A yellowed and tattered cartoon that hung on a Company bulletin board at 466 when the snow was slipping away.

"America Looks Mighty. Good After You've Seen Europe" is the title.

On the right stands the Bolshevik orator on a soap box. His satchel bursting out with propaganda and pamphlets on Bolshevism from Europe. In his hand he holds a pamphlet that has a message for the returning doughboys. The agitator's hair and whiskers bristle with hatred and envy. His yellow teeth look hideous between his snarling lips. And he points a long skinny finger for the doughboy to see his message, which is, "Down with America, it's all Wrong." So much for the man who came from Europe to wreck America.

Now look at the Man Who Went to Europe to Save America and is now back on the west side of the Statue of Liberty. Does he look interested in Bolshevism Or downhearted over America? No. In his figure a manful contrast to the scraggly agitator. In his face no hate, no malice. He does not even hate the self-deluded agitator.

His clean-brushed teeth are exposed by a good-humored smile of assurance and confidence. He does not extend a fist but he waves off the fool Bolshevik orator with a good-natured but nevertheless final answer. And here it is: "Go on—Take That Stuff Back to Where You Got it—I Wouldn't Trade a Log Hut on a Swamp in America for the Whole of Europe!"

We are thinking that the cartoon just about says it for all returned soldiers from North Russia. We want nothing to do with the Bolo agitator in this country who would make another Russia of the United States. We let them blow off steam, are patient with their vagaries, are willing to give every man a fair hearing if he has a grievance, but we don't fall for their wild ideas about tearing things up by the roots.

AMERICA LOOKS MIGHTY GOOD AFTER YOU'VE SEEN EUROPE —COLUMBUS EVENING DISPATCH



XXXIV

Y. M. C. A. AND Y. W. C. A. WITH TROOPS

Justice Where Justice Is Due—Summary Of Work Of "Y" Men—"Y" Women And Hostess House—Seen Near Front—Devoted Women Stay In Russia When We Leave—Christian Associations Point Way To Help Russia.

The editors have felt that "justice where justice is due" demands a few pages in this volume about the service of our Y. M. C. A. with us in North Russia. We know that there is a great deal of bitterness against the "Y." Much of it was engendered by the few selfish and crooked and cowardly men who crept into the "Y" service, and the really great service of the Y. M. C. A. is badly discounted and its war record sadly sullied. We know that here and there in North Russia a "Y" man failed to "measure up" but we know that on the whole our Y. M. C. A. in North Russia with us, did great service.

To get a fair and succinct story, we wrote to Mr. Crawford Wheeler, whose statement follows. He was the Chief Secretary in the North Russia area. The first paragraph is really a letter of transmissal, but we approve its sentiment and commend its manly straightforwardness to our comrades and the general reader:

"This is written purely from memory. I haven't a scrap of material at hand and I have hurried in order that you might have the stuff promptly. Please indicate, in case you use this material, that it is not based on records,—for I cannot vouch for all the figures. However, in the main, the outline is right. I wish the "Y" might have a really good chapter in your book, for I always have felt, with many of the other boys in our service, that we are condemned back here for the sins of others. If the "Y" in North Russia was not a fairly effective organization which went right to the front and stayed there, then a lot of officers and men in the 339th poured slush in my ears. Were it not for the rather unfortunate place which a "Y" man occupies back here, none of us would seek even an iota of praise, for in comparison with the rest of you, we deserve none; but I'm sure you understand the circumstances which impel me to insert the foregoing plea, 'Justice where justice is due.' That's all.

"The Y. M. C. A. shared the lot of the American North Russian Expeditionary Force as an isolated fighting command from the day it landed until the last soldier left Archangel. It shared in the successes and the failures of the expedition. It contributed something now and then to the welfare and comfort and even to the lives of the American and Allied troops both at the front and in the base camps. It made a record which only the testimony of those who were part of the expedition is qualified to estimate.

"When the American soldiers of the 339th Infantry landed in Archangel on September 5th, 1918, they found a "Y" in town ahead of them. The day after the port was captured by allied forces early in August, Allen Craig of the American Y. M. C. A. had secured a spacious building in the heart of the city for use as a "Y" hut. With very little equipment he managed to set up a cocoa and biscuit stand and a reading and writing room and the hall of the building was opened for band concerts and athletic nights. It really was little more than a barn until the arrival of secretaries and supplies in October made improvements possible.

"A party of ten secretaries, who had spent the previous year in Central Russia under the Bolshevik regime, landed in the first week of October, having come around from Sweden and Norway. Two weeks later another ten secretaries arrived from the same starting point. These men formed the nucleus of the "Y" personnel which was to serve the American troops through the winter and spring. They were sent to points at the front immediately after their arrival, and more than a few doughboys will remember the first trip of the big railroad car to the front south of Obozerskaya, with Frank Olmstead in charge.

"The British Y. M. C. A. sent a party of twenty-five secretaries to Archangel early in the fall and considerations of practical policy made it advisable to combine operations under the title of the Allied Y. M. C. A. To the credit of the British secretaries, it must be said that they turned over all their supplies to the American management. These supplies constituted practically all the stock of biscuit and canteen products used until Christmas time, and British secretaries took their places under the direction of the American headquarters.

"The "Y" was fortunate to have secured several trucks and Ford cars in a shipment before the Allied landing, and they became part of the expeditionary transport system at once. The Supply Company of the 339th used one truck, and the British transport staff borrowed the other one. Major Ely, Quartermaster of the American forces, got one of the Fords, and another one went to the American Red Cross.

"By the middle of November the "Y" had secretaries on the river fronts near Seletskoe and Beresnik at the railroad front and with the Pinega detachment. Supplies dribbled through to them in pitifully small amounts, usually half of the stuff stolen before it reached the front. The British N. A. B. C. sold considerable quantities of biscuit and cigarettes to the "Y," both at the front bases and from the Archangel depot. On the railroad front a really respectable service was maintained, because transport was not so difficult. One secretary made the trip around the blockhouses and outposts daily with a couple of packsacks filled with gum, candy and cigarettes, which were distributed as generously as the small capacity of the sacks permitted. Two cars equipped with tables for reading and writing and with a big cocoa urn were stationed at Verst 455, where the headquarters train and reserve units stood. These cars were moved to points north and south on the line twice weekly for small detachments to get their ration of biscuit and sweets, small as it was.



RED CROSS PHOTO Christmas Dinner, Convalescent Hospital



U. S. OFFICIAL PHOTO "Come and Get It" at Verst 455



WAGNER Doughboys Drubbed Sailors Brig. Gen. Richardson and Adm. McCully at Army-Navy Game



WAGNER Yank and Scot Guarding Prisoners

"Another row of cars was maintained at Obozerskaya, where the first outpost entertainment hut was opened about Christmas time with a program of moving pictures, athletic stunts and feeds. Shipments were made from this base to the secretaries at Seletskoe, who did their best to make the winter less monotonous and miserable for the second battalion men stationed on that front. The "Y" opened a hut in Pinega in early November, and by the middle of December had established a point for the "H" Company men west of Emtsa on, the Onega River line.

"Meanwhile, the Central "Y" hut at Archangel had been remodelled and fully equipped for handling large crowds, and it served several hundred allied soldiers daily. Whenever a company of Americans came in from the front, a special night was arranged for them to have a program in the theatre hall, with movies, songs, stunts and eats on the bill. A series of basketball games was carried on between the base unit companies and other commands which were in Archangel for a week or more awaiting transfer to another point. Huts were opened in the Smolny base camp at Solombola, both of them barely large enough to afford room for a cocoa and biscuit counter, a piano, and a reading room. Shortly after Christmas another "Y" station was put in commission across the river at the Preestin railroad terminal, where detachments and individuals often endured a long wait in the cold or arrived chilled to the bone from a trip on the heatless cars.

"About Christmas time twenty-five more secretaries arrived from the American Y. M. C. A. headquarters in England, and with this addition to personnel, it was possible to make headquarters something more than a table and a telephone. A fairly efficient supply and office staff was built up and with the landing of two or three belated cargoes, "Y" folk began to see a rosier period ahead. But transport difficulties made it almost impossible to get stuff moved to the front, where the men needed it most. 'When there are neither guns nor ammunition enough,' said the British headquarters, 'how can we afford to take sleds for sending up biscuits and cigarettes?'

"Nevertheless, by hook or crook, several convoys were pushed through to Bereznik, each time reviving the hopes of the men in the outposts, who thought at last they might get some regular service. Tom Cotton and "Husky" Merrill, two football stars from Dartmouth, were in charge of the "Y" points on the Dvina advanced front, and whatever success the "Y" attained in that vicinity belongs primarily to their credit. They ended an eventful career in the spring of 1919 by getting captured when the Bolsheviks and Russian mutineers staged a coup d'etat at Toulgas and captured the village. Their escape was more a matter of luck than of planning. They paddled down the river in a boat. In their hasty exit from the village, they left behind all their personal belongings.

