Yanks in Russia

[Pete1052]

From The Stars and Stripes, France, Friday, March 28, 1919:

YANKS IN RUSSIA STILL FIGHTING IN BITTER COLD

Northern Front Active as Ever; Bolsheviks Gain In Numbers

Fighting continues on the Northern Front.

With 11 o'clock of November 11 a dim yesterday and peace for tomorrow on the lips of the Conference and the most permanent K.P.'s in the Army of Occupation with their eyes turned hopefully to Hoboken, it may be hard for the A.E.F. to realize that their comrades are still under fire in Russia.

As a matter of fact, more than 4,500 Americans flung across 400 miles of snow-bound battle-front in a bleak and frozen country of marshes and snow-drifts the size of France are still engaging an ever increasing Bolshevik army.

The record of the Russian expeditionary forces [illegible words on fold of original newspaper]. Yet the latest reports that come down from Archangel say that the Yanks are strong in morale and that both officers and men have performed "valiant service" beyond expectation, and this service under constant duty in a primitive country under almost Arctic conditions.

Day Begins at 10:30

It is hard to picture the setting for this little group of fighters, past the battle frontiers of civilization, struggling on long after Germany's last cannon has been silenced. They are in a great unsettled country with only a sparse sprinkling of peasants' huts here and there in a great waste of snow and marsh. Daylight begins at 10:30 a.m., and darkness begins again before the afternoon is half over. The temperature is from 10 to 20 degrees below zero and the men are equipped like Arctic explorers in sealskins and Shackleton boots.

Perhaps the greatest problem that the forces face is that of communication. Even the wounded have to be evacuated on sleighs, and most of the liaison between the scattered groups is established by the same means or by men on snow-shoes or skis.

Landing on August 2, the Allied forces composed of British, French and Americans, which now totals nearly 33,000 men, pushed their way southward from the port of Murman[sk] some 250 miles and about the same distance and in the same general direction from the base at Archangel along the Dwina river and to the west of it. They also drove east of Archangel. Except at Shenkursk, the southernmost outpost, where the Reds launched a powerful attack toward the end of January, the fronts have changed little since they were first established.

[More to follow, motivation permitting. This has been typed from an old brittle original copy set in tiny type and my eyes aren't what they once were.]

[centurion]

Relevant

.

[centurion]

US 339th Infantry convoy between Archangel and Berezinski, 18 Jan 1919

[James Kastner]

Mark V female tank in Arkhangelsk

[PBI]

What happened to the Americans taken POW by the Bolsheviks ?

[Dolphin]

Two books that spring to mind about the US 339th Infantry Regiment in North Russia are:

The Ignorant Armies by E M Halliday, ISBN 0 553 28456 8; and

Fighting the Bolsheviks by D E Carey, ISBN 0 89141 631 5.

The

Gareth

[Pete1052]

What happened to the Americans taken POW by the Bolsheviks ?

I don't know. Probably it was similar to what happened to British or French soldiers taken prisoner by them.

[PBI]

I don't know. Probably it was similar to what happened to British or French soldiers taken prisoner by them.

Off to a Siberian Gulag ? or worse ?

[centurion]

Mark V female tank in Arkhangelsk

Got a shot of the other side? - I think it should be a composite (hermaphrodite)

[centurion]

What happened to the Americans taken POW by the Bolsheviks ?

Don't think they took prisoners

[truthergw]

They may have done. They certainly distributed leaflets among them urging them to go home.

[Dolphin]

Don't think they took prisoners

See: http://www.gwpda.org/memoir/aef_cong.htm for information on US servicemen held by the Bolsheviks/Soviet government.

Gareth

[David B]

There's a few snippets about the American troops in the book Anzacs in Arkhangel by Michael Challinger.

David

[Dolphin]

I should have also mentioned Perry Moore's Stamping Out the Virus, ISBN 0 7643 1625 7, a well-detailed account of Allied Intervention in the Civil War. It's packed full of facts and figures, but reading it is very hard going.

Gareth

[centurion]

See: http://www.gwpda.org/memoir/aef_cong.htm for information on US servicemen held by the Bolsheviks/Soviet government.

Gareth

The only direct evidence of prisoners being taken arises out of accounts of the Americans fighting in Siberia where some where taken prisoner by partisan patrols and handed over to the Bolsheviks and some wounded that could not be evacuated. This is not North Russia the US base being back in Vladivostok. AFAIK whilst the papers to which the link connects assumes POWs from North Russia because of the discrepancies in MIA figures and reports of Americans being seen in camps the only direct evidence of POWs comes from the Trans Siberian campaign a good account of which is to be found here http://www.31stinfantry.org/Documents/Chapter%202.pdf

Some useful links for the North Russian campaign

http://pages.prodigy.net/mvgrobbel/photos/...bel_letters.htm

http://pbma.grobbel.org/

http://polarbears.si.umich.edu/index.pl?no...lastnode_id=272

[James Kastner]

Got a shot of the other side? - I think it should be a composite (hermaphrodite)

