Russian Sideshow

by Robert L Willett

  Just to make sure that Colonel Williams knew the situation, Lieutenant Fribley sent a message through the lines, stating that he and Corporal Reed were indeed prisoners of the partisans. He also said the other three men, Daly, Bullard, and Moore, were being held with them. He repeated the demands of the partisan committee that Samuschenko, Iakovleff, and Setti be released. It was assumed those were the same men requested in the partisan’s formal demand. He closed with a terse, “Request that you make every possible effort for our release.” Then, he asked for some cigarettes.29 Williams reply was brief. “You may be assured that everything within my power will be done to secure the release of all captured. Am sending cigarettes.”30

  While these negotiations were being pursued, the Suchan area had exploded into a minor war. Two cable houses on the cable section of the railroad had been dynamited and put out of action, and bridges between Kangaus and Fanza were burned on June 23. A train carrying U.S. and Japanese soldiers was fired on near Sitsa, wounding one American. Lt. F. C. Shepard, based at Tahe, heard firing in the direction of Fanza and took four squads to investigate. He got as far as Kishmich, where he found that two Chinese soldiers stationed there had been killed, while five other Chinese had beaten off a Red Guard attack.31

  In addition, partisans fired into the camp at Suchan; no one was hit, but all telephone lines into the mine area were cut.32 Companies C and D were still struggling to reach the mines, but it was a rugged march, even though Colonel Williams had cautioned them about the route. In some spots, with the cable cars out of commission, they literally used the cog tracks of the cable cars as ladders to reach the tops of the grades.33 Not only were these troops headed for Suchan, but Maj. Sidney Graves, the general’s son, and Lieutenant Colonel Eichelberger had been ordered to Suchan as well. Eichelberger brought a message from Graves suggesting that any punitive expedition wait until the captives were released to avoid any possible harsh treatment toward them.34

  With the obvious change in the partisan attitude toward the Americans and their obvious attempt to drive out the railroad guards, General Graves ordered that his outlying detachments should be reinforced so that none would number fewer than one hundred. A reinforcing platoon of twenty-one men under Lt. Lawrence Butler was sent off to Romanovka. While Colonel Eichelberger and Major Graves were traveling from Vladivostok to Suchan, they passed through Romanovka on June 24 and became concerned about the camp.

  The American garrison was camped on the bank of a stream in this village and the Russians were walking through the camp.35 The whole garrison looked in poor condition for defense and I made a note to communicate as soon as I reached Suchan with Major Graves and recommend that this garrison be told to prepare trenches around their camp which was made of tents with one or two log houses.36

  The two senior officers continued on their way to Suchan virtually as Lieutenant Butler was arriving in Romanovka. Earlier in the day a platoon of Company C had been stationed there along with Company A, but for unknown reasons, they moved out as Butler moved in. The Romanovka camp had as a permanent detail fifty-one men from the third platoon of Company A, with Lt. Krieger in charge. Their duty was to guard a nearby bridge and the section of rail assigned to them. By nightfall on June 24, with Butler’s arrival, the Yanks in Romanovka numbered seventy-two men.

  Relations had seemed cordial between the townspeople and the doughboys, who exchanged money and goods when possible, and passed out small presents from time to time. The camp was located between the village and the tracks, with three log houses next to the camp. The village was adjacent to the railroad tracks, but was overshadowed by a large bluff covered with shrubs on the other side of the tracks. Lieutenant Krieger had established several outguards to be manned, including one on top of the bluff, where they had dug a small trench. Other guards were set on either side of the camp along the railroad.

  The area had been quiet for some time, so the guards had become very relaxed about their duties. It was normal for guards to come in about daylight, but daylight there arrived early. Dawn came about 4:00 A.M. on the morning of June 25, ushering in one of the bloodiest days of the two Russian interventions.

  By 4:30 A.M., all of the outguards were back in their tents, most of them asleep. One of the guards was Pvt. Abel Anderson, posted about two hundred yards north of camp on the railroad. The previous night there had been two men on that post, but on that night, Anderson was alone. “I walked from midnight to 4:00 A.M., no one inspected my post between midnight and daylight. I just came in at 4 A.M. when my time was up and I went to bed. I was asleep when the firing started.”37 At the same time, the guard on the bluff scrambled down the hillside, headed for his bunk. By 4:30 A.M. the platoon was virtually unguarded; apparently, the only ones up were the cook, Claude Hollis, and two interior guards, Pvt. Pete Uteralt and Pvt. William Roberts, walking their posts inside the camp.

