Russian Sideshow

by Robert L Willett

  The first order of the 168th was to begin construction of a light railway within the Murmansk area, connecting all the different areas of the port. Capt. C. G. Jones took a section of men and began digging through several feet of ice and snow, building trestles across the hilly sections of Murmansk. Others worked in the railroad shops, repairing and assembling locomotives shipped from England, which had supplied the rolling stock for the little Murmansk line. The rest of the company was sent south some four hundred miles to Soroka to man the repair shops, taking with them some badly damaged cars. They were led by Capt. A. Montgomery, who set up his headquarters in the town of Soroka. Major MacMorland outfitted a boxcar with all his personal and military needs and traveled extensively up and down the railroad to his scattered units.12

  The first section of the 167th arrived on April 8, 1919, on two U.S. Navy ships, the USS Chester and the Galveston, accompanied by the new American commander General Richardson.13 He stayed only a few days, then left on the Chester for Archangel. The 167th sent one of its sections to Soroka; the remainder of the company arrived on April 20 on the HMS Porto, heading south immediately.14 As early as April 13, the American unit was given the responsibility of operating the railroad from Soroka south, at that time some fifty miles behind the front line. The British had cleared the territory that far south, but were waiting for the Americans to put the railroad supply lines into shape.

  It was important to win the friendship of the Russian peasants, and the Americans made every effort to do just that. The railroaders extinguished a deadly fire in Soroka, supplied food to the destitute, and even brought down boxcars to shelter the homeless from the bitter Arctic cold. The Russian railroad men who manned most of the trains, however, were a different story, as they were poorly paid and envious of the American arrivals. Many of them had been ardent Bolshevik supporters who elected to stay home and keep their jobs, rather than go off to fight. Pay was often late, adding to their unhappiness.

  The British decided to launch an attack on May 1, directed toward the town of Maselskaya, en route to the ultimate destination of Lake Onega and Petrozavodsk. Volunteers from the 168th urged the Allied commanders to let them go along on the attack. There had been several occasions when they were under fire, rebuilding bridges blown by the Soviet guerrillas. Major MacMorland provided thirty-five men for the British assault, relieving them from their bridge-building work to join with the attacking units. Lieutenant Garrett commanded a machine gun squad, and at 2 A.M. on May 2, the American volunteers flanked the Bolsheviks and cut the railroad so the Bolos would have no escape route. The group, including the major, waded through the icy waters of the swamps, and eventually, at approximately 1 P.M., came out on a little hill overlooking a railroad bridge about one half mile south of Verst 15.

  Unfortunately, before they could destroy the bridge, they were spotted and came under heavy machine gun fire. Several Bolo railcars began to escape south. Lieutenant Garrett was the first casualty, and Sgt. Frederick Patterson the next, both killed by a Red sniper. Pvt. William Parker moved out and shot the sniper; he was later decorated for his bravery. Pvt. Edward Smith was wounded in the same action. Very soon a Bolo armored train appeared, raking the Americans with machine gun and cannon fire. As Soviet forces attacked the American position, the doughboys withdrew in some confusion. Chaplain John Wilson wrote, “The men were fighting stubbornly from behind fallen trees and any protection they could get.”15 They managed to fight their way back to friendly lines, briefly losing the major and two others who showed up later behind Allied lines. During the night of May 2, the Americans, exhausted and cold, slept within British lines at Siding 15, which had been abandoned by the Soviets.

