The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki Part 26

It was the commanding officer of this Ambulance Company, Captain Rosenfeld, who, though too strict to be popular with his outfit, was held in very high esteem by the doughboys for his vigilant attention to them. It was a sight to see him with his dope bottle of cough syrup going from post to post dosing the men who needed it. He will not be forgotten by the man who was stricken with acute appendicitis at a post where no medical detachment was stationed. He commandeered an engine and box car and ran out to the place and took the man into the field hospital himself and operated inside an hour, saving the man's life. For his gallantry in going to treat wounded men at posts which were under fire, the French commander remembered him with a citation. He is the officer whom the Bolshevik artillery tried to snipe with three-inch sh.e.l.ls, as he pa.s.sed from post to post during a quiet time at Verst 445.

At Yemetskoe in February, one night just after the terrible retreat from Shenkursk, forty wounded American, British, and Russian soldiers lay on stretchers on the floor in British field hospital. They were just in from the evacuation from Shenkursk front, cold and faint from hunger.

There was no American medical personnel at that village. They were all at the front. Mess Sgt. Vincent of "F" Company went in to see how the wounded soldiers were getting along. He was just in time to see the British medical sergeant come in with a pitcher of tea, tin cups, hard tack, and margarine and jam. He put it on the floor and said; "Here is your supper; go to it."

Sgt. Vincent protested to the English sergeant that the supper was not fit for wounded men and that they should be helped to take their food.

The British sergeant swore at him, kicked him out of the hospital and reported him to the British medical officer who attempted, vainly, to put the outraged American sergeant under arrest.

Sergeant Vincent then reported the matter to Captain Ramsay of "F"

Company, who ordered him to use "F" Company funds to buy foods at the British N. A. C. B. canteen. This, with what the Y. M. C. A. gave the sergeant, enabled him to feed the American and Russian wounded the day that they rested there. This deed was done repeatedly by Mess Sgt.

Vincent during those dreadful days. In all, he took care of over three hundred sick and wounded Americans and Russians that pa.s.sed back from the fighting lines through Yemetskoe.

Doughboys at Seletskoe tell of equally heartless treatment. There at 20 degrees below zero they were required one day to form sick call line outside of the British medical officer's nice warm office. This was not necessary and he was compelled to accede to the firm insistence of the American company commander that his sick men should not stand out in the cold. That was only one of many such outrageous incidents. And the doughboys unfortunately did not always have a st.u.r.dy American officer present to protect them as in this case.

Corporal Simon Bogacheff states that he left Archangel December 8th or 9th with seventy-three other wounded men and "flu" victims. After fifteen days the "Stephen" landed at Dundee after a very rough voyage in the pitching old boat. He had to buy stuff on the side from the cooks as he could not bear the British rations. Men were obliged to steal raw potatoes and buy lard and fry them. The corporal, who could talk the Serbian language, fraternized with them and gained entrance to a place where he could see English sergeants' mess. Steaks and vegetables for them and cases of beer.

Alfred Starikoff of Detroit states that he was sent out of Archangel in early winter suffering from an incurable running sore in his ear. He boarded an ice-breaker at the edge of the frozen White Sea. After a four-hour struggle they cleared the icebound sh.o.r.e and made the open sea, which was not open but filled with a great floe of polar ice. At Murmansk he was transferred to a hospital ship and then without examination of his ear trouble was sent to sh.o.r.e. There he put in five protesting weeks doing orderly work at British officers' quarters.

Finally he was allowed to proceed to England, Leith, Liverpool, Southampton, London, Notty Ash, and thence to Brest, thence to the U. S.

in May to Ford Hospital. The delay in Murmansk did him no good. American veterans of the campaign know that this is not the only case of where sick and wounded doughboys were delayed at Murmansk, once merely to make room for British officers who were neither wounded nor sick. Let Uncle Sam remember this in his next partnership war.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Several people tending boats and fishing gear.]

ROULEAU Hot Summer Day at Pinega Before War

[Ill.u.s.tration: Several people observing ice jams.]

DOUD Dvina River Ice Jam

[Ill.u.s.tration: A shed in a clearing in the forest.]

WAGNER Mejinovsky--Near Kodish

[Ill.u.s.tration: Six soldiers standing in the snow.]

MCKEE Bolo General Under Flag Truce Near 445--April 1919

[Ill.u.s.tration: Several soldiers, some reading doc.u.ments.]

