Lieutenant Higgins reported to Captain Conway, and Conway to Archangel, that he needed artillery and reinforcements to take Verkola, the next objective. Headquarters had no intention of sending valuable artillery to Pinega, and reinforcements were not available at the moment, so Higgins remained in Karpogora. Meanwhile, he awaited Colonel Shaposhnikoff and his three hundred or so loyal Russians, who were to join him in his next move. The Russian commander sent word that he had lost track of his troops somehow. Captain Conway, in Pinega, wired Higgins that he really should not depend too much on the newly recruited Russians. On December 2, after having been ordered to hold Karpogora, Conway was told by Archangel headquarters to keep in mind that his primary mission was the defense of Pinega.4
On December 4, the Reds attacked Karpogora in force and were beaten off with heavy losses; Company G lost two men killed and four wounded.5 Private Toornman was in the middle of the battle as a machine gunner. He and his gun section under Sgt. Mike Burke were dug in on one side of the main road leading into town; Sgt. Edward Young, with his gun, was across the road. Toornman and Pvt. Clarence Malm were walking toward the mess hall in town when heavy shelling began. They were always hungry and hated to miss even their meager breakfast, but as shells began dropping closer, they scurried back to their hole. The shelling was the beginning, followed by brief glimpses of infantry forming in the woods. The Bolos were experienced and daring; they began a series of short forty-yard rushes, after which they flopped in the snow out of sight. Early in the fight, Young’s gun was knocked out, then Toornman’s gun jammed.
The Reds certainly had plenty of courage. They came deliberately up and fired at us. You could see they were experienced soldiers, for they attacked us from every available point of shelter. They came to within thirty yards of our line. Their was no mistaking their nerve. About this time our machine gun went on the bum.6
Just before the gun jammed, Clarence Malm was hit by a bullet in the head, killing him instantly. About ten minutes later, Pvt. Jay Pitts was killed, and Private Stark wounded.7 The firing kept up until 8:00 P.M., but the Reds never came closer than their early charge.
After the smoke cleared from the December 4 battle, Colonel Stewart said, “it was decided that the occupation of Karpogora was inadvisable and the attacking force withdrew after the engagement of December 4 to Pinega, leaving detachments (of Russian troops) at Trufangora, Visokogor and Priluka.”8 It is not clear who made the decision, but it certainly seemed logical. In fact, Toornman’s memoirs indicate that shortly after the Reds ceased firing at 8:00 P.M., orders were received to move out toward Pinega, leaving another mound of military equipment and provisions to the Bolsheviks.
As the Americans and Russians beat their hasty retreat, horses and sleds were used to transport what they could take of the equipment, as well as the wounded, and the bodies of Malm and Pitts. Toornman remembered the bitter cold. “I remember walking beside our horse and every once in awhile sticking my face into his long thick hair and remembering how good it felt.”9 Later, a report said:
It is proposed at an early date to relieve Capt. Conway, and the two platoons now at Pinega by an American company which will be under the command of a more senior and more experienced officer who it is hoped will be able to take hold of the situation and reorganize where necessary and stabilize the situation on this front.10
On Thanksgiving Day Capt. Joel Moore, commanding Company M, shared a fine roast beef dinner with Major Nichols, French Major Albernarde, and a Miss Ogden of the YMCA at Verst 455. The next day he returned to his unit at the front line at Verst 445. Eight days later, he was surprised to learn that his unit was ordered to the Pinega front. On December 11, he divided the company in two sections; first and fourth platoons and Headquarters Company with Lieutenants Stoner and Wright would leave for Pinega with Captain Moore. Lieutenants Primm and Wieczorek with their second and third platoons, all under Lieutenant Donovan, were to stay in Obozerskaya and follow later. These last two platoons were kept to be part of Colonel Lucas’s December plan to capture Plesetskaya.11 Moore remembered later, “One of the most memorable events in the history of our company in Russia was the march from Archangel to Pinega in dead of winter.”12 They knew that a march when daylight hours were shortest was risky, but they knew that Company G needed help.