  On May 3, the Allies continued to move south toward Maselskaya, helped along by a British artillery piece on a pushcart. After the town was captured, most of the Americans were sent back to their main jobs, repairing bridges and replacing track. Before they left Siding 15, they paid their last respects to Lieutenant Garrett and Sergeant Patterson. “They stopped at Siding 15 and with their bayonets and a broken shovel, dug a grave in the frozen ground for their comrades fallen in the fight the day before. They lined the grave with pine boughs and having wrapped each in a shelter half, tenderly laid them away.” Lt. John Wilson, chaplain of the unit, composed a poem titled “Twilight Requiem,” which he read over the graves:

  When the glorious northern twilight

  Shed its beauty over all,

  And from swamp and tangled forest

  Came the night bird’s plaintive call;

  When the silent heaven’s, stooping

  Watched above our fallen dead

  And the pine trees sang their requiem

  Close beside their funeral bed;

  When the quiet stars above them

  Kept their watch like tapers tall,

  And the hillside, hushed from battle,

  Spread for each his funeral pall;

  Then we took our fallen comrades

  From the places where they fell

  And we gave to them the honor

  That they each had won so well.

  Just a simple gospel service

  Ere we laid them ’neath the sod,

  “Dust to dust,” o’er bodies spoken,

  When the soul returns to God.

  Then the rifles rang above them

  With a soldier’s last farewell,

  And we turned to leave them sleeping

  On the hilltop where they fell;

  With the pole star keeping vigil

  From its station overhead

  And the pine trees standing sentry

  O’er the bivouac of our dead.16

  The important contribution of the railroaders was keeping the railroads running. MacMorland wrote to his wife:

  As the Bolsheviki fall back they destroy the railway as they go. One of my men, Capt. [C. G.] Jones, follows right behind the troops and repairs it so fast that the Bolsheviks have been investigating among their people to discover who the guilty one is who makes his demolitions so imperfect as to make possible so rapid an advance on our part.17

  During the month of May, the 168th continued to move south with Allied forces, doing their special work in maintaining the railroad, bringing supplies and men. Many of the men in the unit were operating the maintenance and repair shops in Soroka, trying to keep up with the necessary equipment to replace the faulty Russian parts. Meanwhile, the 167th manned the many railroad depots as railway transportation offices and often came under fire at the southern end of the line. The 167th suffered only one casualty during the expedition, Pvt. John J. Sheehan, who was killed when he was crushed under a train on June 2. He was later buried beside Lieutenant Garrett and Sergeant Patterson.18 The final American casualty was Pfc. Joseph Baker, wounded in the chest while working on a bridge at Verst 9. His recovery was rapid and complete.

  A novel assignment came to some of the men in mid-June. After the French left North Russia, the 168th took over an armored train, which the French had manned for months in support of Allied infantry. A twenty-five-man gun crew headed by Lt. C. B. Tuttle, a former coast artillery officer, was organized among the railroaders; they boarded their seven-car train, fitted with two three-pounder naval guns and twenty-two Vickers machine guns. There were a kitchen car, a sleeping car, and two ammunition cars, as well as their armored engine tenders. Almost the only time they could get close enough to do any damage was on June 27 and again a few days later at the town of Kyapeselga.19

  The final duty of the expedition was providing another unique service to the Allies. Major General Maynard had a plan to station a flotilla of boats on Lake Onega to create a seaplane base there. Medvyejya Gora, on the northern shore of Lake Onega, was still in Bolshevik hands and under attack by the Allies. Two U.S. Navy fifty-foot patrol boats manned by U.S. sailors appeared on flatcars at Siding 11. The problem was that the railroad tracks passed one and a half miles from the lake. Not to be defeated, the railroad crews under Captain Jon
es cut a swath through the two miles of forest, then took up track and laid it in front of the boats. As the boats moved along the tracks, the tracks were taken up behind the flatcars and relaid in front of them. It was laborious work, but finally the two boats were launched onto the lake, the first Allied flotilla to operate there. The Stars and Stripes flying proudly on the little boats was a sight for all to see as they rested from their efforts. As soon as Medvyejya Gora was captured, eleven more British boats appeared to join the Onega navy. Jones again had to improvise, this time by laying track from the main line, right into the frigid waters of the lake so the boats could literally float off the tracks as the water deepened.20

  The Allied drive continued south toward Petrozavodsk, but America’s part was coming to a close. The American infantry had left in April; the Italians, Serbs, and French were gone; and on July 12, at the town of Kyapeselga, 576 miles south of Murmansk, orders came for the American railroaders to move north to be sent home.21 Still, their role was not complete; Major General Maynard requested that they to go from their assembly point at Soroka to Popov for a final construction project, which was completed on July 24. The 168th then moved on up to Murmansk on July 27.