"At Shenkursk the "Y" hut and stock also fell to the Bolos, but the secretaries got out with the troops. The column which made the terrible retreat from Shenkursk found the "Y" waiting for it at Shegovari, with hot cocoa and biscuit. Despite the congested transport, the service on this line was kept up all through the winter and spring, "Dad" Albertson, "Ken" Hollinshead and Brackett Lewis making themselves mighty effective in their service to the men on this sector. Albertson has written a book, "Fighting Without a War," which embodies his experiences and observations with the doughboys at the front.

"One of the best pieces of service performed by the "Y" during the whole campaign was carried on at the time of the fierce Bolshevik drive for Obozerskaya from the west in February and March. This drive cost the "Y" two of its best secretaries, but service was maintained without a break from the first day until the end when the Bolos retreated. Merle Arnold was in the village running a "Y" post when the attack occurred and was captured along with six American soldiers. Bryant Ryall, who ran the "Y" tent in the woods at Verst 18, next fell a victim to the Bolos, while on the way to Obozerskaya for more supplies. Olmstead, who came from 455 to help in this desperate place, remained, and as a result of his work at this front, received the French Croix de Guerre and the Russian St. George Cross.

"Other decorations were awarded to Ernest Rand on the Pinega sector and to "Dad" Albertson on the Dvina front, both of them receiving the St. George Cross. The British military medal was to have been given Albertson, but technicalities made it impossible. Several other secretaries were mentioned in despatches by the American and British commands, all of them for service at the fighting front. It was the policy of the "Y" from the start to send the best men to the front, rush the best supplies to the front, give the men from the front the best service while at the base camps, and do it without thought of payment. It is a fact that the Archangel 'show' cost the "Y" more per capita served than any other piece of front service rendered overseas. The heavy cost was accentuated by the immense loss to supplies in the supply ships, warehouses and cars or convoys, from theft and breakage and freezing. The totals of the business done by the "Y" up in the Russian Arctic area are astounding, when the difficulties of transport are considered More than $1,000,000 worth of supplies were received and distributed before the American troops left Archangel. This included twenty-five motion picture outfits, everyone of which was in use by late spring, a million and a half feet of film, fairly large shipments of athletic goods, baseball equipment and phonographs, and thousands of books and magazines, which filled a most important part in the program. Until early spring the "Y" bought most of its canteen supplies from the British N. A. C. B., through a credit established in London. These stocks were sold to the "Y" virtually at the British retail prices and were resold at the same figures, with a resulting loss to the "Y," as the loss and damage mounted up to forty per cent at times. In May, several shipments of American canteen stocks arrived at Archangel, which enabled the secretaries to cut loose the strings on 'ration plans' before the troops started home.

"A hut was opened at the embarkation point, Economia, in the early spring, and troops quartered there had a complete red triangle service ready for them when sailing time arrived. A secretary or two went with each transport, equipped with a small stock of sweets and cigarettes to distribute on the voyage. Most of the American secretaries did not leave, however, until after the troops departed. Some of them remained until the closing act of the show in August. Two more were captured when the Bolos staged their mutiny at Onega. All these men eventually were released from captivity in Moscow and reached America safely.

"The Y. M. C. A. received hearty co-operation from the American Red Cross, from the American Embassy, and from the American headquarters units. Sugar and cocoa were turned over frequently by the Red Cross when the "Y" ran completely out of stocks and an unstinted use of Red Cross facilities was open at all times to the "Y" men. The embassy and consulate transmitted the "Y" cables through their offices to England and America and co-operated with urgent pleas for aid at times when such pleas were essential to the adoption of policies to better the "Y" service. The headquarters of the 339th Infantry and the 310th Engineers responded to every reasonable request made by the "Y" for assignments of helpers, huts or other facilities in the different areas where work was carried on. The naval command showed special courtesies in forwarding supplies on cruisers and despatch boats from England and Murmansk and in permitting the "Y" men to travel on their ships.

"Altogether more than sixty American secretaries took part in the North Russian show. About eight or ten of them, however, were on the Murmansk line, and were said by the American command to have done good work with the engineers and sailors in that area. Whatever record the American "Y" made in North Russia, it can in truth be said of the secretarial force that with few exceptions they gave the best that was in them and they never felt satisfied with their work. The service which Olmstead and Cotton and Arnold and Albertson and Beekman and a dozen others rendered, ranks with the best work done by the Y. M. C. A. men in any part of the world. Correspondents from the front in France and members of the American command who arrived late in the day, expressed their surprise and gratification at the spirit which animated the "Y" workers up in the Russian Arctic region. But the best test is the record which lives in the hearts of American soldiers, and on their fairminded testimony the "Y" men wish to secure their verdict for whatever they deserve for their service in North Russia with the American soldiers fighting the Bolsheviki."

TO OUR Y. W. C. A. AMERICAN GIRLS

In that old school reader of ours we used to read with wet eyes and tight throat the story of the soldier who lay dying at Bingen on the Rhine and told his buddie to tell his sister to be kind to all the comrades. How he yearned for the touch of his mother's or sister's hand in that last hour, how the voice of woman and her liquid eye of love could soothe his dying moments. And the veterans of the World War now understand that poetic sentiment better than they did when as barefooted boys they tried to conceal their emotions behind the covers of the book, for in the unlovely grime and grind of war the soldier came to long for the sight of his own women kind. They will now miss no opportunity to sing the praises of their war time friends, the Salvation Army Lassies and the girls of the Y. W. C. A.

In North Russia we were out of luck in the lack of Salvation Army Lassies enough to reach around to our front, but in that isolated war area we were fortunate to receive several representatives of the American Y. W. C. A. Some were girls who had already been in Russia for several years in the regular mission work among the Russian people, and two of them we hasten to add right here, were brave enough to stay behind when we cut loose from the country. Miss Dunham and Miss Taylor were to turn back into the interior of the country and seek to help the pitiful people of Russia. We take our hats off to them.

What doughboy will forget the first sight he caught of an American "Y" girl in North Russia? He gave her his eyes and ears and his heart all in a minute. Was he in the hospital? Her smile was a memory for days afterward. If a convalescent who could dance, the touch of her arm and hand and the happy swing of the steps swayed him into forgetfulness of the pain of his wounds. If he were off outpost duty on a sector near the front line and seeking sweets at a Y. M. C. A. his sweets were doubled in value to him as he took them from the hand of the "Y" girl behind the counter. Or at church service in Archangel her voice added a heavenly note to the hymn. In the Hostess House, he watched her pass among the men showering graciousness and pleasantries upon the whole lonesome lot of doughboys. One of the boys wrote a little poem for The American Sentinel which may be introduced here in prose garb a la Walt Mason.

"There's a place in old Archangel, That we never will forget, And of all the cozy places, It's the soldier's one best bet. It's the place where lonely Sammies Hit the trail for on the run, There they serve you cake and coffee, 'Till the cake and coffee's done. And they know that after eating, There's another pleasure yet,— So to show how they are thoughtful, They include a cigarette. There's a place back in the corner, Where you get your clothing checked, And the place is yours, They tell you, —well—Or words to that effect. There are magazines a-plenty, From the good old U. S. A. There's a cheery home-like welcome for you any time of day. Will we, can we e'er forget them, In the future golden years, And the kindness that was rendered, By these Lady Volunteers? Just as soon as work is finished, Don't you brush your hair and blouse, And go double-double timing, To the cordial Hostess House?"

One of the pretty weddings in Archangel that winter was that celebrated by the boys when Miss Childs became home-maker for Bryant Ryal, the "Y" man who was later taken prisoner by the Bolsheviki. She was within twelve miles of him the day he was captured. Doughboys were quick to offer her comforting assurances that he would be treated well because American "Y" men had done so much in Russia for the Russian soldiers before the Bolshevik debacle. And when they heard that he was actually on his way to Moscow with fair chance of liberation, they crowded the taplooska Ryal home and made it shine radiantly with their congratulations.

But it was not the institutional service such as the Hostess House or the Huts or the box car canteen, such as it was, which endeared the "Y" girls to the doughboys as a lot. It was the genuine womanly friendliness of those girls.

The writer will never forget the scene at Archangel when the American soldiers left for Economia where the ship was to take them to America. Genuine were the affectionate farewells of the people—men, women and children; and genuine were the responses of the soldiers to those pitiable people. Our Miss Dickerson, of the Y. W. C. A. Hostess House, was surrounded by a tearful group of Russian High School girls who had been receiving instruction in health, sanitation and other social betterments and catching the American Young Women's Christian Association vision of usefulness to the sick, ignorant and unhappy ones of the community. Around her they gathered, a beautiful picture of feminine grief in its sweet purity of girlish tears, and at the same time a beautiful picture of promising hope for the future of Russia when all of that long-suffering people may be reached by our tactful Christian women.

