination.”5

  General Poole, the officer commanding this expedition, wired London in an undated message: “I occupied Archangel today with Allied troops—American-British, French, Serbian and Czechs. Moduski battery offered slight resistance which was quickly overcome by seaplane and (attentive). Two ice breakers and mine layers had been sunk in Channel but we were able to pass with little difficulty.”6 Records indicate the date was August 2, 1918.

  A. L. Lawes, a British civilian working for the Russo-Britain Shipping Company in Archangel, wrote to Mr. W. A. H. Hulton in London on July 27, 1918:

  The general feeling amongst the population of Archangel is of a most panicky nature. All the bourgeoisie is being called up for service and being sent to Moudinga to dig trenches. The “Anglichani” [English] are expected any day now and everyone is in a state of excitement. . . . All the Allied Diplomatic Corps is here and is expected to leave tomorrow, for Murmansk. What will be the ultimate outcome of everything is impossible to say. We may be arrested and sent to the interior of Russia, or a thousand and one other developments may take place. “Wait and see” is the only policy available.7

  Less than two weeks later, he wrote to his mother:

  At last I am able to write you freely and, I hope, regularly. You will probably have learnt from the English newspapers that the Allies have entered Archangel & the power of the Bolsheviks has been overthrown. . . . For a week or two before the change, the position of Britishers here was more or less uncomfortable, not to say dangerous, as the Bolsheviks wanted to arrest us and send us as prisoners to Moscow. However, when the time came the Bolsheviks ran away like hares, taking with them all the money from the banks & large stocks of foodstuffs.8

  Captain Bierer of the Olympia reported America’s first entry into Archangel: “Two officers and 25 men landed with the landing force and 25 men at Archangel. They were divided due to the desires of Admiral Kemp [British invading fleet commander], who felt the great desirability of having American forces here.” Bierer went on to say, “Admiral Kemp also wanted the Olympia’s band ashore to be used in recruiting Russians.”9 The twenty-two-member band joined the Allies in Archangel on August 7.

  The August 10, 1918, entry of the ship’s war diary stated:

  Ensign [Donald M.] Hicks, U.S.N.R.F., with one French soldier and one U.S. Seamna [sic], brought into Archangel 54 Bolsheviki soldiers who had voluntarily come in and surrendered at Tundra on the railroad about 30 miles south of Archangel, where a part of the Olympia landing force, together with a few French, are at present.10

  At that point Ensign Hicks and his twenty-five men became part of the Allied Force B, the only part of Poole’s southward movement to include Americans. These were their orders: “August 11—Force under Lt. Col. Haselden, Called Force B. 100 French, 25 American seamen, 35 Rus. [Slavo-British Allied Legion], 27 Poles, to go up river to CISKOE and then by road to PLESESKAYA to outflank Bolos at OBOZERSKAYA.”11 Haselden also added a few British soldiers, even a few Australians. This same document designates Force A as the Railroad Force under Lieutenant Colonel Guard, and Force C, the River Force under Colonel Josselyn, both British officers. These units were made up of British, French, and Russian troops.

  The Slavo Battalion Allied Legion (SBAL), formed early in the campaign, was composed primarily of deserters from the Red Army, and later prisoners from the overcrowded jails of Archangel. Although General Poole mentions that he started the legion in the early days of the Intervention, Poole’s replacement, Gen. Edmund Ironside, took it a step further when he accepted prisoners from the jails and determined to make them soldiers. The battalion formed by these prisoners was named Dyer’s Battalion, after a young Canadian officer who died in the early days of their formation. The legion was commanded by British officers and British noncoms. Both Poole and Ironside were convinced that British training, uniforms, and discipline would turn these conscripts into fighting men, but it was faulty logic, as future events would prove. As the tide turned against the Allies, desertions would become frequent. One of General Poole’s officers later explained:

  He was carrying on an experiment that had been forced on him by a combination of circumstances: the time was coming when he would have to leave the Archangel Russian Forces to its own device and it was essential so to encourage them that they would not feel any sense of desertion.12

  These aggressive movements into the Russian interior were the result of General Poole’s determination to conduct offensive warfare and to pursue his dream of linking with the Czechs at Vologda or Viatka, the nearest points on the Trans-Siberian Railroad.

  Force B left Archangel on barges, towed by tugs against the Dvina River current; they lived on the barges for two days, then disembarked to head westward toward the railroad. As they moved inland they found their reception friendly and were even given lunch and tea in the tiny town of Vaimacku. On August 15 at 3:00 A.M., they entered Tiagra and learned that a Bolo force was in the next town, Seletskoye, about nine versts away.13 At 5:00 P.M. Force B found itself facing 250 Soviets with machine guns and an armored car. By 7:30 P.M., the Allies had bombed the car, blown up one of the Red machine guns, and taken the town. There they suffered some of the first Allied casualties—seven killed and six wounded, including Seaman Dewey Perschke, who took a bullet in the arm to become the first American casualty of the Russian Intervention.14 The dead included British captain Dennis Garstin, who had wangled passage to Archangel from Kem to join Force B. He had been decorated for his part in an Onega expedition in August, but never lived to receive his medal. “Photographs show him as a big, laughing young man mounted on a shaggy pony.”15 While the surgeon took the six wounded back to Archangel, the remainder of the men rested in Seletskoye for a week, waiting for the surgeon’s return and sending scouting parties ahead. They learned that the Soviets held the next town with a large force.