  General Richardson had been authorized to keep the railroaders if they volunteered. MacMorland put it to a vote, then reported:

  The men voted to go home. . . . The vote of the men was no reflection on their morale, which had at all times been all that a commanding officer could desire, but was rather the view of railroad men, whose jobs were still being held open for them at home, but might be given to others if they did too much volunteering to stay in Europe.22

  On July 28, the two companies boarded the HMT Menominee for France, then South Brooklyn and Camp Merritt, New Jersey, where the units were disbanded, ending the American participation in North Russia.

  Their service had been extraordinary, and differed substantially from that of their infantry counterparts. First, their relations with the British were amicable; second, the rations and supplementary supplies they received were far superior to those supplied the Archangel troops; third, their housing was usually in freight cars or in huts built by them in Soroka. While they did suffer from cold as they worked on the bridges, they were not there in the coldest months and usually returned to snug quarters. Most importantly, although they took occasional fire from the Bolos, it was not as severe as that experienced by the ground troops on the Dvina, Vaga, Onega, and other fronts. Their summer was plagued by the insects of the swamps, but they had netting helmets that gave them some protection.

  They worked feverishly on their projects and accomplished more than anyone had expected. They were outstanding representatives of their craft. Recognition of the railroad companies’ work was expressed in many ways. The British command decorated nineteen men in the traditional manner, with Distinguished Service Medals and Military Crosses for officers and Military Medals and Distinguished Conduct Medals for enlisted men. Many others were “cited in General Orders” for their roles in the expedition, but, sad to say, no awards or recognition were given to the three dead railroaders. The American commanding general, General Richardson, gave the railroaders high praise, “I take occasion here to add that so far as my own personal judgment and experience extends, no finer or more commendable service has been performed in a like space of time by any body of troops in the American Expeditionary Forces than by these transportation companies in North Russia.”23

  13

  The Withdrawal

  Well, we evacuated because they wanted to get us out of the country. It wasn’t that we were licked or anything like that—No we didn’t lick them, It was a draw, it was just a draw.

  —Russell Hershberger, Machine Gun Company

  POLITICAL pressures had been mounting all through the winter for evacuation of all forces, especially the American and British. In the United States, opposition to the Intervention in North Russia and Siberia was led by Senator Hiram Johnson of California. He introduced a bill calling for withdrawal of all troops, which, although stymied in committee, still drew the attention of the American public to the inexplicable presence of combat troops in Russia.

  On February 16, Wilson decided to call off the North Russian campaign and he cabled that information to Secretary of War Newton Baker, who began preparations for withdrawal. That same month, Baker announced that the 339th would be withdrawn as soon as possible. By April, with no evidence of withdrawal, parents and loved ones of men still in Russia put increasing pressure on their representatives in Congress. Requests to the Army for details about the 339th were unanswered, and anger mounted. In April, a group of concerned Michiganders wired Army chief of staff Gen. Peyton March, pleading for information about withdrawal. The cable ended, “For God’s sake, say something and do something!”1

  The resentment and pressure came because of President Wilson and Secretary of War Baker’s inconsistency, lack of candor, and failure to explain any purpose to the loss of life in Russia. Newspapers, particularly in the Midwest, took up the hue and cry. A Chicago Tribune article sounded incredulous when it wrote, “Our men are dying for a cause, the purpose of which they are no more certain than we in America. America has not declared war on Russia, but Americans are killing Russians and are being killed by them.”2

  The British, too, were feeling the pressure from the home front; on April 5, 1919, General Ironside received a telegram from the War Office in London telling him that, regardless of any international decision, his troops would be out as soon as possible.3 Winston Churchill was the voice of opposition to withdrawal, believing that Communism could be stamped out with increased military action. He had little support from his colleagues or from the public. Then, the issue became how to protect the various Allied troops, as well as their loyal Russian supporters, when the Allies abandoned Russia. It was hoped that knowledge of the decisions to evacuate both American and British forces could be kept from the loyal Russians, but, of course, that was impossible. Even before the Allies boarded their last ships, the apprehensions of the North Russians became obvious.