In this connection now I think of the conversation with our Miss Taylor the last Sunday we were in Economia. She and Miss Dunham were staying on in Archangel hoping to get permission to go into the interior of the country again. And it is reported that they did. She said to me: "Wherever you can, back home among Christian people, tell them that these poor people here in Russia have had their religious life so torn up by this strife that now they long for teachers to come and help them to regain a religious expression."

A prominent worker among the College Y. M. C. A.'s in America, "Ken" Hollinshead, who was a "Y" secretary far up on the Dvina River in the long, cold, desperate winter, also caught the vision of the needs of the Russian people who had been Rasputinized and Leninized out of the faith of their fathers and were pitifully like sheep without a shepherd. He remarked to the writer that when the Bolshevist nightmare is over in Russia, he would like to go back over there and help them to revive what was vital and essential in their old faith and to improve it by showing them the American way of combining cleanliness with godliness, education with creed-holding, work with piety.

Can the Russians be educated? The soldiers know that many a veteran comrade of theirs in the war was an Americanized citizen. He had in a very few years in America gained a fine education. The general reader of this page may look about him and discover examples for himself. Last winter in a little church in Michigan the writer found the people subscribing to the support of a citizen of the city who, a Russian by birth, came to this country to find work and opportunity. He was drawn into the so-called mission church in the foreign settlement of the city, learned to speak and read English, caught a desire for education, is well-educated and now with his American bride goes to Russia on a Christian mission, to labor for the improvement of his own nation. He is to be supported by that little congregation of American people who have a vision of the kind of help Russia needs from our people.

Another story may be told. When the writer saw her first in Russia, she was the centre of interest on the little community entertainment hall dance floor. She had the manner of a lady trying to make everyone at ease. American soldiers and Russian soldiers and civil populace had gathered at the hall for a long program—a Russian drama, soldier stunts, a raffle, a dance which consisted of simple ballet and folk dances. The proceeds of the entertainment were to go toward furnishing bed linen, etc., for the Red Cross Hospital being organized by the school superintendent and his friends for the service of many wounded men who were falling in the defense of their area.

She was trim of figure and animated of countenance. Her hair was dressed as American women attractively do theirs. Her costume was dainty and her feet shod in English or American shoes. We could not understand a word of her Russian tongue but were charmed by its friendly and well-mannered modulations. We made inquiries about her. She was the wife of a man who, till the Bolsheviki drove the "intelligenza" out, had been a professor in an agricultural school of a high order. Now they were far north, seeking safety in their old peasant city and she was doing stenographer duty in the county government office.

We often mused upon the transformation. Only a few years before she had been as one of the countless peasant girls of the dull-faced, ill-dressed, red-handed, coarse-voiced type which we had seen everywhere with tools and implements of drudgery, never with things of refinement, except, perhaps, when we had seen them spinning or weaving. And here before us was one who had come out from among them, a sight for weary eyes and a gladness to heavy ears. How had she accomplished the metamorphosis? The school had done it, or rather helped her to the opportunity to rise. She had come to the city-village high school and completed the course and then with her ability to patter the keys of a Russian typewriter's thirty-six lettered keyboard, had travelled from Archangel to Moscow, to Petrograd, to Paris, to complete her education. And she told the writer one time that she regretted she had not gone to London and New York before she married the young Russian college professor.

The school,—the common school and the high school—therein lies the hope of Russia. What that woman has done, has been done by many another ambitious Russian girl and will be done by many girls of Russia. Russian boys and girls if given the advantages of the public school will develop the Russian nation.



XXXV

"DOBRA" CONVALESCENT HOSPITAL

Description Of Hospital Building—Grateful Memories—Summary Of Medical And Surgical Cases—Feeding The Convalescents—Care And Entertainment —Captain Greenleaf Fine Manager.

The American Convalescent Hospital at Archangel, Russia (American Expeditionary Forces, North Russia), was opened October 1, 1918, in a building formerly used as a Naval School of Merchant Sailors. A two and one-half story building, facing the Dvina River and surrounded by about two acres of land, over one-half of which was covered with an attractive growth of white birch trees. The entire building, with the exception of one room, Chief Surgeon's Office, and two smaller rooms, for personnel of the Chief Surgeon's Office and the Convalescent Hospital, was devoted to the American convalescent patients and their care. The half story, eighty-five by eighty-five feet square, over the main building, was used for drying clothes and as a store room. The building proper was of wood construction, with two wings (one story) constructed with 24-inch brick and plaster walls. The floors were wood, the walls smoothly plastered and the general appearance, inside and outside, attractive.

In addition to the inside latrines, an outside latrine with five seats and a urinal was built by our men. This latrine contained a heater.

Nearly all the windows, throughout the building, were double sash and glass and could be opened for sufficient air, dependent upon the outside temperature. The first floor ceilings were fourteen feet in height, those on the second floor were twelve feet high. No patient had less than six hundred cubic feet of air space.

Large brick stoves, one in the smaller and two in the larger rooms, heavily constructed and lined with fire brick, heated the building. A wood fire was built in these stoves twice daily, with sufficient heat being thrown off to produce a comfortable, uniform temperature at all times. The building was lighted by electricity. The entire building was rewired by American electricians and extra lights placed as necessary. The beds were wooden frame with heavy canvas support. These beds were made by American carpenters. Each patient was supplied with five blankets.

During the first four months it was necessary for the men to use a near-by Russian bath-house for bathing. This was done weekly and a check kept upon the patients. February 1st, 1919, a wing was completed with a Thresh Disinfector (for blankets and clothing), a wash room and three showers. A large boiler furnished hot water at all hours. The construction of this building was begun November 1st, 1918, but inability to obtain a boiler and plumbing materials deferred its completion. Three women were employed for washing and ironing, and clean clothing was available at all times.

Water buckets were located on shelves in accessible places throughout the building for use in case of fire. Each floor had a hose attachment. Two fires from overheated stoves were successfully extinguished without injury to patients or material damage to the building. The main floors were scrubbed daily with a two per cent creosole solution, the entire floor space every other day. All rooms contained sufficient box cuspidors filled with sawdust.

The kitchen contained a large brick stove and ovens and this, in conjunction with a smaller stove on the second floor, could be utilized to prepare food for three hundred men. Bartering with the Russians was permitted. By this means, as well as comforts supplied by the American Red Cross, such as cocoa, chocolate, raisins, condensed milk, honey, sugar, fruit (dried and canned), oatmeal, corn meal, rice, dates and egg powder, a well balanced diet was maintained throughout the winter. Semi-monthly reports of all exchanges, by bartering, were forwarded to Headquarters. The usual mess kits and mess line were employed. The large dining and recreation room had sufficient tables and benches to seat all patients. Boiled drinking water was accessible at all times. During the eight months the Hospital has been operating, over 3,872 pounds of grease, 2,138 pounds of bones and 8,460 pounds of broken and stale bread have been bartered with Russian peasants. In return, besides eggs, fish, veal and other vegetables over 32,600 pounds (902 poods) of potatoes have been received. Accompanying this report is a statement (a) of British rations (one week issue), (b) a statement of food barter (17 days) and (c) the menu for one week.

The large room, facing the river, twenty-eight feet by sixty-one feet, was available for mess hall, recreation and entertainments. The space, twenty-eight feet by twenty-one feet, was separated by a projecting wall and pillars and contained a victrola and records, a piano, a library (one hundred fifty books furnished by the American Red Cross, exchanged at intervals), a magazine rack, reading table, machine guns and rack, a bulletin board and several comfortable chairs made by convalescents. A portable stage for entertainments was placed in this space when required. A complete set of scenery with flies and curtains was presented by the American Red Cross. In the center of the room a regulation boxing ring could be strung, the benches and tables being so arranged as to form an amphitheatre. The entire room could be cleared for dancing. At one end was a movie screen and in the adjoining room a No. 6 Powers movie machine which was obtained from the American Y. M. C. A. and installed December 5th, 1918.

During the winter the following entertainments were given:

Vaudeville 5 Boxing exhibitions 4 Lectures 4 Minstrel shows 2 Dances 10 Musical entertainments 6 Russian 3 English 2 Band concert 1 Kangaroo court 1

A twelve-piece orchestra from the 339th Infantry band furnished music for the dances as well as occasionally during Sunday dinners. Each Wednesday and Sunday nights moving pictures were shown. These included a number of war films showing operations on the Western Front and productions of Fairbanks, Farnum, Billy Burke, Eltinge, Hart, Mary Pickford, Kerrigan, Arbuckle, Bunny and Chaplin. During May baseballs, gloves and bats have been supplied by the American Y. M. C. A. Sunday afternoons religious services were conducted by chaplains of the American Force.