  By this time, Force B had been found by the Reds. They faced five hundred Bolshevik in their front, while three hundred vicious Russian Baltic Sea sailors were getting in place behind them. The Allies sent a flanking party of seven Poles and twenty Russians to get behind the Soviets, four miles west of the village called Verst 19. Ensign Hicks, with eight American machine guns manned by his sailors, was to join the frontal attack, which was to begin at noon August 22. They moved toward the Bolos, taking the #19 village without any opposition. That night an airplane dropped a message from Poole ordering Force B to break off its move on #19 and to move west toward Obozerskaya, where Force A was planning to attack at 6:00 A.M. on August 31. Hicks and his group moved back to Tiagra and were reinforced by fifty Russians with three officers and two machine guns. These reinforcements were sent to Seletskoye to hold that town and protect the left flank of Force B as it moved toward Obozerskaya.

  The
Allies remained in Tiagra, training with their rifles and machine guns, apparently in no hurry to move on Obozerskaya. Finally, on August 27 they advanced, covering twenty-five versts, then camped for the night. The next day they pushed forward another twenty versts, and camped again, this time about twenty versts from their objective. On August 30, they found the advance outposts of Soviets and drove them toward Obozerskaya, with the fighting escalating as the Bolos fell back on their reserves.

  The Allies had almost sixty carts of ammunition and supplies with them, which slowed their movements. As the fighting grew more intense, these carts were abandoned. Early on August 30, a telegram was intercepted announcing that four hundred Bolo sailors would arrive in Obozerskaya from Petrograd that night. At 6:00 A.M. on August 31, Hicks and the Allies attacked the city. They met with stiff resistance and found advance impossible. There the American sailors took their second casualty, Seaman Charlie B. Ringgenberg, who was hit in the left elbow, causing a compound fracture. That night the bluejackets took over the front line, replacing French troops. There Seaman Bert Gerrish sprained his left leg as he dived for cover when a Bolshevik machine gunner found him.

  On September 1, the fighting resumed with heavy enemy casualties. Ten Red soldiers were killed, caught in the crossfire of British Lewis guns, but the pressure on the Allies was too great, so they began to withdraw. In the meantime, they received word that Red sailors had taken both Tiagra and Seletskoye, mainly because “the [Allied] Russian force of 50 men, 3 officers, 2 machine guns sent to Seletskoye from Tiagra fired three shots at the [Bolshevik] sailors and then sought salvation in flight.”16 At 6:00 A.M. on September 2, the Reds attacked again, but the Americans, French, and British with their machine guns broke up the assault. The French and Americans were left to hold the line and await the expected Bolshevik charge. Inexplicably, at 5:00 P.M. there was a lull in the firing; not a shot was fired again for two hours.17

  The expected attack by the Bolsheviks came on September 2, when three hundred newly arrived Red sailors from Tiagra converged on the trenches to the east of Force B. With ammunition exhausted and supplies virtually gone, the men of Force B, numbed by fatigue, had lost their fighting spirit. Colonel Haselden ordered the force to cross the swamps to their west, toward the Archangel-Vologda Railroad, and a general withdrawal began. The Americans were the last to retreat, joining the rest of the Allies at about 10:30 P.M. after Hicks had blown up the abandoned machine guns and ammunition.18 As they fell back, they found that the Russians and Poles in reserve had helped themselves to the supplies in the abandoned wagons, leaving the rest of Force B without rations or equipment.

  In the darkness they made their way across unfamiliar swamps and bogs to the railroad.19 According to Seaman Harold Gunness:

  They left through the swamps for Col. Guard and the Vologda Railway, after turning all the horses loose and destroying supplies, what little was left. Our food was also used up. The rest of us stayed on the line until 10:30 p.m. when we also left through the swamps and headed for the railroad.20

  He described his escape, walking through waist deep water, through rain and mud, noting, “The dead were buried along the way, right in the road, as marsh was everywhere. I have often wondered if the bodies were ever recovered. They were buried just as they fell with no box of any kind.”21 Gunness reached the railroad on September 5 and arrived safely in Archangel September 6; his last mission was to guard 123 Bolo prisoners being taken to Archangel.22

  A terse entry in the British War Diary on September 6 simply states, “Force B turns up at Kholmogorskaya after being surrounded and forced to take to woods.”23 With that notation, Force B ceased to be. However, their casualties were not as heavy as might be expected. There were eight killed and twelve wounded, but, sadly their efforts accomplished little.24

  It was the first of numerous futile expeditions in North Russia.25

  Force B’s raid was only the beginning of the ground war in North Russia. Already a regiment had formed and was on its way to rescue the various elements of Poole’s overly ambitious plan. The regiment that would bear the heavy burden of winter infantry combat near the Arctic Circle was the U.S. Army’s 339th Infantry Regiment, forever after known as the Polar Bears.