  One of the most enthusiastic Allied supporters was aviator Capt. Alexander Kozakov. He was Russia’s earliest and foremost ace, having shot down twenty German and Austro-Hungarian planes. The abandonment of his country by the Allies angered Kozakov. In August, he ordered his little Sopwith Snipe up for a last flight. “At the top of the climb the little fighter stalled and spun, plunging into the centre of the airfield. Other pilots and ground crew raced over to the crumpled wreck, but it was too late. Alexander Kozakov had made his final gesture of defiance.”4

  According to the withdrawal plans, the British were to hold the positions with loyal Russians while U.S. troops gradually withdrew from their various fronts and were transported to Economie, where ships would arrive for the exit from North Russia. In order for British units to hold their ground and protect the withdrawal, British reinforcements were sent to Archangel. On May 27, 1919, a four-thousand-man relief brigade, commanded by Brigadier General Grogan, an experienced western front commander, arrived in Archangel.5 They were followed days later by a second four-thousand-man brigade, led by another western front veteran, Gen. L. W. Sadleir-Jackson. These relieving brigades even brought a small number of British tanks, which proved utterly worthless in the swamps surrounding the roads.6

  As the English generals planned the departure, the Americans began to withdraw from the fighting fronts and gather at the port of Economie. The companies came in on various dates: “Early in April B and C companies were relieved at Toulgas and Kurgomen, K company left Kholmogori late in May, G, L, M, I and E companies—in the order named—were withdrawn from the Railroad Front also in May.”7 Company D arrived in Economie on June 8; Company F was the last out, also on June 8.

  While the various companies whiled away the hours, the men were reintroduced to the military life: saluting, policing the area, venereal inspections, drills, and kitchen duty. Reviews, too, were required; in one, the company that p
erformed the best in the camp review was picked to march in the Memorial Day parade and ceremony at the Archangel cemetery. That honor went to Company M; Donald Carey was happy it was not his company, E. “When I considered the long, tiresome march as a member of a funeral detail in September, I did not envy their winning first place.”8

  In Economie, the regiment was assembled as a full unit for the first time since it left England. To celebrate that fact, the senior officers required a regimental review in full field pack, although without rifles. It was hot and dusty and no pleasure for the troops. Ironside made an inspection of the ranks, passing through each line. He impressed Private Carey:

  Though I had seen him before I took a good look at this remarkable officer as he passed an arm’s length in front of me. Fully six feet four inches in height, he was a man of powerful physique, keen intellect, and unusual personality. His courageous countenance and excellent features combined with blue eyes and clear, ruddy complexion were fairly handsome.9

  After the inspection, the perspiring doughboys were treated to a series of speeches by their officers. General Richardson made a long and, to Carey, incoherent speech, telling the men how he wished he had been with them during the campaign. General Ironside noted, “Some of the men going home raised a shout of laughter at this.”10 It may be an insignificant omission, but in no recounting of those last days is there a mention of Colonel Stewart. The regiment was ready to depart after the review. The lucky ones left June 2 on the first ship, the transport Tsar, headed for Brest, France. The last group left Economie on June 15. Both contingents stopped at Murmansk for logistical purposes and there had their final clash with the British.

  As they docked in Murmansk, some fresh British troops were on board a transport docked nearby. Private Henkelman on the Menominee wrote:

  On the Kola River near Murmansk we tied up with our bow near an English ship just arriving in North Russia. I was below deck when I heard noises and I sauntered up on deck and saw a pitched battle taking place between our gang and the English throng, each side hurling chunks of coal at each other and cursing loudly. Our men wanted to get off and attack the Limeys, but our officers doubled the guard at the gangplank.11