  As the Americans went about their routines, the partisans, Bolshevik leaders, and Red Guards had been studying the increasing laxness of the American camp. With knowledge of the unit’s procedures, a decision was made to strike the Americans at Romanovka. As a part of the plan, the Reds burned one of the bridges on the northwest side of Romanovka, hoping to prevent any reinforcements from that direction. During the night of June 24, one of the fiery Bolsheviks, Sergei Lazo, and his men, estimated to be about two hundred, crept up the back side of the bluff. As dawn came and the sentry left his post, they slipped over the top of the rise and filtered silently into the tall brush.

  At about 4:45 A.M., they opened fire from the brush only a short distance away directly into the tents. Many of the men were killed as they slept. One man was reportedly hit seventeen times.38 The first volleys were deadly for the sleeping Americans, toppling cots, smashing furniture, and shredding the tents. As the doughboys stumbled from their tents, half naked, many wounded, but all in shock, the partisans called, “Throw up your hands and we won’t fire!” Those who did so were promptly shot.39

  But after the first volleys, the stunned Americans began firing back. Lieutenant Butler, whose jaw and mouth had been shattered in the first minutes, swept the brush with an automatic weapon, and the others who could, joined in his fire. His wounds were horrifying, but he kept his men inspired with his leadership. He wrote orders, pointing or muttering through his shattered face, directing fire, withdrawing the men to the log houses, and sending for help. For four hours, Butler directed his men despite severe bleeding and immense pain. He, among others, was awarded the DSC for his heroism on that day. The survivors directed a withering fire into the hillside brush. Two automatic riflemen, Emmet Lunsford and Roy Jones, inserted fresh twenty-round magazines and broke up a Red charge that was just beginning; George Strakey was exposed outside the log house, but with his single shot ’03 rifle kept many of the attackers pinned down.40 There were others, too, who never made the record books, but kept the remaining men of Company A alive.

  Wounded or not, the doughboys rallied, moving first to a makeshift cover, then to the three log houses. Some of them died getting there, but once in the houses, they had reasonable protection; with their automatic weapons, they held the Reds at bay. Running low on ammunition, Lieutenant Krieger, Pfc. Oscar Tucker, Pvt. Densie Carr, and Pvt. Gustav Schlicter sprinted to the tents to get more.41 When they got back to the log house in which Butler had established headquarters, they found a bloody shambles. Many of the wounded, who had been dragged from the tents to the houses, had died there. Many others were waiting for medical attention, which was provided by two Russian girls. One was the girlfriend of Sgt. Almus Beck of Company C, who had remained in the village when Beck departed with his company.42 As the wounded lay quietly in the log huts, Beck’s girl bound up their wounds, washed them and even, at her own peril, went outside to get water for the injured Americans.43 Another tale of heroism was that of a crippled young girl nicknamed Peggy who lived in one of the three log houses where many of the wounded and dying were taken.44 Fifty years later Pvt. Alan Ferguson remem
bered the aid she provided the wounded.

  While the firing was at its peak, two volunteers, Cpl. Leo Heinzman and Cpl. Valeryan Brodnicki, were sent to find a way to get to Novo Nezhino, some seven miles away, to find help. They each chose different routes, but Heinzman was the luckiest; unwounded, he heard the train coming from Novo Nezhino, which had stopped after being fired on. It was actually backing up to gain cover from a nearby hill when the American sergeant-in-charge, Sylvester Moore, spotted Heinzman signaling frantically. Here the stories conflict. Moore’s report said he had seventeen men on board and that Heinzman told him that would do no good against the estimated two hundred Reds attacking them. With that information, Moore took his train back to Novo Nezhino and passed the word of the disaster to nearby stations.45 However, Corporal Heinzman remembered the train episode differently:

  I reached the passenger train first and told the train guard that Company “A” was getting massacred. Instead of detraining the train guard the sgt in charge of his own accord went back to Novo Nezhino where the train remained for at least two hours before it started back to Romanovka. The train first reached Romanovka during the heaviest firing. It did no good whatever when it reached Romanovka the second time. The fighting was all over then. I was the first man to board the train and it was then about 3 miles from Romanovka backing toward Novo Nezhino. No one that I know of sent it back to Novo Nezhino for reinforcements.46

