Russian Sideshow

by Robert L Willett

  The situation continued to worsen in the Baikal area until Colonel Morrow, known for his somewhat gruff manner and short temper, finally decided to take matters into his own hands. He had repeatedly requested that Semenov’s trains be kept out of American sectors. He also had received a series of telegrams concerning Semenov’s trains, including one from John Stevens, head of the RRSC, telling Graves that there was no need for any armored trains in Verkhne-Udinsk. The Cossacks had arrested citizens and taken them aboard their trains to be whipped, tortured, and sometimes shot.14 The charge was always “suspected Bolshevik,” and no proof was necessary for a guilty verdict. In early June 1919, some railroad personnel were arrested by the Cossacks; when the next Semenov train pulled into the Verkhne-Udinsk station and tried to arrest the stationmaster, Morrow issued an ultimatum regarding the removal of armored trains. Morrow then wired Graves:

  Owing to Semenov’s armored cars continual interference with the railroad, seizure of cars, threatening employees, interference with working parties, continued menace to my guard, and firing upon and arresting Russian troops proceeding to the front, I yesterday at 5 P.M., June 8, at a conference between Major General Yoshe, Japanese Army, General Mejak, Military Governor and General Pechinko, Commander of Russian troops in Beresova, requested them on grounds stated above to cause the removal of the armored cars out of the American sector and at the same time, informed them that if my request is not complied with within twenty-four hours I would destroy these cars.15

  The threat was enough to bring a medical unit to the train station. “On the afternoon of June 10th Three aid stations were established for the care of wounded that might be sustained in the attack on the Armored car.”16

  There was no need for the armored train to be there. There were ample Allied and White troops available to handle any attack by the few Reds reported to be in the area.17 But the Japanese, supporting the Cossacks, put themselves between the Semenov train and the firepower of the Americans, proclaiming that they would fight with the Cossacks if the Americans opened fire. Morrow brought up his little 37mm cannon with all the machine guns he could find and placed them in position to fire on the Japanese. Again, it appeared that a significant incident was about to happen. Finally, the Japanese conferred with their headquarters and with the Cossacks and decided to withdraw, backing the armored train into more friendly territory.18 “The Japs came to regard Morrow as a fellow with a short fuse already lit.”19

  In July 1919 the Inter-Allied Commission sent a telegram to the Kolchak government describing the misuse of the rail system by Semenov and requesting that other Russian railway officials conform to the various conditions set up to restore the railroads. Their first requirement was for Semenov to cease his disruption of traffic and his wanton acts of violence.20 To this request they received no response.

  In Spasskoye, the American headquarters for the area, the winter ended with a bitter Russian-American clash. An American interpreter was on duty at the train station when a drunken White Russian captain came in and made some insulting remarks. The American, Private Rubanovitch, took exception to the remarks and hit the Russian. The Russian left and Rubanovitch went to sleep in his bunk at the station. The officer found a pistol, came back, and awakened the sleepy private. The Russian fired one shot, which grazed the American, but the pistol jammed, giving Rubanovitch time to get his own Colt and pump five bullets into the captain.21 “The officer sagged to the floor with a load of bullets in his body. ‘Please don’t shoot me any more’ he begged, ‘I’m dead.’ And these were the last words he said,” according to Lieutenant Kindall.22 Lt. Fairfax Channing, the officer of the day, arrested the private; however, he was found innocent of any wrongdoing after the facts became clear.23

  Shortly afterwards, Rubanovitch was involved in another drama. One evening in Sviyagino, Lieutenant Kindall was on duty at the train depot. As the evening train slid to a halt, Kindall received two garbled messages with instructions to hold the train. One car of the train was a Kalmykof armored car carrying several long-haired Cossacks; they, along with the conductor, demanded to know why the train needed to be held. The irate conductor shouted, “By what authority do you stop my train? You are not in America now you are in Russia!” Kindall called on Rubanovitch to translate; the interpreter pulled his revolver from his holster and shoved it in the belly of the conductor. “By this authority if you must know.”