Canteen supplies, consisting of chocolate, stick candy, gum, cigars, cigarettes, smoking and chewing tobacco, toilet soap, tooth paste, canned fruits (pineapple, pears, cherries, apricots, peaches) and canned vegetables could be purchased from the Supply Company, 339th Infantry. These supplies were drawn on the first of each month and furnished the men at cost.

The personnel consisted of Capt. C. A. Greenleaf, Commanding Officer, Medical Corps; an officer from the Supply Company, 339th Infantry (charge of equipment); two Sergeants, Medical Corps; three Privates, Medical Corps. With these exceptions all the details required for the care and maintenance of the hospital were furnished by men selected from the convalescent patients.

It took seventy-six men every day for the various kitchen, cleaning, clerical and guard details and in addition other details from convalescent patients were made as follows: Six patrols of ten men each, each patrol in charge of a non-commissioned officer and three sections of machine gunners were always prepared for an emergency. Guards were furnished for Headquarters building. Two type-setters and one proof-reader reported for work, daily, at the office of The American Sentinel (a weekly publication for the American troops). Typists, stenographers and clerks were furnished different departments at Headquarters as required. Orderlies, kitchen police and cooks were furnished to the American Red Cross Hospital and helpers to American Red Cross Headquarters. This was light work always which was conducive to the convalescence of the men.

Captain Greenleaf always managed to care for all patients. On January 18th, 1919, a ward was opened at Olga Barracks which accommodated twenty-five patients. These patients were rationed by Headquarters Company and reported for sick call at the infirmary located in the same building.

On March 11th, 1919, an Annex was opened at Smolny Barracks with eighty beds. For this purpose a barracks formerly occupied by enlisted men was remodelled. New floors were put in, the entire building sheathed on the inside, rooms constructed for office and sick call and a kitchen in which a new stove and ovens were built. This Annex was operated from the Convalescent Hospital, one Sergeant, Medical Corps, and two Privates, Medical Corps, were detailed to this building. Details from the patients operated the mess and took care of the building. Supplies were sent daily from the hospital to the Annex and the mess was of the same character.

On April 28th, 1919, three tents were erected in the yard of the Hospital. Plank floors were built, elevated on logs and these accommodated thirty-six patients. On April 28th, 1919, with the Hospital, Annex and tents two hundred eight-two patients could be accommodated. This number represents the maximum Convalescent Hospital capacity, during its existence and was sufficient for the requirements of the American Forces. The ward at Olga Barracks was only used for a few weeks.

During April eighty-two patients were discharged from the Convalescent Hospital and sent to Smolny Barracks for "Temporary Light Duty at Base."

The Convalescent Hospital was the best place, bar none, in Russia, to eat in winter of 1918-19. The commanding officer was fortunate to have as a patient the mess sergeant of Company "D." That resourceful doughboy took the rations issued by the British and by systematic bartering with the natives he built up a famous mess. Below is a verbatim extract from Captain Greenleaf's report.

BARTER RETURN Period: 17 days—from March 27th, 1919, to April 14th. 1919

COMMODITIES BARTERED Bread, stale 372 lbs. Bread, pieces of 403 Grease 365 lbs. Bones 331 lbs. Beans 425 lbs. Peas 156 lbs. Rice 746 lbs. Dates 25 lbs. Bacon 678 lbs. Lard 960 lbs. Sugar 274 lbs. Jam 56 lbs. Pea Soup 318 pkgs. Limejuice 3 cases

COMMODITIES RECEIVED IN RETURN Potatoes 5281 lbs. Carrots 133 lbs. Cabbage 339.5 lbs. Turnips 851 lbs. Onions 200 lbs. Veal 938 lbs. Liver 76.5 lbs. Eggs 198

The menu for the week of April 20-26, inclusive, was as follows:

APRIL 20—SUNDAY BREAKFAST Boiled eggs Fried bacon Oatmeal and milk Bread and butter Coffee

DINNER Roast veal and gravy Mashed potatoes Sage dressing Stewed tomatoes Apple pie Mixed pickles Bread and butter Coffee

SUPPER Roast beef Potato salad Lemon cake Bread and jam Cocoa

APRIL 21—MONDAY

BREAKFAST Oatmeal and milk Fried bacon Wheatcakes and syrup Bread and jam Coffee

DINNER Steaks Creamed potatoes Cabbage, fried Bread and butter Peach pudding Coffee

SUPPER Beef stew Fried cakes Bread and butter Tea

APRIL 22—TUESDAY

BREAKFAST Oatmeal and milk Fried bacon Bread and jam Coffee

DINNER Roast mutton Baked potatoes Mashed turnips Bread and butter Chocolate pudding Coffee

SUPPER Hamburger steak Boiled potatoes Stewed dates Bread and butter Coffee

APRIL 23—WEDNESDAY

BREAKFAST Oatmeal and milk Fried bacon Bread and jam Coffee

DINNER Roast beef Mashed potatoes Creamed peas Bread and butter Bread pudding Coffee

SUPPER Mutton chops Boiled potatoes Bread and butter Chocolate cake Coffee

APRIL 24—THURSDAY

BREAKFAST Oatmeal and milk Fried bacon Bread and jam Coffee

DINNER Roast beef Escalloped potatoes Baked turnips Bread and butter Rice pudding Coffee

SUPPER Mutton stew Rolls and jam Tea

APRIL 25—FRIDAY

BREAKFAST Oatmeal and milk Fried bacon Wheatcakes and syrup Bread and jam Coffee

DINNER Steaks Boiled potatoes Creamed onions Bread and butter Fruit pudding, cherry Coffee

SUPPER Hamburger steak Boiled potatoes Stewed apricots Bread and butter Coffee

APRIL 26—SATURDAY

BREAKFAST Rice and milk Fried bacon Bread and butter Coffee

DINNER Roast beef Creamed potatoes Baked beans Bread and butter Chocolate pudding Coffee

SUPPER Vegetable stew Stewed prunes Bread and butter Tea

To the doughboy, who that week in April was eating his bully and hardtack in the forest at Kurgomin or Khalmogora or Bolsheozerki or Chekuevo or Verst 448, this menu seems like a fairy tale, but he knows that the boys who had fought on the line and fallen before Bolo fire or fallen ill with the hardship strain, were entitled to every dainty and luxury that was afforded by the dobra convalescent hospital.

From October 1st, 1918, to June 12th, 1919, this American Convalescent Hospital served eleven hundred and eighty out of the fifty-five hundred Americans of the expeditionary force. From Captain Greenleaf's official report the following facts of interest are presented.

Of infectious and epidemic diseases there were two hundred and forty-six cases of which four were mumps, one hundred and sixty-seven were influenza and the remainder complications which resulted from influenza. The pneumonia cases developed early. One man reported from guard duty, developed a rapidly involving pneumonia which soon became general and culminated in death within twenty-four hours. The best results followed the use of Dovers powder and quinine,—alternation two and one-half grains of Dovers with five grains of quinine every two hours, five to ten grains of Dovers being given at bedtime. Expectorants were given as required. Very little stimulation was necessary. Many of these cases, after the acute symptoms subsided, showed a persistent tachycardia which continued for some days and in a few cases (seven) became chronic. In these cases medication proved of little benefit, rest and a proper diet being the most efficacious treatment. Patients convalescing from pneumonia were evacuated to England or given Base Duty.

Of tuberculosis there were only thirteen cases which were as far as possible isolated. Of venereal cases there were only one hundred and seventy-four. They had received treatment in British 53rd Stationary Hospital, and came to the American Convalescent hospital simply for re-equipment. Nearly all were immediately discharged to duty.

Of nervous diseases there were nineteen cases, all of which were neuritis except two cases of paralysis. Of mental diseases and defects there were only fourteen. This is a remarkable showing when we consider the strain of the strange, long, dark winter campaign, and of these fourteen cases six were mental deficiency that were not detected by the experts at time of enlistment and induction, three were hysteria, two neurasthenia, and three psychasthenia. Here let us add that there was only one case of suicide and one case of attempted suicide.

There were eighteen eye cases and nineteen ear cases, three nose, and eighteen of the throat. Of the circulatory system the total was sixty-eight of which twenty-two were heart trouble and thirty-one hemorrhoids brought on by exposure.

There were eighty respiratory cases, ninety-three digestive cases, of which sixteen were appendicitis and thirty-two were hernia. Of genito-urinary, which were non-venereal, there were twenty cases. Of skin diseases there were thirty-nine. Scabies was the only skin lesion which has been common among the troops. Warm baths and sulphur ointment were used with excellent results.