  Brodnicki arrived somewhat later and was tended by the medics, reinforcing Heinzman’s version. Sergeant Moore returned to Romanovka, bringing half of the Novo Nezhino Company E detachment under Lt. Lewis Lorimer. Lorimer took these men, with the few unwounded Company A survivors, and swept the area, finding only a few dead Bolsheviks. Other reinforcements began to arrive long after the fighting had stopped. Company K arrived about 9:00 P.M., slowed by the burned out bridge northwest of Romanovka, and had its first look at the devastation. Private Rohrer from K Company wrote:

  It will always be imminent in the minds of us who witnessed the surroundings. It was unbelievable that anyone could have been fortunate enough to have survived the tents were literally riddled, there wasn’t an object in the camp that didn’t have several bullet holes through it the field cots were still damp with blood from the men killed as they slept.47

  Lieutenant Butler was badly wounded and would be hospitalized for years; Pvt. William Roberts was among the dead, killed as he quietly walked his sentry post.

  The dead and wounded were tended to, but the casualty count was numbing. Nineteen had been killed outright and twenty-six wounded,48 five of whom later died of their wounds. The camp cleanup began; Company E returned to Novo Nezhino, and the wounded and dead were sent to Vladivostok on a hospital train. Hospital Train #1 had been at Kangaus; as soon as he received word of the disaster, Capt. Oscar Frundt of the Medical Corps ordered the train to the site. Under sporadic sniper fire, the dead and wounded were loaded onto the train. Since the bridge between Shkotova and Romanovka had been burned, it was necessary to unload the Kangaus train and ferry the doughboys across the river to the waiting Vladivostok train. So, the wounded had one more painful ordeal, being ferried on litters across the river, jarred and jolted in a difficult crossing. The dead were put on one open boxcar and the wounded on two other cars. They even managed to transfer the mattresses and blankets to the Vladivostok train.

  More help boarded at Shkotova; while on the trains, the wounded were cared for by three Russian nurses and two American doctors with all the equipment and comfort that could be provided.49 As they arrived in Vladivostok, the personnel at Evacuation Hospital #17 took responsibility. Pvt. Sam Richardson, who was on duty, wrote, “The entire personnel of the Hospital worked through out the night, operating, administering medicine and embalming the bodies. I worked during the night preparing the casualty list to be sent by wireless to the United States.”50

  As the remaining men of Company A viewed the few partisan dead, they realized with anger that some of these were the very villagers with whom they had traded, shared meals, and become friends.51 It gave them a new perspective on the war that now raged and raised questions regarding who might become the enemy.

  In Romanovka, Major Cutrer and Company K’s commander, Capt. William Crom, had no desire to see a repeat of the deadly attack, so late that afternoon, Cutrer had a train waiting at Romanovka to take two platoons to Novo Nezhino in case of a partisan attack. They planned to arrive just at daybreak to flank the Reds if they attacked there. In the meantime, Sgt. James Gardner, in charge of the remnant of Company E still at Novo Nezhino, had the same concern; his men slept outside beneath a hastily built barricade of railroad ties, awaiting dawn on June 26.

  The partisans had achieved such success the previous day that they used the same tactic, this time creeping along the railroad tracks, still protected by heavy brush. They began by firing into the tents, but Gardner fired a volley from behind his ties, and the Reds took cover. Gardner’s men kept firing away at the Reds, not sure of their effect, but kept the enemy from charging. Eventually, Gardner heard firing from the railroad tracks on the west side of town, heralding the arrival of Lieutenant Lorimer and parts of Company K.52 Cutrer had hoped they would arrive earlier to cut off the Reds, but train personnel, lacking urgency, were two hours late.53 Still, little damage was done to the Americans: only one Company E man was wounded. Lorimer led the men toward the village, chasing the remaining Bolsheviks; there was sporadic firing on both sides, but by evening, all was quiet.