The men left on December 18, finally reaching Pinega on December 27. This was not at all like Company G’s easy three-day boat trip. The second day, they marched only from 8:40 A.M. to 12:15 P.M., when light disappeared in the heavy forest and there was no way to see the many obstacles in the road. The men were exhausted, and the temperatures plunged well below zero, but fortunately, they found quarters with the villagers. The march continued with stops in Liavla, Koskogar, Kholmogori, the monastery, Ust Pinega, Verkhne Palenga—each was a memory filled with cold and hunger. The troops rested in a monastery for one whole day, but exhaustion and illness took its toll, and five men were left at Ust Pinega to recover.
Besides the stress of the travel, there was the overwhelming gloom of the Arctic dark. One soldier wrote, “Harbinger of hope, oh you red sky line! Shall we see the sun today?”13 The Shackleton boots reappeared as the curse of mankind, making walking even more difficult than ever; finally, orders were passed down the line to discard them and put on the less protective, but more mobile, field boot. The rugged Russian ponies, seemingly oblivious to cold or the challenge of the trail, dominated their caravan, and the Yankees’ admiration for the little animals grew with each passing day.
As the column moved along, requiring quarters with the villagers at night, the mood changed in the homes of their hosts. On Christmas Day, the column halted overnight in Leunova, and here the people were described as “lukewarm” toward the Allies. That seemed to be the exception, as other villagers saw these foreigners as a break in their rather humdrum existence.
The weary column reached Pinega on December 27, ragged but ready to assume its duties. On the same day, the Allied Russian troops, left behind by Lieutenant Higgins in the towns of Trufangora, Visogora, and Priluka, abandoned them after weak Red assaults.
Captain Moore had explained to the men of Company M the purpose of the Pinega effort, which he repeated in his February 20 report to Ironside:
I really think, sir, that I have two missions here. One is to make the defenses of PINEGA so formidable as to discourage further advances of Reds in this area. And their burning of the villages around themselves makes it look as though they were assuming the defensive. Second, I am to inspire and develop self-reliance among Russian troops. I believe I am getting results.14
Stewart’s report noted that Company M’s other two platoons arrived in Pinega in good order on January 14 “after marching most of the distance of two hundred and four versts [approximately 135 miles] with temperatures of 40 degrees below zero Fahrenheit.”15
Two Soviet commanders in charge of the Pinega area, Comrades Smelkoff and Kulikoff, were both committed to driving out these foreign troops. Company M, the platoons of Company G, and the new loyal Russian commander, Captain Akutin, were charged with Pinega’s defense. Moore reported on several occasions that he was getting on well with Akutin, and his diplomatic relations with the strangely mixed Pinega government seemed to be harmonious. Although things seemed quiet inside the Pinega perimeter, however, the Reds were conscripting, propagandizing, and using other tactics to turn the peasants (muzhiks) against the Americans, who were considered by many to be pro-Monarchist. The defense of the area was borne mostly by the loyal Russian Allied troops. The Americans were held in reserve in the city, while the Russian troops manned the outer defenses, taking periodic casualties, but learning the arts of war and defense. So far, the only American casualties were those taken by Company G on their excursion to the valley. On January 31, one last Allied offensive effort was made to keep the Soviets off balance. Russian troops, with Americans in support, scouted the Bolos in Sayola, but with the discovery of forces outnumbering them two to one, the expedition re
treated to Pinega without American casualties.16
By the end of January, the Reds had learned of the successes on other fronts, and their aggression was fueled by the impotence of the Allies. What the Soviets had originally believed to be a massive Allied invasion had proved to be a collection of highly vulnerable, small units in isolated posts. While the Allies could inflict heavy casualties, there was not much doubt about the ultimate success of an all-out Soviet attack. To some Allies, it seemed as if the Bolos were reluctant to press for complete victory, a drive to the White Sea, but preferred to keep pressure on in the various limited offensives that made up the North Russian campaign of the winter of 1918–1919.
