Russian Sideshow

by Robert L Willett

  A report by Capt. H. Prince of the American Military Mission in Archangel indicated that by February 1919 the railroad-front units lived almost as well as those in Archangel. They had modernized train cars and homey blockhouses/dugouts, well protected from Bolo artillery. The YMCA established a canteen in Obozerskaya, movies became routine, and rum rations were issued, despite some YMCA protests. The dark days of December and January were gone, and it was getting lighter every day, a significant factor for front-line troops. For those behind the line, there were classes in the proper use of weapons, drills, and even occasional parades. The French and British conducted several much appreciated awards ceremonies, presenting medals to the Americans for their heroism in combat.41 Additional troops were coming into the railroad front: the British Liverpool Regiment and platoons from C and G Companies of the 339th Regiment.

  Throughout the winter, companies of Americans and French exchanged front-line duties on a regular basis, until the French finally refused to continue to fight. In March 1919, most were sent back to France.42

  Farther south, the headquarters of the Railway Force was at Verst 455, where the armored train was kept most of the time. One platoon of the 310th Engineers lived there, as did the medical staff for the Allies. Even though there was little chance of a Bolshevik attack, the camp was well fortified with barbed wire, blockhouses, and outposts manned by infantry units. By February, there was an observation tower that could be used to keep a watchful eye out for any movements. In return the Bolos had a tethered balloon that spied on Allied movements, helping to keep the stalemate.

  Even farther south at Verst 448, defensive positions were serious and thorough. Barbed wire, blockhouses, trenches, and dugouts, manned by a small infantry force, supported artillery pieces located in woods by the tracks. The Allied armored train chugged its way up to this outpost when Soviet artillery needed some response. But the front line was at Verst 445, where one American company traded places each month with a French company, both supported by one platoon of the 339th Machine Gun section. For several months infantry and engineers had built a series of interconnecting trenches with communications linked to all outposts and dugouts. Barbed wire and blockhouses were key parts of the defense. All of the works were well-heated, and even in the bitterest cold, the men were comfortable.43 All installations were linked by a single set of railroad tracks, but south of Obozerskaya, Allied influence generally ended only a few yards on either side of the tracks.

  Several episodes indicated the erosion of American morale on that front. On January 31, an American soldier fired at and killed a British officer at Verst 445. There were several versions of the killing. Lt. Albert May was required to make a complete investigation and report the results to Major Nichols. According to May, “The American either just went nuts or mistook the officer for the enemy. When the Britisher stuck his head out his dugout he was shot and killed. There was an investigation. I gave testimony but there was no court martial.”44

  Capt. Eugene Prince, on a fact-finding trip for the American Military Mission, wrote a report which brought up several factors that affected the declining morale of the Americans. First, he said, the men felt that the American headquarters in Archangel, particularly the 339th Supply Company, was unconcerned about the men in the field. They felt that their welfare had been handed over to British officers who were disinclined to supply anything but basic, unpalatable, British rations and the hated Shackleton boots. Until the YMCA brought some added rations, their fare consisted of the highly unpopular “M& V” (meat and vegetables), and hardtack, hardly sufficient for troops required to be outdoors, training or patrolling. On an inspection trip to the front, sanitation officer Lt. F. J. Funk, found that sanitary conditions were unsatisfactory and a real threat to health. “The whole place was in frightfully unsanitary condition. Nothing in my experience compares with what I saw there.” Next, he went farther forward to Verst 446 where he found more shocking conditions.45

  However, the lack of any clear purpose for the expedition was the most prevailing complaint; on all fronts, Why are we here? was the unanswered question that plagued the men, not just Americans, but British and French as well. The later loss of Shenkursk and the gradual retreat on that front shook both the American and other Allied forces, as the dominance of Bolshevism began to show. The unrest was taking tangible form.

  One battalion of the Thirteenth Yorkshire Regiment46 had replaced American units on the railroad, having marched all the way from Onega, almost one hundred miles. They were good men, in excellent physical condition, unlike many of the other British veterans who had been classified as unfit for combat when they were sent to Russia. The Yorkshires stayed only briefly in Obozerskaya and then were sent on to Seletskoye. There they met Americans who told them of their bitter winter campaign in and around Kodish and of their losses. The newly arrived Brits were unnerved.