  3

  The 339th Takes Shape

  Members of the June draft are already part of the 85th Division and undergo rapid-fire training.

  —Trench and Camp, Camp Custer, Michigan, newspaper, July 4, 1918

  THE Trench and Camp, a Camp Custer, Michigan, weekly paper dated July 4, 1918, reported:

  The recruits who came to Camp Custer in the June draft have received a hurry-up introduction to the National army. . . . Most of the men have been completely outfitted, thousands have received gas mask instruction and a similar number have been to the range for their first work with the soldier’s best friend, his rifle. . . . a tremendous amount of training must be crowded into the next few weeks.1

  The Eighty-fifth Division, the principal unit in formation at Camp Custer, then commanded by Maj. Gen. Joseph Dickman, was destined for the western front as soon as its full complement of soldiers could be outfitted. The division became known as the Custer Division, and one of its regiments, the 339th, became known as Detroit’s Own. The division was activated on August 25, 1917, at virtually the same time that Camp Custer opened. The June 1918 draft brought new recruits from various parts of the Midwest, particularly Michigan, and especially from Detroit. The Detroiters included a large number of men who were immigrants or first-generation Americans from Eastern European nations; their language capabilities would be helpful in the coming months.

  Many of the recruits were assigned first to the permanent brigade at Custer, the 160th Depot Brigade, for outfitting, but most ended up in one of the infantry regiments being formed, the 337th, 338th, 339th, and 340th Infantry Regiments. Those with some special skills wound up in specialty units, the 310th Engineers, or the 310th Sanitary Train, made up of the 337th Field Hospital and the 337th Ambulance Company. The draft included men eighteen to thirty years old; most of the Custer recruits were in the upper range of the age brackets.2

  While in camp they were provided some forms of entertainment; movies, girl’s quartets, bell ringers, lectures, impersonators, and some tips on what to expect in France. Fortunately, the division left Custer before the Spanish flu epidemic hit. In October 1918 the camp was hit with the flu; 533 died of the disease.3

  For most of the men, it was a fleeting visit to the Battle Creek camp. On July 14, after only three weeks of army life, the men in the four regiments boarded the Michigan Central Railroad for the trip east, passing through Detroit, then into Canada to Buffalo, and on to Camp Mills on New York’s Long Island. According to Gordon Smith, assigned to Company D of the 339th, their train from Buffalo pulled into New York City at 1:00 P.M. They transferred to a ferryboat for the ride across to Long Island. From there they boarded another train, arriving at Camp Mills late on the night of July 15, where they were housed in tents. The few days they spent at the New York camp were pleasant enough. During the day they drew overseas equipment and endured the constant army physicals. Most of them took the opportunity, with authorized or unauthorized leave, to see New York City.4 The few nights they spent in Camp Mills, on wooden cots in canvas tents, made them appreciate the wooden barracks and steel bunks most of them had been assigned at Custer. Those who had grumbled about the accommodations at Custer grumbled more at Mills and would find, in most cases, that they had experienced luxury in their first army days. The troopships and their future duties in Russia would provide them with living conditions that were far worse.

  On Sunday, July 21, fully convinced that they were headed for France, the 339th left Camp Mills on trains, then transferred to ferryboats, which sailed under the Brooklyn Bridge toward their transports, the SS Plattsburg and the HMT Northumberland. The Red Cross was waiting for them in the huge warehouses in which the companies assembled, dishing out welcome ice cream on the hot Sunday morni
ng. Each man filled out a card addressed to his family, assuring them of his safe arrival in Europe; these cards would be mailed after their actual arrival. Then the doughboys mounted the narrow gangplank; the embarking officer called out each last name, and the soldier responded with first name and middle initial as he boarded. The Plattsburg, an American ship, appeared to have better conditions than the British Northumberland, according to several diaries, but all troopships are designed for utility, not comfort. The ships sailed out of New York on July 22 in a convoy of eleven to eighteen ships, depending on the view of the individual involved. One diary mentions eleven ships, one fifteen ships, and another eighteen; ships in convoys are difficult to count, but it can safely be said that the ships left in convoy, accompanied by a variety of naval warships and at least one dirigible.5

  The voyage passed with some discomfort; the troops were occupied with the usual boat drills, reading, mess duty, and letter writing, but with little excitement as the convoy sailed through the Atlantic waters still patrolled by German U-boats. Some members of the expedition, the Engineers and the medical units, sailed on other ships at different times. Charles Simpson of the 337th Ambulance Company wrote that on August 2 their ship attacked a U-boat and sank her. He mentioned in his diary, “Friday August 2d a submarine was sighted, and our sub-chasers opened fire, giving 16 large boatloads of ‘Green Yankees’ their first experience with the ‘Big Noise.’”6 Some soldiers reported submarine encounters, and depending on their position in the convoy, others may have been unaware of any submarine contact. James Siplon of Company I, 339th, noted in his diary that there were duels with the U-boats on both July 23 and August 2, the same day he sighted land.7