  After thirty minutes, another indistinct message came through, allowing the train to leave. When the train was only five miles out of Sviyagino, it was riddled with Bolshevik bullets; when the train reached Spasskoye, the dead and wounded were removed. To the spectators in Spasskoye, it seemed as if the train was deliberately held long enough for darkness to fall and the Bolsheviks to creep to the edge of the tracks and pour their deadly fire onto it. Kindall later believed the messages he received were not from Vladivostok, but from an American-born partisan named Baranof, a local Bolshevik leader.24

  In other American sectors, bullets were replacing bulletins in conveying messages. In May, several reports came into Vladivostok of shots fired into trains in the Spasskoye sector. An intelligence report showed three villages near Sviyagino appeared to be the centers of unrest. Belaya Zerkov, Kronstadka, and Vasilkovka lay only about ten versts east of Sviyagino in the center of heavily forested, mountainous area perfect for defense.25

  Attempts were made to meet with Bolsheviks to reduce tensions. On one occasion, Capt. Lindsay P. Johns met with Bolshevik leader Baranof near Sviyagino. Baranof asked perplexing questions regarding the American position of allying itself with Semenov, Kalmykof, and other White Russian groups that had committed so many barbarous acts against the peasants of Russia. Johns could only read the proclamation of General Graves regarding the railroad. While Johns was in his meeting with Baranof, Lt. Montgomery Rice observed Baranof’s soldiers:

  Rice could perceive a spirit of purpose that distinguished them from most other soldiers. No matter if their rifles were foul with rust, their clothing worn to rags, their bodies sour with filth, their cheeks sunken from malnutrition, or otherwise how far below the standard of professional soldiers they were in appearance, it could not be denied that they were inspired men.26

  This meeting and others accomplished nothing. In his conversation, however, Baranof denied any connection with American deserter Karachun and said they would make every effort to capture him.

  On May 21, Maj. Fitzhugh Allderdice, commanding the Spasskoye units, received a frantic wire from Sviyagino: “Thirty five hundred Bolsheviks surround us send help for God’s sake.” Actually, about five hundred Bolshevik horsemen had come into the town simply to use the telegraph. They sent four wires, harmed no one, and left.27 On May 21, two bridges near Razdolnoye were blown up; a detachment was sent out to find the guilty parties, but found nothing.

  June would be the bloodiest month of the campaign.

  On June 2, a train was fired on between Sviyagino and Ussuri. On June 7, the bridge near Shmakovka was blown, but quickly repaired, and there were repeated attempts by the Bolos to sabotage train tracks during this period. On June 9, a patrol of White Russians was attacked five miles southeast of Spasskoye, and two were killed. That same day, a raiding party of four hundred Reds entered a village near Sviyagino; ignoring the presence of American guards, they stole telephones and raided the post office and a flour mill.

  As a result of those events, an expedition was sent on June 11 to the suspected headquarters of the Bolsheviks at Uspenka, several miles off the railroad. A detail from Company F was sent from Shmakovka; they had to cross a swampy section just in front of the town, so they spent the night of June 11 at a monastery. Pvt. Sam Liberberg wrote years later:

  Early the next morning, there were several sightings of the Reds on top of a ridge; as soon as the firing began, a patrol went forward to find their positions. The patrol, under Lt. Fairfax Channing, fired on the Reds and sparked immediate return fire. The lieutenant dashed forward and jumped in the
Bolo trenches, which were filled with dummies to fool the doughboys. He found himself alone, with several of his patrol wounded and seeking cover. Channing’s situation was serious. He was drawing fire from both the Reds and the Americans, who had no idea he had made it to the enemy trenches. Eventually, he was rescued and the Bolsheviks driven back. The next morning, before dawn, Channing led six squads into the village and drove out the Reds who had stayed behind.28

  The cost to the Americans was four wounded, two seriously, all of whom were sent to the hospital at Spasskoye.29 They claimed two enemy killed, several wounded, and several captured. Both Channing and Lt. Christian Cross won the DSC in that action.30