  On February 26, when they were ordered to form up to march to the front lines, the Yorkshire battalion refused to budge. Their commander, Colonel Lavoi, went into their barracks and ordered the men to fall in without rifles, which they promptly did. After they were formed, two sergeants stepped forward and stated that the battalion would do no more fighting. Lavoi promptly ordered a corporal to take a few men to retrieve rifles from the barracks; when they returned, he ordered them to escort the sergeants to the guardhouse. The rest of the battalion, he sent on an exhausting march to wear out their resistance. After their return, they armed themselves and dutifully marched off to the front.

  The incident brought General Ironside to Seletskoye. He said, “I interviewed the two sergeants in the guard room, where I found them very nervous and crestfallen. I told them of the gravity of the crime they had committed and that they would be brought before a court martial as soon as one could be assembled.”47

  Word of the Yorkshires’ revolt circulated around the various fronts, and was the cause of the next mutiny by a company of French resting in Archangel. When ordered to the trains to go back to Obozerskaya on March 1, they flatly refused to go, despite the threats of Ironside and the pleadings of the French Military Attaché. While no individuals were punished, the unit was confined on board the French ship Guedon under guard and sent back to France.48

  Ironside noted that there were no incidents among American troops, but, in late March, there was a reported American “mutiny.” When Company I, resting in Archangel, was ordered to load their sleds for a return to the front, they refused. Colonel Stewart, showing rare wisdom and restraint, immediately went to Smolny Barracks where the company was quartered and had the men assembled in the YMCA hut. He talked to them for thirty to forty minutes, explaining the consequences of their actions; after his talk, he asked if there were questions. One question, which is not mentioned in Stewart’s report, but appears in soldiers’ diaries, was, Why are we fighting here in Russia? He responded that he “had never been supplied with an answer as to why they were there, but that the Reds were trying to push them into the White Sea, and that they were fighting for their lives.”49 That seemed to ease their discontent, and they entrained for Obozerskaya.50

  Company I proved their mettle two days later when a blockhouse at Verst 445 was attacked. Machine Gunner Cleo Coburn found himself under fire once again:

  April 1—First Bolo spied by Private Stempczyk at 7:40. Directly Private Kronkie shouted, ‘Oh, God. Here comes a million!’ I ordered windows raised, Gunner Menteer, on Lewis gun, opens first, then I cut loose with ‘Old Vic’. Steady exchange of fire for 1 1/2 hours straight. During our firing, Private Becker and I about kissed ourselves goodby. Becker’s pill passed just over his head and went through our back door, and mine hit my tripod directly in front of me.51

  The railroad front diminished in importance as the winter wore on. Two other fronts were established to give protection to the railroad flanks, the Onega front to the west and the Seletskoye front to the east. These two flanking forces, however, took on lives of their own as winter made communications b
etween the three areas difficult, if not impossible. The Seletskoye Force battled continuously through the winter, and the Onega front was in action as well with its last, bitter battle to keep the Soviets from driving through the Bolshe-Ozerkiye village, splitting the Onega and Railroad Forces. This battle in late March and early April brought some of the widely separated forces together in one of the most dramatic fights of the Intervention.

  As the Railroad Forces gathered to hold back the Bolsheviks at Bolshe-Ozerkiye in April 1919, several attempts were made to exchange prisoners. The American Red Cross was instrumental in arranging several exchange meetings, although the meetings had limited success. At the first meeting, Lt. Alfred May and Lt. Dwight Fistler, both of Company I, met with three Reds.52 They reported that the Allies had five hundred Bolshevik prisoners, and the Reds had seven Allies.53 Fistler wrote, “They traded us two of the seven Americans for the five hundred Russian soldiers, and we had to toss in a round of cigarettes to seal the bargain.”54