  Later, in August, when the Thirty-first Infantry band was sent to the area to play, Bandsman Pvt. William Johnson noted that the Romanovka tragedy was still very much in evidence. There were trenches and dugouts, but most noticeable were the bullet holes still very visible in the tent sides. The next day, they played at Novo Nezhino and remarked that those tents were punctured by bullet holes as well.54

  As Lieutenant Colonel Eichelberger passed through Romanovka on June 24, he spotted Karl Phillips boarding the train there. Phillips was one of three Russian spies identified by Major Cutrer as constantly feeding alarming information to Lieutenant Otto at Kangaus, keeping his unit on constant alert, which exhausted them. Eichelberger believed that Phillips was responsible for the attack on Romanovka.55 Phillips was arrested, but not disarmed, and subsequently taken to headquarters in Shkotova, where he hoped to see Major Cutrer. When he was refused, he grew angry and demanded to see the major. He drew his pistol, putting it to his head and claiming he was ready to die. His guard, Sgt. Arthur Chedister, reached for his own pistol and put in a clip, then ordered Phillips to drop his gun. Instead, Phillips fired; a shootout followed with one other guard, Corporal Hunsaker, shot in the leg. Phillips died on the headquarters floor, shot six times.56

  On the day of the Romanovka attack, a train near Sitsa was fired on, and one Company H private was wounded. A few miles away from Novo Nezhino, other units were attacked the next day. After their grueling mountain crossing, Companies C and D and other elements on their way from Kangaus to Suchan got as far as Sitsa, where they were able to board the narrow gauge headed for Suchan. They cautiously sent out an advance unit, squads from C and D Companies. The advance guard was fired on from the hills; one man was slightly wounded. Soon the main body moved up, but the advance party took more fire, and a member of Company D was severely wounded. The report estimated Red casualties were thirty killed, “actual dead Bolsheviks actually counted—nineteen.”57

  On June 30, Company K, with parts of Company E, left Novo Nezhino to move against a partisan stronghold south and east of the town, in the village of Petrovka. They came in from the north, while a landing party of 140 sailors and Marines under Lt. Comdr. F. D. Manock, plus a company of White Russians, landed at 7:50 A.M. on July 1 at Andrieva Bay, preparing to attack Petrovka from the south.58 By 10:35 P.M. the naval landing parties had returned to the ship and were back aboard. The two forces found only light resistance from the Reds in Petrovka so the doughboys returned to Novo Nezhino at 3:00 P.M. on Jul
y 2, suffering no casualties.

  The next action would be down the Suchan Valley to meet ships at Amerika Bay, ships bringing badly needed supplies from Vladivostok to the beleaguered Suchan garrison.

  23

  The Suchan Valley

  [Y]ou are now authorized to move against gangs which are now formed or that may be in the process of formation in your vicinity.

  —AEFS Headquarters

  BY July 1, Colonel Eichelberger and Major Graves were in Suchan with Companies C, D, H, and M, one platoon of Machine Gun Company, and a one-pounder gun section. They were essentially cut off from the Shkotova units, both in communications and in supplies, because the hill country between Kangaus and Fanza was in Red hands. The Suchan Valley, including the mines, became a separate campaign with Colonel Williams in charge, having virtually no communication with his superiors in Vladivostok. On June 26, an official communiqué from General Graves came through Colonel Robinson to all AEF commanders:

  [Y]ou are now authorized to move against gangs which are now formed or that may be in the process of formation in your vicinity. Use your own judgment as to the distance from the railroad that you go. In view of acts of these people it is considered that only by destruction of these gangs can railroad be operated successfully. Acknowledge.1

  The funerals of Lieutenant Ward and the three men killed at Novitskaya were held in Suchan on June 24 and attended by men of the Mine Guard, as well as a platoon of Japanese troops. It was a brief service that brought somber thoughts to those attending. On June 27, Eichelberger wrote his wife a poignant comment on Ward’s death. “On a little hill near here are four fresh graves—Lt Ward and 3 soldiers killed at Novitskaya last Sunday. He was just graduated from West Point last fall and now lies way off on the other side of the world with faded flowers on his grave.”2

  On June 27, Eichelberger set out to accomplish the exchange of the men captured earlier while fishing. He took to the meeting an interpreter and the partisan leader Samuschenko, who was to be exchanged; he was followed by two platoons of Company D, which quietly stayed about a mile back. His proceedings with the partisan leader Ilyakov took much longer than he expected; the men of Company D began to push toward the village, concerned about the colonel and the prisoners. Eventually the exchange was made, and the five much-relieved prisoners were escorted back to the mines, along with Fribley’s mule.3 Colonel Eichelberger was the official head of G-2 (Military Intelligence) in Vladivostok, but in Suchan, he became at one time simply a rifleman and at another time a squad, then a platoon, leader. In each of those roles, he was a great addition to the units involved.