U S OFFICIAL PHOTO After a Prisoner Exchange Parley

Only on the Pinega front did the American medical officer enjoy free action. An interesting story could be told of the American hospital and the two Russian Red Cross (local) hospitals and the city civil hospital which were all under control of Capt. C. R. Laird, the red-haired, where he had any, unexcitable old doctor from Nebraska, who treated one hundred and fourteen wounded Russian soldiers in one night.

And a romantic thread in the narrative would be the story of Sistra Lebideva, the alleged Bolshevik female spy, who was released from prison in Pinega by the American commanding officer and given duty as nurse in the Russian receiving hospital. She was a trained nurse in an ap.r.o.n, and a Russian beauty in her fine clothes. The Russian lieutenant who acted as intelligence officer on the American commander's staff in investigating the nurse's case, fell hopelessly in love with her. An American lieutenant, out of friendship for the Russian officer, several weeks later took the nurse to Archangel disguised as a soldier. Then the Russian lieutenant was ordered to Archangel to explain his conduct. He had risked his commission and involved himself in appearances of pro-Bolshevism by disobeying an order to send the suspected nurse in as a spy. He had connived at her escape from her enemies in Pinega, who, when the Americans left, would have ousted her from the hospital and thrust her back into prison. He was saved by the intercession of the American officer and she was set free upon explanations. But the romance ended abruptly when Sistra Lebideva threw the Russian lieutenant over and went to nurse on another front where later the Russians turned traitor.

The 337th Field Hospital Company was trained at Camp Custer as a part of the 310th Sanitary Train, was detached in England and sent to North Russia with the other American units. It was commanded by Major Jonas Longley, Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, who till April was the senior American medical officer. The enlisted personnel consisted of eighty men.

The first duty of the unit in Russia was caring for "flu" patients. It went up the Dvina River to Beresnik on September 22nd, taking over a Russian civilian hospital, Three weeks later the hospital barge dubbed "The Michigan" came up from Archangel with the "B" section of Field Hospital Company. Five days later this section of the field hospital proceeded by hospital sidewheeler to Shenkursk and took over a large high school building for a permanent field hospital. Here the unit gave service to the one hundred and fifty cases of "flu" among the Russians.

This was where Miss Valentine, the English girl who had been teaching school for several years in Russia, came on to nurse the Russians during the "flu" and later became very friendly with the Americans, and was accused of being a Bolshevik sympathizer, which story is wound all around by a thread of romance clean and pretty.

During the Bolo's smashing in of the Ust Padenga front and the subsequent memorable retreat from Shenkursk this section of field hospital men had their hands full. It was in the field hospital at Shenkursk that the gallant and beloved Lt. Ralph G. Powers of the Ambulance Corps died and his body had to be left to the triumphant Bolos. Powers had been mortally wounded by a sh.e.l.l that entered his dressing station at Ust Padenga where he was alone with six enlisted men. His wounds were dressed by a Russian doctor who was with the Russian company supporting "A" Company. Lt. Powers had gone to the railroad front in September, shifted to the Kodish front during severe fighting, and then to the distant Shenkursk front. He was never relieved from front line duty, although three medical officers at this time were in Shenkursk. Capt. Kinyon immediately sent Lt. Katz to Ust Padenga upon the loss of Powers, who will always be a hero to the expeditionary veterans.

It was at Ust Padenga that Corp. Chas. A. Thornton gave up his chair to a weary Supply Company man, Comrade Carl G. Berger, just up from Shenkursk with an ambulance, and a Bolo three-inch sh.e.l.l hurled through the log wall and decapitated the luckless supply man. In the hasty retreat the hospital men, like the infantry men, had to abandon everything but the clothes and equipment on their backs.

During the holding retreat of the 1st Battalion of the Vaga a small hospital was established temporarily at Kitsa.

Later during the slowing up of the retreat, hospitals were opened at Ust Vaga and Osinova. Here this section stayed. The other section had been at Beresnik all the time. During the latter days of the campaign the field hospital company took over the river front field medical duties so that the medical detachments of the 339th and the detachments of the 337th Ambulance Company could be a.s.sembled for evacuation at Archangel.

And the 337th Field Hospital Company itself was a.s.sembled at Archangel June 13th and sailed June 15th. Their work had for the most part been under great strain in the long forest and river campaign, always seeing the seamy side of the war and lacking the frequent changes of scenery and the blood-stirring combats which the doughboy encountered. It took strong qualities of heart and nerve to be a field hospital man, or an ambulance or medical man.