From exposure there were one hundred and one cases of bones and locomotion. Trench feet were bad to treat. From external causes there were two hundred and fifty-five cases. Of these two were burns, two dislocation, twenty-six severe frost bite cases, two exhaustion from exposure, twenty-three fractures and sprains, and two hundred wound cases. Many severely wounded were sent to Hospital ship "Kalyon," and many were evacuated to Base Section Three in England and only the convalescent wounded, of course, came to the dobra convalescent hospital.

The following is Capt. Greenleaf's summary:

Patients 1180 Hospital days, actual 17048 Hospital days, per patient 14.45 Hospital days, awaiting evacuation 11196 Hospital days, per patient 9.49 Hospital days, special duty 7273 Hospital days, per patient 6.16 Hospital days, total 35517 Hospital days, per patient 30.10

NOTE—This table is made out in this manner for several reasons. In the first place evacuation lists were submitted to the Chief Surgeon each Friday, containing a list of those patients who were unfit for further front line duty in Russia. Lack of transportation and the long delays in completing the evacuations should not be charged to actual hospital days. Again it was necessary, under the conditions and owing to the fact that the hospital was dependent upon patients for its existence, that men be selected who were competent to have charge of certain work. A most efficient mess sergeant and competent cooks were selected. The men to have charge of the heating system and boilers were chosen. Good interpreters were held. And many cases in which a competent man entered as a patient, who was skillful in certain work, that man was held indefinitely, for the good of the service and the hospital. In this summary these cases have been listed as hospital days, special duty.

DISPOSITION OF PATIENTS IN AMERICAN CONVALESCENT HOSPITAL

EVACUATED TO ENGLAND October 27, 1918 46 December 6, 1918 56 December 27, 1918 10 January 24, 1919 7 February 24, 1919 15 June 1, 1919 183 —— Total 317

DISCHARGED TO AMERICAN RED CROSS HOSPITAL For surgical attention 24 For medical attention 18

DISCHARGED TO BRITISH HOSPITALS For special treatment 13

DISCHARGED TO DUTY 808

The medical care of our comrades was as well-looked after as possibly could be in North Russia. All patients were examined, when they entered the hospital and classified. They were marked,—no duty, light duty inside, light duty outside, light duty sitting, or light duty not involving the use of right (or left) arm. A record, showing their organization, company, rank, duty, diagnosis, date of admission, source of admission, room and bed, was made. Their business in private life was considered and they were assigned to work compatible with their training. Any medication they might need was prescribed. Owing to lack of bottles patients reported for medicine four times daily and a record was thus kept of dosage. Patients were examined weekly and re-classified. Sick call was held, daily, at 8:30 a. m., at which time patients requiring special attention, reported and also, surgical dressings were applied.

The last patient was discharged to duty June 12th, 1919. We know that the one thousand one hundred and eighty men who passed through that hospital join the writers in saying that, considering conditions, the convalescent hospital was a wonder.



XXXVI

AMERICAN RED CROSS IN NORTH RUSSIA

American Red Cross On Errands Of Mercy Precede Troops—Summary Of Aid Given People—Aid And Comforts Freely Given American Troops —Summary—Commendatory Words Of General Richardson—Our Weekly "Sentinel" Put Out By Red Cross—Returned Men Strong For American Red Cross Work In North Russia.

Even before the question of American participation in the Allied expedition to North Russia had been decided upon, the American Red Cross had dispatched a mission of thirteen persons, with four thousand two hundred tons of food and medicine, for the relief of the civilian population. When, shortly thereafter, a considerable detachment of American doughboys, engineers and ambulance corps troops were landed, the Red Cross had the nucleus of an organization to provide for the needs of our soldiers as well as for the civilian population.

A report, made public here by the American Red Cross on its work in North Russia, gives an interesting picture of conditions on our Arctic battle front during the war. The food situation among the civilian population was acute. With the city swollen in population through a steady influx of refugees, few fresh supplies were coming in and hoarded supplies were rapidly diminishing. Coarse bread and fish were staple articles of food, and there was a grave shortage of clothing.

The desperate need for foodstuffs in the regions far north along the Arctic shores was brought sharply to the attention of the Allied Food Committee when delegates from Pechora arrived by reindeer teams and camped at the doors of the committee urging assistance. They brought samples of the bread they were forced to eat. It was made of a small quantity of white flour mixed with ground-up dried fish. Other samples which were shown were made from immature frostbitten rye grain, and a third was composed of a small quantity of white flour mixed with reindeer moss. A small quantity of rye flour mixed with chopped coarse straw, was the basis of a fourth example.

Much attention was devoted by the Red Cross to caring for school children and orphans. Over two million hot lunches were distributed, during a period of a few months, to three hundred and thirty schools with twenty thousand pupils. Every orphanage in the district was outfitted with the things it needed and received a regular fortnightly issue of food supplies. Over twenty thousand suits of underwear were given out to refugees. To provide for the many persons separated from their families or from employment on account of the war, the Red Cross established a regular free employment agency.

The writer recalls having seen in Pinega in February men who had left their Petchora homes eight months before to go to Archangel for the precious flour provided by the American Red Cross. The civil war had made transportation slow and extremely hazardous.

Expeditions were constantly sent out from Archangel to various points with supplies of food, clothing, and medicaments. The most extensive of the civilian relief enterprises undertaken by the Red Cross Mission to Russia was the sending of a boat from Archangel to Kern with a cargo of fifty-five tons. This was distributed either by the Red Cross officials themselves or by responsible local authorities.

Food rations and clothing were given to three hundred destitute families in Archangel which, upon careful investigation, were found to be deserving. Housing conditions were improved and clothing, which had been salvaged from sunken steamers and lay idle in the customs house, was dried and distributed.

Besides supplying all Russian civilian hospitals in and around Archangel regularly with medicine, sheets, blankets, pillows and food rations, the Red Cross opened up a Red Cross hospital in Archangel, which was finally turned over to the local government to be used as a base hospital for the Russian army. Red Cross medicines are credited with having checked the serious influenza epidemic and with having worked against its recurrence.

Medicaments worth one million roubles were sent by the Red Cross to the various district zemstvos. Russian prisoners of war, returning from Germany through the Bolshevik lines to North Russia, were also taken care of.

Work among the American soldiers in North Russia was thorough and effective. The daily ration was supplemented and many American soldiers received from the Red Cross quantities of rolled oats, sugar, milk, and rice, besides all the regular Red Cross comforts, including cigarettes, stationery, chewing gum, athletic goods, playing cards, toilet articles, phonographs, sweaters, socks, blankets, etc.

Supplies were sent as regularly as possible to the troops on the line, generally in the face of apparently insurmountable transportation difficulties. Units of troops, even in the most inaccessible and out of the way places, were visited by Red Cross workers, occasionally at great danger to their lives.

With the assistance of the Red Cross The American Sentinel, a weekly newspaper, was printed and distributed among the troops and did much to keep up their morale. One of the last acts performed by the Red Cross for the American Expeditionary Forces in Archangel was to help and speed to their new homes eight war brides.

The veteran of the North Russian expedition will never look at his old knit helmet or wristlets, scarf, or perhaps eat a rare dish of rolled oats, or bite off a chew of plug, or listen to a certain piece on the graphaphone, or look at a Red Cross Christmas Seal without a warm feeling under his left breast pocket for the American Red Cross.



PRIMM View of Archangel in Summer



U S. OFFICIAL PHOTO General Ironside Inspecting Doughboys



U S OFFICIAL PHOTO Burial of Lieut. Clifford Phillips



XXXVII

CAPTIVE DOUGHBOYS IN BOLSHEVIKDOM

Doughboy Captives Still Coming Out Of Red Russia—Red Cross Starts Prisoner Exchange In Archangel Area—White Flag Incidents In No Man's Land—Remarkable Picture Taken—Men Who Were Liberated—Sergeant Leitzell's Gripping Story Of Their Captivity.

In August, 1920, came out of Bolshevik Russia, as startlingly as though from the grave, Corp. Prince of "B" Company, who had been wounded and captured at Toulgas, March 1, 1919. This leads to our story of the captives in Bolshevikdom. One of the interesting incidents of the spring defensive was the exchange of prisoners. It was brought about quite largely through the efforts of the American Red Cross, which was very anxious to try to get help to the Americans still in interior Russia, especially the prisoners of war. When the Bolsheviki captured the Allied men at Bolsheozerki in March they took a British chaplain, who pleaded that he was a non-combatant and belonged to a fraternal order whose principles were similar to the Soviet principles. Thinking they had a convert, the Soviet Commissar gave Father Roach his freedom and sent him through the lines at the railroad front in April.

News was brought back by Father Roach that many American and British and French prisoners were at Moscow or on their way to Moscow.