  Later the Soviets invited Allied representatives to discuss an exchange of prisoners. A group of three Allied officers, Capt. A. Barbier from France, Capt. J. A. Hartfield of the United States, and Capt. E. M. White of the British Army, went through the Bolo lines in late April and sat down with a series of Bolshevik leaders. By May 1, they had arrived at no real solution, the Soviets claiming they had authority to release no more than twenty-two Allied prisoners, although there were fifty more estimated to be in Moscow. The twenty-two in question were being held in Vologda and were readily available for exchange. Records indicate that the Allied officers informed the Reds that they were appalled that the exchange discussions were being conducted by Bolshevik leaders who really had no authorization to conclude any trade. On May 1, they requested transportation back through the lines to their headquarters at Verst 445, with little to show for their efforts. The Allied officers protested loudly when they found that the Soviets had no authority to negotiate swaps. In fact, the Americans themselves lacked that authority as well. In typical bureaucratic fashion, the State Department notified the AEFNR that no one could negotiate anything with the Soviets, because the United States did not recognize the new Russian government.55

  The Onega Force was the west wing of the Railroad Force, and although separated from the Railroad Force by many miles, it was a significant factor in the later stages of the expedition as the Bolos made their move through Bolshe-Ozerkiye.

  6

  The Onega Front

  Fighting their way through the untracked forest and deep snow, American soldiers of the 339th Regiment, with the Polish Legion, Russian volunteers, and their French allies, have advanced fifteen miles up the Onega River on the extreme west of the Archangel sector.

  —Detroit Free Press, January 1, 1919

  THE Onega front was established before the American forces landed. A small British party landed in Onega without much opposition on July 31, 1918, even before they took Archangel, believing Onega to be a strategic base to protect a Murmansk-Archangel connection. A Russian warship, manned by British sailors, fired several full broadsides into the dock area while a British infantry unit came in from Kem, miles to the west, and the Bolos left town in a hurry.1 The Allied goal at that time was to move from Onega to Obozerskaya to join Colonel Guard’s Railroad Force; however, the little detachment found the going too rough and retreated back to Onega, arriving August 6. Part of the expedition evacuated the area by ship, arriving in Archangel on August 9.2

  Two of the British officers were decorated for their Onega expedition toward Obozerskaya: Col. C. J. N. Thornhill won a bar on his Distinguished Service Order, and Capt. Dennis Garstin (later killed with Force B), a new arrival who had literally walked the five hundred miles from Petrograd to Kem to join British forces there, was awarded the Military Cross. An expedition headed by these two officers started from Kem, on the Murmansk Railroad, and marched all the way to Onega, where they remained as a garrison.3 The British were later replaced by sailors from the USS Olympia, who in turn were replaced by two platoons of Company H of the 339th Infantry on September 15.

  Soon after they debarked in Archangel, first and third platoons of Company H, under Lt. C. H. Phillips and Lt. H. H. Pellegrom, boarded the steamer Michael Kace, headed for Onega, where they arrived about 5:00 P.M. on September 15. Onega itself was secure with the occupation by Allied troops, but the countryside between Onega and Archangel, and Onega and Obozerskaya, was not. Obozerskaya was almost ninety miles away from Onega across marshy lands and heavy forest with only the roughest of roads. Archangel was equally far and even harder to reach.

  Almost as soon as Company H arrived, British lieutenant colonel W. J. Clarke, commanding at Onega, sent Lieutenant Pellegrom’s fifty-eight man third platoon fifty miles upriver to Chekuevo. Pellegrom left Onega on a barge towed by the little steamer Juniis and arrived late on September 19. On September 22, Colonel Clarke ordered Lieutenant Phillips and his first platoon to join Pellegrom in Chekuevo to assume command there. With their arrival on September 23, there were 115 Americans and 93 Russian volunteers in the Chekuevo town.4 For a few days, they concentrated on settling into their new quarters, which were adequate, but they had to sleep “on the soft of the boards.”5

  On September 24 at 5:00 A.M., the Americans received their baptism by fire. Under rainy skies, 350 Reds attacked Chekuevo from three sides of the Allied position. The third platoon was on outpost duty when the attack began, and quickly withdrew to the city. The Americans were able to beat off the attackers. The Allied Russians, placed on the right bank of the Onega River, were driven back by the Reds, allowing Soviet machine guns to fire at the Company H platoons. However, the enemy guns were quickly located and as quickly silenced by the American Lewis machine gunners. After the Soviet commander Major Shiskin was killed by machine gun fire, the attackers lost their spirit and departed. They were followed closely by an American combat patrol for more than five miles, the victors picking up a variety of abandoned equipment. The battle report stated, “Russians—Killed 3, Wounded 7; Americans—Killed none, seriously wounded one; slightly wounded—1.”6