You know...I'm dum...I always try to attribute pictures and links when I post things to the internet. I did not intend for this to come off as my work. I found it here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mark_in_Arkhangelsk_RU.JPG

If you translate the cyrillic text at the bottom it come out:

The first tanks, which arrived in Russia, were 20 tanks “run” FT -17 of the composition of the 3rd company 303- GO of the regiment of assault artillery. Under the impacts of the 2nd Ukrainian Soviet Army the Frenchmen threw their tanks and they were reached as trophies to the Soviet State. But the first Englishmen were arrived on March 22, 1919 six large Mk V and six lungs Mk A. the total number of tanks, placed to the armed forces of the south of Russia, composed 73 machines Mk of the V, Mk A and “run” FT 17. In the progress of combat in the south of Russia the part of the tanks they were lost in combat, especially bloody in the region of tsarina's and on the Kakhovka bridgehead, but after the seizure of the Crimea and flight of the remainders of the white armies of the Red Army rich trophies were reached. Especially with the taking of Taganrog - 19 tanks, Rostov - 9 tanks, Novorossisk - 18 tanks, Theodosius - 5 tanks, Sevastopol - 6 tanks. Were reached the Red Army, also, on one Mk V and Mk A on the north, in Arkhangelsk. After acquiring by this quantity of armament, RKKA (Workers' and Peasants' Red Army) began to form her own tank units. Especially because fifteen additional tanks “Russian run” (analog “run” FT 17) were made at the plant “red [sormovo]”. Each of them bore proper name (although I and I differ from theme, I cannot refuse to itself in the pleasure to transfer them): “Fighter for freedom comrade Lenin” (assumed “comrade Lenin” personally comrade [Trotskiy]), “Parisian [komunna]”, “Carl Marx”, “Leo [Trotskiy]”, “Lieutenant Schmidt”, “Carl [Libknekht]”, “red champion”, “the Red Star”, “proletarian”, “free Russia”, “Black Sea sailor”, “storm”, “Kerch'”, “victory”.

[centurion]

Not to worry James - perhaps my post should have read "If you had a post of the other side you'd probably find that it is a composite" ie has a male sponson

[James Kastner]

Very good centurion, I seem to recall that you are quite knowledgeable of the GW tanks.

kind regards,

Jim

[Sidearm]

This tank - 9303 - is unusual in that it is a Female. It is the only existing Mark V in Russia that is. Whether it was converted from a Female to a Composite and then back to a Female I cannot say.

Gwyn

[Pete1052]

In 1943 when my dad was drafted there was a master sergeant at his reception station, the Presidio of Monterey, California, who had served in Siberia in the vicinity of Vladivostok. In 1982-84 I lived next to the Presidio of Monterey when I was in the 7th Infantry Division at Fort Ord.

[James Kastner]

In 1943 when my dad was drafted there was a master sergeant at his reception station, the Presidio of Monterey, California, who had served in Siberia in the vicinity of Vladivostok. In 1982-84 I lived next to the Presidio of Monterey when I was in the 7th Infantry Division at Fort Ord.

Hi Pete,

Off topic. My parents were married at the Presidio in 1960. My dad was a Lieutenant stationed at Fort Ord and stole the Colonels daughter . Small world.

regards,

Jim

[centurion]

In 1943 when my dad was drafted there was a master sergeant at his reception station, the Presidio of Monterey, California, who had served in Siberia in the vicinity of Vladivostok. In 1982-84 I lived next to the Presidio of Monterey when I was in the 7th Infantry Division at Fort Ord.

Well he could have served in Siberia and he could have served in Vladivostok but he could not have served "in Siberia in the vicinity of Vladivostok" as this port is not in Siberia. It was one terminal on the trans Siberian railway and as such became the anchor point for American operations along that railway. Siberia, where much of the action took place, is some way to the North West.

Its also worth noting that the Americans also occupied Harbin in Chinese Manchuria an operation also based on Vladivostok

[centurion]

Technically the Americans did not serve in Siberia. The confusion comes because at one time western geographers put the borders of Siberia on the Pacific Coast rather than at the watershed to the West which is where geographical Siberia ends (political Siberia is smaller). If he was serving in the vicinity of Vladivostock he was probably at Suchin (now Partizansk) in Primorsky Krai (as is Vladivostok). The mines established to coal the Russian Pacific fleet were located there and were seen as a strategic asset. There was considerable partisan activity there (as the current name reflects) and the Americans had a number of officers and men taken prisoner by them. A short but fruitless battle was fought at nearby Novitskaya in a vain attempt to recover some of these men. Most were later returned in exchanges. Most of the American fighting was around the mines and ended when the Red forces cut the narrow gauge railway along which coal from the mines reached the main Trans Siberian Railway. Without this the mines were useless and the American forces withdrew.

[David B]

No doubt the salt mines were a bit (further) west.

[centurion]

No doubt the salt mines were a bit (further) west.

Majority of Russian Salt comes from around the Caspian. Solotvyno in the Ukraine was also a major site of salt mines.