Accordingly, the American Red Cross was instrumental in prevailing upon the military authorities to open white flag conversations at the front line in regard to a possible exchange of prisoners. A remarkable photograph is included in this volume of that first meeting. One or two other meetings were not quite so formal. At one time the excited Bolos forgot their own men and the enemy who were parleying in the middle of No Man's Land, and started a lively artillery duel with the French artillery. At another time the Americans' Russian Archangel Allies got excited and fired upon the Bolshevik soldiers who were sitting under a white flag on the railroad track watching the American captain come towards them. Happy to say, there were no casualties by this mistake. But it sure was a ticklish undertaking for the Americans themselves later in the day to walk out under a flag of truce to explain the mistake and inquire about the progress of the prisoners exchange conversations going on. At Vologda, American, British and French officers were guests of the Bolshevik authorities. Their return was expected and came during the first week of May.

One American soldier, Pvt. Earl Fulcher, of "H" Company, and one French soldier were brought back and in exchange for them four former Bolshevik officers were given. Report was brought that other soldiers were being given their freedom by the Bolshevik government and were going out by way of Petrograd and Viborg, Finland. It was learned that some American soldiers were in hospital under care of the Bolshevik medical men. Every effort was made by military authorities in North Russia to clear up the fate of the many men who had been reported missing in action and missing after ambush by the Reds who cut off an occasional patrol of Americans or British or French soldiers.

But the Bolshevik military authorities were unable to trace all of their prisoners. In the chaos of their organization it is not surprising. We know that our own War Department lost Comrade Anthony Konjura, Company "A" 310th Engineers, while he was on his way home from Russia, wounded, on the hospital ship which landed him in England. There his mother went and found him in a hospital. An American sergeant whose story appears in this volume, says that while he was in Moscow six British soldiers were luckily discovered by the Red authorities in a foul prison where they had been lost track of. Even as this book goes to press we are still hoping that others of our own American comrades and of our allies will yet come to life out of Russia and be restored to their own land and loved ones.

Corporal Arthur Prince, of "B" Company, who was ambushed and wounded and captured in March, 1919, at Toulgas was, finally in August, 1920, released from hospital and prison in Russia and crippled and sick joined American troops in Germany. His pluck and stamina must have been one hundred per cent to stand it all those long seventeen months. His comrade, Herbert Schroeder, of "B" Company, who was captured on the 21st of September, has never been found. His comrades still hope that he was the American printer whom the Reds declared was printing their propaganda in English for them at Viatka.

Comrade George Albers, "I" Company, in November, 1918, was on a lone observation post at the railroad front. A Bolo reconnaissance patrol surprised and caught him. He was the American soldier who was shown to the comrades at Kodish on the river bridge after Armistice Day. He was afterward sent on to Moscow and went out with others to freedom. With him went out Comrades Walter Huston and Mike Haurlik of "C" Company, who had been taken prisoners in action on November 29th near Ust Padenga on the same day that gallant Cuff and his ten men were trapped and all were killed or captured. These two men survived. In this liberated party was also Comrade Anton Vanis, of Company "D" who was lost in the desperate rear guard action at Shegovari. Also came Comrade William R. Schuelke, "H" Company, who had been given up for dead. And in the party was Merle V. Arnold, American "Y" man, who had been captured in March at Bolsheozerki. Six of our allied comrades, Royal Scots, came out with the party. These men all owed their release chiefly to the efforts of Mr. L. P. Penningroth, of Tipton, Iowa, Secretary of the Prisoners-of-War Release Station in Copenhagen, who secured the release of the men by going in person to Moscow.

With the return of Comrade Schuelke we learn that he was one of the "H" Company patrol under Corporal Collins which was ambushed near Bolsheozerki, March 17th. One of his comrades, August Peterson, died April 12th in a Bolshevik hospital. His Corporal, Earl Collins, was in the same hospital severely wounded. His fate is still unknown but doubtless he is under the mossy tundra. His comrade, Josef Romatowski, was killed in the ambush, comrade John Frucce was liberated via Finland and his comrade, Earl Fulcher, as we have seen, was exchanged on the railroad front in May.

On March 31st two other parties of Americans were caught in ambush by the Reds who had surrounded the Verst 18 Force near Bolsheozerki. Mechanic Jens Laursen of "M" Company was captured along with Father Roach and the British airplane man wounded in the action which cost also the life of Mechanic Dial of "M" Company. And at the same time another party going from the camp toward Obozerskaya consisting of Supply Sergeant Glenn Leitzell and Pvt. Freeman Hogan of "M" Company together with Bryant Ryal, a "Y" man, going after supplies, were captured by the Reds. These men were all taken to Moscow and later liberated. Their story has been written up in an interesting way by Comrade Leitzell. It fairly represents the conditions under which those prisoners of war in Bolshevikdom suffered till they were liberated:

"On March 31st, 1919, at 8:30 a. m. I left the front lines with a comrade, Freeman Hogan, and a Russian driver, on my way back to Obozerskaya for supplies. About a quarter of a verst, 500 yards, from our rear artillery, we were surprised by a patrol of Bolos, ten or twelve in number, who leaped out of the snowbanks and held us up at the point of pistols, grenades and rifles. Then they stripped us of our arms and hurried us off the road and into the woods. To our great surprise we were joined by Mr. Ryal, the Y. M. C. A. Secretary who had been just ahead of us.

"At once they started us back to their lines with one guard in front, three in the rear and three on snow skiis on each side of the freshly cut trail in the deep snow. We knew from the signs and from the fire fight that soon followed that a huge force of the Reds were in rear of our force. After seven versts through the snow we reached the village of Bolsheozerki. On our arrival we were met by a great many Bolsheviks who occupied the villages in tremendous numbers. Some tried to beat us with sticks and cursed and spat on us as we were shoved along to the Bolshevik commander.

"One of the camp loiterer's scowling eyes caught sight of the sergeant's gold teeth. His cupidity was aroused. Raising his brass-bound old whipstock he struck at the prisoner's mouth to knock out the shining prize. But the prisoner guard saved the American soldier from the blow by shoving him so vigorously that he sprawled in the snow while the heavy whip went whizzing harmlessly past the soldier's ear. The Bolo sleigh driver swore and the prisoner guard scowled menacingly at the brutal but baffled comrade. The American soldiers needed no admonitions of skora skora to make them step lively toward the Red General's headquarters.

"One of the first things we saw on our arrival was a Russian sentry who had gone over from our lines. They demanded our blouses and fur caps, also our watches and rings. In a little while we saw three others arrive—Father Roach of the 17th King's Company of Liverpool and Private Stringfellow of the Liverpools, also Mechanic Jens Laursen of our own "M" Company who had escaped death in the machine gun ambush that had killed his comrade Mechanic Dial and driver and horse. Later Lieut. Tatham of the Royal Air Force came in with a shattered arm. His two companions and the sleigh drivers had been mortally wounded and left by the Bolsheviks on the road.

"After that we had our interview with a Bolshevik Intelligence Officer who tried to get information from us. But he got no information from us as we pleaded that we were soldiers of supply and were not familiar with the details of the scheme of defense. And it worked. He sent us away under guard, who escorted us in safety through the camp to a shack.

"Here we were billetted in a filthy room with a lot of Russian prisoners, some the survivors of the defense of Bolsheozerki and some the recalcitrants or suspected deserters from the Bolo ranks. We were given half of a salt fish, a lump of sour black bread and some water for our hunger. On the bread we had to use an ax as it was frozen. We managed to thaw some of it out and wash it down with water. After this we stretched in exhaustion on the floor and slept off the day and night in spite of the constant roar of Bolo guns and the bursting of shells that were coming from our camp at Verst 18. By that sign we knew the Bolo had not overpowered our comrades by his day's fighting. It was the only comforting thought we had as we pulled the dirty old rags about us that the Reds had given us in exchange for our overcoats and blouses, and went to sleep.

"We woke up in the morning midst the roar of a redoubled fight. A fine April Fool's Day we thought. We were stiff and sore and desperately hungry. But our breakfast was the remainder of the fish and sour bread. Later the guard relieved us of some of our trinkets and pocket money, after which they gave us our rations for the day, consisting of a half can of horse meat, a salt fish, and twelve ounces of black bread.

"Then we were taken to see the General commanding this huge force. He gave us a cigarette, which was very acceptable as we were quite unnerved, not knowing what would happen to us afterwards if we gave no more information than we had the day before. He tried to impress us by taking his pistol and pointing out on a map of the area just where his troops were that day surrounding our comrades in the beleagured camp in the woods at Verst 18 on the road, as well as many versts beyond them cutting a trail through the deep snow to the very railroad in rear of Obozerskaya. He boasted that his forces that day would crush the opposing force and he would move upon Obozerskaya and go up and down the railroad and clear away every obstacle as he had done in the Upper Vaga Valley, where he boasted he had driven the Allied troops from Shenkursk and pursued them for over sixty miles. Then he informed us that we were to be sent as prisoners to Moscow.