  The next few days in Chekuevo were uneventful, but on September 30, Lieutenant Phillips received a report that enemy activity was increasing. Colonel Clark in Onega ordered Phillips to join a friendly Cossack unit coming from Obozerskaya and head south to cut off a Bolshevik force that was planning to attack Obozerskaya. Phillips promptly moved out with his two platoons about 2:30 A.M. on October 1. His objective was Kasca, eight miles up river from Chekuevo, where there were reported to be some 500 to 750 Red troops. Only eighteen Cossacks showed up to join Phillips, and as soon as the firing began at 5:00 A.M., they hightailed it back to Chekuevo.

  British captain Burton, with two Company H squads and fifty Russians, was to cross the river and attack Wazentia on the opposite side of the river from Kasca. Lieutenant Phillips would make a frontal assault as Burton held the Soviets’ attention with his flanking movement. Phillips’s two platoons advanced, but were pinned down as they dug in opposite the town. Meanwhile Burton’s Russians deserted and his attack failed, but Phillips was unaware that he had no diversion. He stayed in an exposed, improvised shelter, unable to move forward or back:

  It was found impossible to either advance farther to reach the enemy trenches or retire, to try any flanking movement, owing to the fact, that by the time that the men had themselves dug in, the enemy sweeping all the ground by this time with heavy machine gun fire. Men who volunteered to take messages from one platoon to the other, paid with their lives for the attempt.7

  Evidence of the collapse of the entire mission is found in noting times of the various units’ returning to Chekuevo. The Cossacks appeared as early as 6:00 A.M.; Captain Burton’s two American squads, minus their absent Russians, returned at 10:30 A.M.; but Phillips, unable to get his men out until darkness fell, arrived in Chekuevo at 7:30 P.M., after taking punishment for fourteen hours. Phillips’s casualties were six killed and three wounded.8 The bo
dies of Pvt. John Boreson, Pvt. Claus Graham, Pvt. Eugene Richardson, Pvt. Frank Silkaitis, Pvt. Edward Ritcher, and Pvt. Harley Avery were left where they died, but the wounded were taken back to Chekuevo. One of the attackers, Pvt. Roy Rasmussen, noted in his diary:

  Then we rushed across the swamp, getting all wet. In a few minutes we were on a hill where we lay on the frozen ground fighting Bolsheviki until 4 P.M. when we returned through the woods to Chekuva. At the battle we kept low all the time listening to the bullets flying over. We lost six men and four wounded. We killed thirty and wounded fifty of their men.9

  This abortive foray was designed to be one of the three prongs of Poole’s October plan to move rapidly down the railroad to the railhead at Plesetskaya. The push south from Obozerskaya failed, as did this attempt by the Onega Force. There were no easy victories for any of the Allied units, and so far, the American doughboys were doing the biggest share of the fighting, along with their French companions-in-arms. This was increasingly noticed by the doughboy and the poilu.

  The Onega front was quiet for a few weeks, with limited patrolling in all directions to stay on the alert. The only details worthy of note were the increasing strength of the Onega Force and a new commander, British lieutenant colonel Edwards, who replaced Colonel Clarke. Two platoons of Company H, which had been left in Archangel, rejoined the first and third platoons on the front with twenty-five French troops and more Russian volunteers.

  On October 19, virtually the entire Onega Force moved up both sides of the Onega River, having heard that the Soviets had abandoned much of their territory, including their stronghold at Kasca. Patrols sent out in advance of the columns reported that the Bolsheviks had consolidated in Turchesova in a solid defensive position. The column moved past Kasca finding no opposition. However, with snow falling and winter fast approaching, Colonel Edwards ordered a return to Chekuevo on October 24. No one wanted to be in the frozen wastes of the valley in a blinding snowstorm. As they passed through Kasca, the Americans found the graves of the six privates killed on October 1; they had been buried by sympathetic townspeople. They were reburied with proper military honors and their gravesites marked.10