The major task of Americans in Pinega was instruction: training machine gunners, mortar men, artillerists, even medics, so the Russian troops could fend for themselves after the Americans returned to Archangel. There were hosts of experiences in Pinega: a firing squad executing a Russian officer for desertion in the face of the enemy; the coldest day of the winter, with a temperature of 52 degrees below zero; the fire that burned the high school used as a barracks; and the frustration of fighting in such bitter weather. Moore wrote:
Did you have any trouble keeping the crowd away from the fire the night of January 4th when your barracks burned? Not hardly any. The grenades bursting in that building drove all but the firefighters away. . . . it was Private Sapp who was killed later at Bolsheozerke road, who distinguished himself fighting the fire that night.17
One unhappy event included the selection of Burke’s machine gun section to participate in the execution of a Russian. Burke’s section stopped in sight of an open grave with a Russian officer standing in front of it. Private Toornman described the procedure:
A row of Russian soldiers lined up facing the officer. Then we lined up behind them, covering them with our machine gun. More than one of them looked back, wondering what we were going to do behind them. Someone up front read Russian from a paper. The officer was blindfolded but he pulled it off and threw it on the ground. Then he crossed himself. The firing squad raised their rifles and fired. He went down like his legs were putty.18
Toornman wrote that the only time he spoke to Captain Conway was shortly after the execution. The captain asked Toornman how he liked the execution.
I told him I did not like it because I did not know why, or what he was shot for. Then he told me he had visited the Russian officer where he was kept under guard, then said “And when I left him I left my gun on the table.” I asked him, “What for?” He said “so he could shoot himself.” That was something I couldn’t understand.19
He saw other evidences of the savagery of that war:
The English had intelligence officers with red bands around their caps. When they wanted to arrest someone, they would ask for a squad of Americans to go along. I went on two trips. We would go on a couple of sleighs, mostly at night, surround the house so no one could get away, as there were no locks on the doors. Someone would then go inside and get a light and get the family out of bed. By this time all of us would be inside to get out of the cold. Grandma, mother and the children would all be crying by this time. The husband was told to get dressed. His wife gave him a couple of coins and we took him along. A few days later a fellow whom I knew from Kalamazoo told me that they had taken the husband to the river, then stuck him with bayonets until he had backed into a hole in the ice. This was the place where everyone came to get water every day. The man who was killed had been suspected of being a Bolo.20
Later, Toornman was a witness to the Bolo slaying of a White Russian patrol. They had been captured and killed and their bodies left in a village. The Yanks found the frozen corpses and discovered that they had been brutally butchered. Toorman visited the hospital in Pinega, which had been a gymnasium before the war. Most of the patients were Russian soldiers, wounded in the constant skirmishes in outlying outposts.
The wounded were sitting on the floor with their backs against the wall. The only person I saw there in this large room was an old woman with a large pan in her hands and a wooden spoon, walking from one to another wounded offering them a few spoons of food. Some would shake their heads. Others would take some. The smell was horrible.21
Through the months of January and February, the Reds continued to build up their forces, threatening the villages outside Pinega, constantly pressuring the front-line Russian troops. Inside the city, the remaining Red sympathizers appeared again, hoping the Soviet advance would capture the city and install a Red government. But, at the last minute, the Bolsheviks would always withdraw, and the city would regain its life. The Allies were getting the message that the Reds really wanted only to continue applying pressure, not to gain decisive victories. The Reds burned their advance bases and pulled back to their strongholds and waited. Captain Moore puzzled about it: “Why? Americans here at Pinega, like the vastly more desperate and shattered American forces on the Vaga and at Kodish at the same time, had seen their fate sealed, and then seen the Reds unaccountably withhold the final blow.”22
The Russian Red Cross was a vital part of the entertainment that was so helpful during the long dark days of January and February. They put on plays, concerts, ballet, folk dancing, all followed by great Russian food. American Red Cross major Williams made a fast trip to dispense Red Cross parcels and Christmas packages in December. He passed Company M on its way to the new Pinega front.