"Later in the morning we were started south toward Emtsa on foot. We could hear the distant cannonading on the 445 front as we marched along during the day on the winter trail which if it had been properly patrolled by the French and Russians would not have permitted the surprise flank march in force by this small army that menaced the whole Vologda force. Our thirty-five verst march that day and night—for we walked till 10:00 p. m.—was made more miserable by the thought that our comrades were up against a far greater force than they dreamed, as was evidenced to us by the hordes of men we had seen in Bolsheozerki and the transportation that filled every verst of the trail from the south. We made temporary camp in a log hut along the road, building a roaring fire outside. We would sleep a half hour and then go outside the hut to thaw out by the fire, and so on through the wretched night.

"At 4:00 a. m. we started again our footsore march, after a fragment of black bread and a swallow of water, and walked twenty-seven versts to Shelaxa, the Red concentration camp. Here we underwent a minute search. All papers were taken for examination. Our American money was returned to us, as was later a check on a London bank which one of my officers had given me. I secreted it and some money so well in a waist belt that later I had the satisfaction of cashing the check in Sweden into kronen in King Gustave's Royal Bank in Stockholm. After a meal of salt fish and black bread fried in fish oil, and some hot water to drink, we were given an hour's rest and then started on the road again to Emtsa, twenty-four versts away, reaching that railroad point at midnight. Here we were brought before the camp commandant who roughly stripped us of all our clothes except our breeches and gave us the Bolshevik underwear and ragged outer garments that they had discarded. And buddies who have seen Bolo prisoners come into our lines can imagine how bad a discarded Bolo coat or undershirt must be. After this we were locked up in a box car with no fire and three guards over us.

"Next morning, April 3rd, the car door was opened and the Bolshevik soldiers made angry demonstrations toward us and were kept out only by our guards' bayonets. We were fed some barley wash and the rye bread which tasted wonderful after the previous food. I paid a British two-shilling piece which I had concealed in my shoe to a guard to get me a tin to put our food in, and we made wooden spoons. That night we were lined up against the car and asked if we knew that we were going to be shot. But this event, I am happy to say, never took place. We went by train to Plesetskaya that day. Father Roach was taken to the commandant's quarters and we did not see him till the next day, when he told us he had enjoyed a fine night's sleep and expected to be sent back across the lines and would take messages to our comrades to let them know we were alive and on our way to Moscow."

It is interesting to note that the American Sergeant's insistence that he and his companions be given bath and means to shave, won the respect and assistance of the guard and the Bolshevik officer. Of course in making the two day's march in prisoner convoy from Bolsheozerki to Emtsa there had been severe hardship and privation and painful uncertainty and mental agony over their possible fate. And they had not stopped long enough in one place to enable them to make an appeal for fair treatment.

Imagine the three American soldiers and the "Y" man and the two British soldiers sitting disconsolately in a filthy taplooshka, hands and faces with three days and nights of grime and dirt, scratching themselves under their dirty rags, cussing the active cooties that had come with the shirts, and trying to soothe their itching bewhiskered faces. Here the resourceful old sergeant keenly picked out the cleanest one of the guards and approached him with signs and his limited Russki gavareet and made his protest at being left dirty. He won out. The soldier horoshawed several times and seechassed away to return a few minutes later with a long Russian blade and a tiny green cake of soap and a tin of hot water. Under the stimulation of a small silver coin from the sergeant's store he assumed the role of barber and smoothed up the faces of the whole crowd of prisoners. And then followed the trip under guard to the steaming bath-house that is such a vivid memory to all soldiers who soldiered up there under the Arctic Circle. In this connection it may be related that later on at Moscow the obliging Commissar of the block in which they were quartered hunted up for them razors and soap and even found for them tooth brushes and tubes of toothpaste which had been made in Detroit, U. S. A., and sold to Moscow merchants in a happier time.

"On April 5th we left Plesetskaya, after saying good-bye to the English Chaplain who seemed greatly pleased that he was to get his freedom and had his pockets full of Bolshevik propaganda. We reached Naundoma after a night of terrible cold in the unheated car and during the next two days on the railway journey to Vologda had nothing to eat. On April 7th we reached that city and were locked up with about twenty Russians. Here we got some black bread that seemed to have sand in it and some sour cabbage soup which we all shared, Russians and all, from a single bucket. Next day we thought it a real improvement to have a separate tin and a single wooden spoon for the forlorn group of Americans and British.

"At Plesetskaya we were questioned very thoroughly by a Russian officer who spoke English very well and showed marked sympathy toward us and saw to it that we were better treated, and later in Moscow saw to it that we had some small favors. In three days' time we were again on the train for Moscow, travelling in what seemed luxury after our late experience. The trains to Moscow ran only once a week as there were no materials to keep up the equipment.

"On our arrival we found the streets sloppy and muddy, with heaps of ice and snow and dead horses among the rubbish. Few business places were open, all stores having been looted. Here and there was a semi-illicit stand where horsemeat, salt fish, carrots or cabbage and parsnips, and sour milk could be bought on the sly if you had the price. But it was very little at any price and exceedingly uncertain of appearance. We were sent to join the other prisoners, French, English, Scotch and Americans who had preceded us from the front to Moscow. They had tales similar to ours to tell us.

"The next morning at 10:00 a. m. we were wondering when we would eat. The answer was: Twelve noon. Cabbage soup headed the menu, then came dead horse meat, or salt fish if you chose it, black bread and water. Same menu for supper. We learned that the people of the city fared scarcely better. All were rationed. The soldiers and officials of the Bolsheviks fared better than the others. Children were favored to some extent. But the 'intelligenza' and the former capitalists were in sore straits. Many were almost starving. Death rate was high. The soldier got a pound of bread, workmen half a pound, others a quarter of a pound. In this way they maintained their army. Fight, work for the Red government or starve. Some argument. Liberty is unknown under the Soviet rule. Their motto as I saw it is: What is yours is mine.'"

Captivity with all its desperate hardships and baleful uncertainties, had its occasional brighter thread. The American boys feel especially grateful to Mr. Merle V. Arnold, of. Lincoln, Nebraska, the American Y. M. C. A. man who had been captured by the Red Guards a few days preceding their capture. He was able to do things for them when they reached Moscow. And when he was almost immediately given his liberty and allowed to go out through Finland, he did not forget the boys he left behind. He carried their case to the British and Danish Red Cross and a weekly allowance of 200 roubles found its way over the belligerent lines to Moscow and was given to the boys, much to the grateful assistance of the starving allied prisoners of war.

But they became resourceful as all American soldiers seem to become, whether at Bakaritza, Smolny, Archangel, Kholmogora, Moscow or wherenot, and they found ways of adding to their rations. Imagine one of them lining up with the employees of a Bolo public soup kitchen and going through ostensibly to do some work and playing now-you-see-it-now-you-don't-see-it with a dish of salt or a head of cabbage or a loaf of bread or a chunk of sugar, or when on friendly terms with the Bolshevik public employees volunteering to help do some work that led them to where a little money would buy something on the side at inside employees' prices. Imagine them with their little brass kettle, stewing it over their little Russian sheet-iron stove, stirring in their birdseed substitute for rolled oats and potatoes and cabbage and perhaps a few shreds of as clean a piece of meat as they could buy, on the sly. See the big wooden spoons travelling happily from pot to lips and hear the chorus of Dobra, dobra.

They will not ever forget the English Red Cross woman who constantly looked out for the five Americans, the thirty-five British and fifteen French prisoners, finding ways to get for them occasional morsels of bacon and bread and small packages of tea and tobacco. On Easter day she entertained them all in the old palace of Ivan the Terrible.

How good it was one day to meet an American woman who had eighteen years before married a Russian in Chicago and come to Moscow to live. Her husband was a grain buyer for the Bolshevik government but she was a hater of the Red Rule and gave the boys all the comfort she could, which was little owing to the surveillance of the Red authorities.

And one day the sergeant met an American dentist who had for many years been the tooth mechanic for the old Czar and his family. He fixed up a tooth as best he could for the American soldier. The Reds had about stripped him but left him his tools and his shop so that he could serve the Red rulers when their molars and canines needed attention.

The American boys gained the confidence of the Russians in Moscow just as they had always done in North Russia. They were finally given permission to participate in the privileges of one of the numerous clubs that the Red officials furnished up lavishly for themselves in the palatial quarters of old Moscow. Here they could find literature and lectures and lounging room and for a few roubles often gained a hot plate of good soup or a delicacy in the shape of a horse steak. Of course the latter was always a little dubious to the American doughboy, for in walking the street he too often saw the poor horse that dropped dead from starvation or overdriving, approached by the butcher with the long knife. He merely raised the horse's tail, slashed around the anal opening of the animal with his blade, then reached in his great arm and drew out the entrails and cast them to one side for the dogs to growl and fight over. Later would come the sleigh with axes and other knives to cut up the frozen carcass. On May day the boys nearly lost their membership in the club, along with its soup and horse-steak privileges because they would not march in the Red parade to the gaily decorated square to hear Lenin speak to his subjects.