  A few miles down the railroad was the village of Kraefski, home to a platoon of Company F of the Twenty-seventh Infantry. Shortly before the Uspenka fight, a squad of Company C had garrisoned the town, but they were surrounded by Bolsheviks early one morning and gave up some telephone equipment to the raiders without a fight. The leader of this raiding party was identified as the deserter Karachun.31 Soon after, the platoon was replaced by Lt. Wilson Rich and his men. Major Wallace came through on June 11, taking two squads of Rich’s platoon on an expedition to Uspenka, leaving Rich with only two squads. That night, about midnight, a Russian woman came into the American compound and tried to tell them something, but the language barrier was too great. However, Rich felt she was trying to warn them, so he took his men from their warehouse quarters and had them sleep in a trench near a railroad embankment. They were awakened early the next morning by 150 Bolshevik infantry, plus about thirty-five Chinese “bandits” about to attack their warehouse. At 5:20 A.M. the attackers opened fire, riddling the empty warehouse, but the Americans held their fire. The Reds came charging up to the compound and were met by the first volley of American fire, which stopped them in their tracks.

  Two Chinese found refuge behind a pile of aspen logs and had a clear shot at the doughboys. Fortunately, two lucky shots killed the two Chinese; that broke the attack, and the Reds took to the woods. The cook, John Evans, placed himself on the thatched roof of a cook shed and shot nine more Bolsheviks, ending the half-hour battle.32

  Shortly after the firing stopped, Pvt. Walter Kellerman, while searching for wounded, came across a badly wounded Red soldier. As Kellerman knelt to tend to him, the wounded soldier, expecting to be killed, raised his rifle and shot Kellerman through the heart. His stunned buddies emptied their rifles at the Red; as he died, he muttered “Natcheevo, natcheevo,” which meant, “It really didn’t matter.”33

  Evans won a DSC for his bravery. The Americans lost one dead, and Pfc. Steve Trask was slightly wounded. Two members of Company F, not involved in the fighting, were captured while returning from a patrol. Pvt. Chester Burt was held only a few days, returning June 15, but Sgt. Chester Batchelor stayed with the Red units for fourteen days before he was released.34

  Both men identified one of the leaders of the attack as the deserter Karachun. The man in charge was called Gorko, an American-educated Russian who spoke perfect English. Batchelor reported that Karachun was the leader of forces in the Kraefski section and had a wife living in Uspenka.35 Karachun was now not only a deserter, but an active part of the group responsible for at least one American death. He was quoted as saying, after the Kraefski battle, “It was a great scrap, we shot them all to pieces. . . . I killed Lt. Rich myself I shot him and I saw him fall.”36 His enthusiasm for the raid and his part in it was somewhat premature given the few American casualties and the fact that Lieutenant Rich was neither killed nor wounded, but it was puzzling that someone could turn on his friends so viciously.

  There were additional clashes along the Trans-Siberian in those middle days of June. The Bolsheviks tore up rails a few miles north of Sviyagino and wrecked a train, although no one was injured. Japanese on the train claimed they killed one Red. On June 13, another train was wrecked, followed by a Bolshevik attack that killed three Russians and wounded eighteen civilians, plus one Japanese. While the wounded were being taken off the cars in Spasskoye, two Bolsheviks broke into a roundhouse nearby, started a locomotive, and rolled it downhill into the train, causing more injuries. “Japanese soldiers later picked up the Russians marched them up the tracks and bayoneted them from the rear allowing their bodies to fall in a ditch along the right of way.”37 The next day, few trains moved because of more track damage, and on June 15, Reds fired on Japanese patrols in the village of Dobovskaya, just outside Spasskoye, killing two, so the village was burned to the ground by the Japanese. To say the least, there was little peace in the area.

  A confrontation in Sviyagino on June 25 involved only Allied forces. Just after the Kraefski fight, a Japanese troop train pulled into town, unloading a detachment of its soldiers and their equipment. Captain Johns protested to headquarters in Vladivostok, since the village was well within the boundaries of the American sector. The Japanese set up camp across town and, for some reason, were allowed to stay. They began night patrols, while the Americans did the same. There were attempts to designate patrol areas, passwords, and responsibilities, but the inevitable happened on a dark night on June 25.