Up on the Pinega River, many miles from any place we passed a considerable body of American soldiers headed for the front. Every man was the picture of health, cheeks aglow, head up and on the job. These same men were on the Railroad front—four hundred miles in another direction—when I had seen them last. . . . From our sled supply every man was given a package of Red Cross cigarettes, and every man was asked if he had received his Christmas stocking. They all had.23
Even on the isolated outposts of North Russia, the doughboys received and welcomed this kind of attention.
The success of the Pinega front was that it embodied the program that had been set out from the beginning: Allied troops were to train and prepare Russian troops to man the front lines and bear the brunt of the Red attacks. Throughout the American stay, the relations between Yanks, muzhiks, and the local government were harmonious, if they were not always in total agreement. It became evident by mid-March, after weeks of such reports as “Routine garrison and outpost duties and patrolling without casualties during above period,” that the doughboys could be used to better advantage on other fronts.24 On March 4, Company M received the order to return to Archangel, and on March 10, Captain Moore was officially replaced by Russian lieutenant colonel Delatorski as Officer Commanding Allied Troops in Pinega.
The two platoons of Company G stayed on.25 Their job was to keep the telegraph lines open between Archangel and Pinega. To do this, it was necessary to keep small garrisons on the road between the two cities. One garrison of eight men was sent to the town of Gabach, where they could patrol in either direction to keep wires repaired and communications open. Pvt. John Toornman was one of the men in Gabach. According to him, they never had it so good. Billeted in the upstairs of a decent house with no officers to answer to, he found these days to be the happiest of his army career. He was no fan of his officers and frequently wrote remarks about his captain, who was living too well, with too much female companionship, isolating himself from the men. Without officers, the garrison at Gabach performed its duties daily and relaxed. It became so relaxed, however, that the eight men began to slack off on their guard duties. They reasoned that the Reds could capture them with ease if they wished to, so standing guard in the bitter cold was pointless. Gradually, they developed a pattern of standing guard only when Allied personnel came through the town.26 Gabach would be the scene of one of the most bizarre episodes of the expedition.
Sgt. Edward Young had been wounded at Karpogora in December, and his wounds had not healed properly. In mid-March, Young and Sgt. Michael Macalla were detailed to go to Archangel. The
two arrived in Gabach on March 16, 1919, and were billeted in the same house as Toornman. Sometime during the night, Young used his service revolver to end his life. Toornman’s memoirs indicate the cause of death was ruled accidental, but the official records showed the death was suicide. It was decided that Macalla would continue on to Archangel, still many miles away, taking Young’s body with him. He left on his sleigh, alone, in subzero Russian weather. Young’s body was frozen stiff in no time; to screen the body from view, it was wrapped in two of Toornman’s blankets and rode silently next to Macalla as they departed for Archangel.
Macalla’s first night was spent with villagers, who sensed his cargo and offered little in the way of hospitality. His second night was worse, with the villagers refusing to give the pony and sled any shelter; it stood outside for all to see with its blanket-shrouded corpse. The villagers were greatly relieved when he left the next day. The third night he was allowed shelter, but only in the village dead house, where a deceased villager’s body awaited burial; Macalla slept between the two cadavers. His last night was the worst. He became lost in a snowstorm and found a little shelter under a large tree. But he was befuddled by fatigue, cold, and the continual presence of his dead friend. Finally, he unwrapped Young’s body and used the blankets for his own protection, mumbling apologies to the late Sergeant Young as he did so. “I guess I was a little out of my head at this point,” he remarked. He finished his journey with great relief and delivered the body to the medical personnel in Archangel.27
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