Was the Red government able to feed the people by commandeering, the food? No. At last the peasants gained the sufferance of the Red rulers to traffic their foodstuffs on the streets even as we have seen them with handfuls of vegetables on the market streets of Archangel. Prices were out of sight. Under a shawl in a tiny box, an old peasant woman on Easter Day was offering covertly a few eggs at two hundred roubles apiece.

Imagine the feelings of the boys when they walked about freely as they did, being dressed in the regular Russian long coats and caps and being treated with courtesy by all Russians who recognized them as Americans. Here they found themselves looking at the great hotel built on American lines of architecture to please the eye and shelter the American travellers of the olden times before the great war, a building now used by the Red Department of State. Here they were examined by one of Tchicherin's men upon their arrival in the Red capital. Further they could walk about the Kremlin, and visit a part of it on special occasions. They could see the execution block and the huge space laid out by Ivan the Terrible, where thousands of Russians bled this life away at the behest of a cruel government.

Or they could stand before the St. Saveur cathedral, a noble structure of solid marble with glorious murals within to remind the Slavic people of their unconquerable resistance to the great Napoleon and of his disastrous retreat from their beloved Moscow.

They cannot be blamed for coming out of Moscow convinced that the heart of the Slavic people is not in this Bolshevik class hatred and class dictatorship stuff of Lenin and Trotsky; equally convinced that the heart of the Russian people is not unfearful of the attempted return of the old royalist bureaucrats to their baleful power, and convinced that the heart of this great, courteous, patient, longsuffering Slavic people is groping for expression of self-government, and that America is their ideal—a hazy ideal and one that they aspire toward only in general outlines. Their ultimate self-government may not take the shape of American constitutionalism, but Russian self-government must in time come out of the very wrack of foreign and internecine war. And every American soldier who fought the Bolshevik Russian in arms or stood on the battle line beside the Archangel Republic anti-Bolshevik Russian, might join these returned captives from Bolshevikdom in wishing that there may soon come peace to that land, and that they may develop self-government.

"We finally received our release. We had known of the liberation of Mr. Arnold and several of our North Russian comrades and had been hoping for our turn to come. Mr. Frank Taylor, an Associated Press correspondent, was helpful to us, declaring to the Bolshevik rulers that American troops were withdrawing from Archangel. We had been faithful (sic) to the lectures, for a purpose of dissimulation, and the Red fanatics really thought we were converted to the silly stuff called bolshevism. It was plain to us also that they were playing for recognition of their government by the United States. So we were given passports for Finland. The propaganda did not deceive us.

"At the border a suspicious sailor on guard searched us. He turned many back to Petrograd. The train pulled back carrying four hundred women and children and babies disappointed at the very door to freedom, weeping, penniless, and starving, starting back into Russia all to suit the whim of an ignorant under officer. Under the influence of flattery he softened toward us and after robbing us of everything that had been provided us by our friends for the journey, taking even the official papers sent by the Bolshevik government to our government which we were to deliver to American representatives in Finland, he let us go.

"After he let us go we saw the soldiers in the house grabbing for the American money which Mr. Taylor had given us. They had not thought it worth while to take the Russian roubles away from us. Of course they were of no value to us in Finland. After a two kilometer walk, carrying a sick English soldier with us, my three comrades and I reached the little bridge that gave us our freedom."—By Sgt. Glenn W. Leitzell, Co. M, 339th Inf.



XXXVIII

MILITARY DECORATIONS

In the North Russian Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki, American officers and men fought at one time or another under the field standards of four nations, American, British, French, and (North) Russian. And for their valor and greatly meritorious conduct, mostly over and beyond the call of duty, many soldiers were highly commended by their field officers, American, French, British, and Russian, in their reports to higher military authorities. Many, but not all, of these officers and soldiers were later cited in orders and awarded decorations. Not every deserving man received a citation. That is the luck of war.

It was a matter of keen regret to the British Commanding General that he was so hedged by orders from England that his generous policy of awarding decorations to American soldiers was abruptly ended in mid-winter when it became apparent that the United States would not continue the campaign against the Bolsheviki but would withdraw American troops at the earliest possible moment.

The Russian military authorities were eager to show their appreciation of their American soldier allies, but due to the indifference of Colonel Stewart to this not many soldiers were decorated with Russian old army decorations.

The French decorations were probably the sincerest marks of esteem and admiration. They were bestowed by French officers who were close to the doughboy in the field. And they are prized as tokens of the affection of the French for Americans.

In speaking of American decorations we can hardly write without heat. The doughboy did not get his just deserts. And he, without doubt, is correct in placing the blame for the neglect at the door of the American commanding officer, Colonel Stewart. Men and officers who died heroically up there in that North Russian campaign, and others who carry wound scars, and yet others who performed valiantly in that desperate campaign, went unrewarded.

AMERICAN DECORATIONS

Distinguished Service Cross

BUGLER JAMES F. REVELS, "I" Co., 339th Inf., for gallantry in action, Sept. 16th, 1918, Obozerskaya, Russia.

LIEUT. CHARLES F. CHAPPEL, "K" Co., 339th Inf., for gallantry in action, Sept. 27th, 1918, Kodish, Russia. (Citation posthumous.)

SGT. MATHEW G. GRAHEK, "M" Co., 339th Inf., for gallantry in action, Sept. 29th, 1918, at Verst 458, Obozerskaya, Russia.

SGT. CORNELIUS T. MAHONEY, "K" Co., 339th Inf., for gallantry in action, October 16th, 1918, Kodish, Russia.

CORP. ROBERT M. PRATT, "M" Co., 339th Inf., for gallantry in action, October 17th, 1918, Verst 445, near Emtsa, Russia.

PVT. VICTOR STIER, "A" Co., 339th Inf., for gallantry in action, January 19th, 1919, Ust Padenga, Russia. (Citation posthumous.)

PVT. LAWRENCE B. KILROY, 337th Ambulance Company, for gallantry in action, Kodish, Russia.

PVT. HUBERT C. PAUL, 337th Ambulance Company, for gallantry in action, Kodish, Russia.

LIEUT. CLIFFORD F. PHILLIPS, "H" Co., 339th Inf., for gallantry in action, April 2nd, 1919, near Bolsheozerki. (Citation posthumous.)

CORP. THEODORE SIELOFF, "I" Co., 339th Inf., for gallantry in action, Nov. 4th, 1918, at Verst 445, near Emtsa, Russia.

PVT. CLARENCE H. ZECH, 337th Ambulance Company, for gallantry in action, Kodish, Russia.

CORP. WILLIAM H. RUSSELL, "M" Co., 339th Inf., for gallantry in action, April 1st, 1919, near Bolsheozerki, Russia. (Citation posthumous.)

PVT. CHESTER H. EVERHARD, 337th Ambulance Company, for gallantry in action, April 2nd, 1919, near Bolsheozerki, Russia.

LIEUT. HOWARD H. PELLEGROM, "H" Co., 339th Inf., for gallantry in action, April 2nd, 1919, near Bolsheozerki, Russia.

FRENCH DECORATIONS

Legion of Honor

MAJOR J. BROOKS NICHOLS, 339th Inf.

COL. GEORGE E. STEWART, 339th Inf.

Croix de Guerre

PVT. WALTER STREIT, "M" Co.

SGT. MATHEW G. GRAHEK, "M" Co.

PVT. JAMES DRISCOLL, "M.G." Co.

PVT. CLARENCE A. MILLER, "M" CO.

PVT. ARTHUR FRANK, "M.G." CO.

PVT. LEO R. ELLIS, "I" Co.

LIEUT. JAMES R. DONOVAN, "M" Co. 339th Inf.

SGT. FRANK GETZLOFF, "M" Co.

CORP. C. A. GROBBELL, "I" Co.

LIEUT. GEORGE W. STONER, "M" Co., 339th Inf.

PVT. JOHN H. ROMPINEN, "M" Co.

PVT. ALFRED FULLER, "K" Co.

MAJOR MICHAEL J. DONOGHUE, 339th Inf.

LIEUT. CLARENCE J. PRIMM, "M" Co., 339th Inf.

LIEUT. DWIGHT FISTLER, "I" Co., 339th Inf.

SGT. CHARLES HEBNER, "M" Co.

PVT. OTTO GEORGIA, "K" Co.

LIEUT. PERCIVAL L. SMITH, "Hq." Co., 339th Inf.

LIEUT. WESLEY K. WRIGHT, "M" Co., 339th Inf.