XXVII

SIGNAL PLATOON WINS COMMENDATION

Learning Wireless In A Few Weeks--Sterling Work Of Field Buzzers--With a.s.saulting Columns--Wires Repaired Under Sh.e.l.l Fire--General Ironside's Commendatory Official Citation.

In the North Russian Expedition the doughboy had to learn to do most anything that was needful. A sergeant, two corporals and four men of the Headquarters Company Signal Platoon actually in four months time mastered the mysteries of wireless telegraphy. This is usually a year's course in any technical school. But these men were forced by necessity to learn how to receive and to send messages in a few weeks' time.

They were trained at first for a few days at Tundra, the wireless station used by the British and French for intercepting messages. Later at Obozerskaya and at Verst 455 they gained experience that made them expert in picking messages out of the air. At one time the writer was shown a message which was intercepted pa.s.sing from London to Bagdad. It was no uncommon thing for a doughboy to intercept messages from Egypt or Mesopotamia and other parts of the Mediterranean world, from Red Moscow, Socialist Berlin, starving Vienna and from London.

At one period in the spring defensive of the Archangel-Vologda Railroad, this American wireless crew was the sole reliance of the force, as the Obozerskaya station went out of order for a time, and the various points, Onega, Seletskoe and Archangel were kept in communication by this small unit at Verst 455. "H" Company men will recall that out of the blue sky from the east one day came a message from Major Nichols asking if their gallant leader, Phillips, had any show of recovering from the Bolo bullet in his lung. The message sent back was hopeful.

The record of the signal platoon under Lieutenant Anselmi, of Detroit, shows also that several of these signal men rendered great service as telegraphers. One of the pleasant duties of the doughboy buzzer operators one day in spring was to receive and transmit to Major J.

Brooks Nichols the message from his royal majesty, King George of Great Britain and Ireland, that for gallantry in action he had been honored with election to the Distinguished Service Order, the D. S. O.

But it is the field telephone men who really made the signal platoon its great reputation. General Ironside's letter of merit is included later in this account. Here let us record in some detail the work of the American signal platoon.

Thirty men maintained nearly five hundred miles of circuit wire that lay on the surface of the ground and was subject in one-third of that s.p.a.ce to constant disruption by enemy artillery fire and to constant menace from enemy patrols. The switchboard at Verst 455 was able to give thirty different connections at once at any time of day or night; at 448, ten; and at 445, six. This means a lot of work. The writer knows that the field telephone man is an important, in fact, invaluable adjunct to his forces whether in attack or in defense. For when the attack has been successful and the officer in command wishes to send information quickly to his superior officer asking for supplies of ammunition or for more forces or for artillery support to come up and a.s.sist in beating off the enemy counter-attack, the field telephone is indispensable. Hence the doughboy who carries his reels of wire along with the advancing skirmish line shares largely in the credit for doing a job up thoroughly. At the capture of Verst 445 the signal men were able to talk through to Major Nichols at 448 within four minutes of the time the doughboys' cheers of victory had sounded! And within fifteen minutes a line had been extended out to the farthest point where doughboys were digging in. There they were able later to give the artillery commander information of the effect of his sh.e.l.ls long before he could get his own signals into place for observation. The British signals were good, but, as the writers well recall, it was especially a.s.suring when the buzzer sounded to have an American doughboy at the other end say he would make the connection or take the message. They never fell down on the job.

General Ironside's commendation is not a bit too strong in its praises of the signal platoon. We are glad to make it a part of the history, and without doubt all the veterans who read these pages will join us in the little glow of pride with which we pa.s.s on this official citation of the Commanding General's, which is as follows:

"The Signal Platoon of the 339th Infantry, under Second Lieutenant Anselmi, has performed most excellent work on this front. Besides forming the Signals of the Railway Detachment, the platoon provided much needed reinforcements for other Allied Signal Units, and the readiness with which they have co-operated with the remainder of Allied Signal Service has been of the greatest service throughout.

"Please convey to all ranks of the platoon my appreciation of the services they have rendered."

(Signed) E. IRONSIDE, Major-General, Commander-in-Chief, Allied Forces, Archangel, Russia.

G. H. Q., 23rd May, 1919.

And our American commander, General Richardson, in transmitting the letter through regimental headquarters said, "Their work adds further to the splendid record made by American Forces in Europe."

XXVIII

THE DOUGHBOY'S MONEY IN ARCHANGEL

Coin And Paper Of North Russia--Trafficking In Exchange--New Issue Of Paper Roubles--Trying To Peg Rouble Currency--Yanks Lose On Pay Checks Drawn On British Pound Sterling Banks.