  Lieutenant Kindall was leading a patrol when, without any warning, he was fired on from out of the darkness. Kindall thought he heard Japanese voices and ordered a cease-fire; a call for recognition brought only silence. After a few minutes, firing broke out again. “We fought back at them once more, and during this second round of the fighting were able to do better shooting on our side.” One American bullet struck home, and the shriek of the wounded Japanese brought the firing to a halt. As the two sides slowly approached each other, the Japanese found one of their men dead and two wounded. The Americans counted only one wounded, Lieutenant Kindall. Kindall later wrote in his book that his “only distinction is that he happened to be the first American to qualify for the award of the Purple Heart for a wound received in a fight with the Japanese.”38

  After the fight, Johns met with the surly Japanese commander; their brief conversation ended with the Japanese threat that war between his country and the United States would come of the matter. Johns’s brief reply was, “you’ll find us good and ready!” As a result of the late-night encounter, Captain Johns requested assistance in removing the Japanese unit, but found to his dismay that his Company C was the one ordered to move out.

  Another fight at about the same time was not between Reds and Americans, nor between Japanese or Cossacks and Americans, but between Americans themselves. Late in June, Lieutenant Kindall found himself in command of two squads ordered to patrol a hotly contested section of the railroad between Sviyagino and Drosdov Siding, some three miles away. There was a wooded area close to the section of the track that concealed Red troops, who would wait for passing trains, open fire, and then disappear. As Kindall and his men moved up the tracks, the sky darkened and the rains came, making it almost impossible for them to see each other.

  The lieutenant put nine men on one side of the tracks and ten on the other, then scurried between the two columns to keep control. As the rain began, they heard a train approaching slowly behind them. They decided to make themselves conspicuous as the train approached and waved, shouting “Amerikanski!” as loud as they could, but the darkened train passed slowly into the darkness ahead with no sign of recognition. A few minutes later they heard firing from the direction of the vanished train. Kindall was not sure what the firing meant, but realized that his men appearing out of the darkness might well be mistaken for unfriendly forces and draw fire. He cautiously approached the sound of the firing, which died out as they neared. They still could not see the train, but a match lit briefly in the distance showed the location of some force.

  Kindall’s two columns were still on both sides of the track; he crossed and recrossed the track to give the columns directions. As he crossed, a rifle fired, and he, without the least bit of ceremony, threw himself down the bank and ordered his unit to open fire. He was amazed to hear the sound of machine guns and dozens of r
ifles and see their twinkling flashes ahead of him and on his left. He was sure he was done for, outnumbered and outgunned. Suddenly, one of the old-timers, Corporal Durham, recognized the distinctive sounds of a Browning automatic rifle and realized the men they were fighting were Americans. He sent a shout down both columns to cease fire, and suddenly all was quiet. When the din of battle receded, Kindall found he had been facing Company E and another infantry company with a machine gun section.

  The men had been on the train, transferring from Khabarovsk to Spasskoye.39 The Bolsheviks had fired into the train and the men dismounted just as Kindall approached. Kindall guessed that the match was from a Bolshevik, that the firing from his left was from the Reds, and that the Bolos, recognizing superior firepower, beat a hasty retreat. The engagement was costly; Sgt. Andrew Buchanan of Kindall’s patrol was killed and Pvt. William A. Roberts was wounded in the scalp.40 Company E’s only loss was Pvt. William Miller; severely wounded in the thigh, he was taken to the Spasskoye hospital where he died on June 23.41

  After this disheartening event, the Twenty-seventh Infantry Regiment began a quiet period that would last until the waning days of the campaign. There were still serious problems keeping the trains on some semblance of a schedule. With interference from the Cossack’s armored trains, White government officials, and Bolshevik trickery, there was little hope that an efficient railroad would ever emerge. The Americans were exposed to the excesses of the Cossacks on all their sectors, but were powerless to interfere.

  During the summer, a verification of the enormity of Semenov’s cruelties was made in a report by Lt. J. S. Davidson of the expedition’s Intelligence Section. On September 3, 1919, he reported to his headquarters that on August 19 a trainload of Bolshevik prisoners and suspected Bolsheviks were taken out of the cars at Adrianovka, led some three versts outside town, and executed. Davidson visited the scene three days later: