Chapter 26

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 passed 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 sturdy 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 shore 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 shore. 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.

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 apron, 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 shell 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 shell 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 assembled for evacuation at Archangel. And the 337th Field Hospital Company itself was assembled 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 Assaulting Columns—Wires Repaired Under Shell 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 passing 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 space 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 assist 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 shells 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 assuring 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 pass 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.

The writer has a silver Nicholas the Fifth rouble. It is one of the very few silver coins seen in Russia. Here and there a soldier was able to get hold of silver and gold coins of the old days, but they were very scarce. The Russian peasant had to feel a high degree of affection for an American before he would part with one of his hoarded bits of real money.

Of paper money there was no end. When the Americans landed, they were met by small boys on the streets with sheets of Archangel state money under their arms. The perforations of some Kerenskies were not yet disturbed when great sheets and rolls of it were taken from the bodies of dead Bolos. Everybody had paper money. The Bolsheviki were counterfeiting the old Czar’s paper money and the Kerensky money and issuing currency of their own. The Polar Bear and Walrus 25-rouble notes of Archangel and their sign-board size government gold bond notes were printed in England, as were later the other denominations of Archangel roubles, better known as British roubles. Needless to say there was a great speculation in money and exchange. Nickolai and Kerensky and Archangel and British guaranteed roubles tumbled over one another in the market. Of course trafficking in money was taboo but was brisk.

Early the Yankee got on to this game. His American money was even more prized than the English or French. The Russian gave him great rolls of roubles of various sorts for his greenbacks. Then he took the good money on the ships in the harbor and bought, usually through a sailor, boxes of candy and cartons of cigarettes and,—whisper this, bottles and cases of whiskey of which thousands of cases found their way to Archangel. The Russian then went out into the ill-controlled markets and side streets of Archangel and sold to his own countrymen these luxuries at prices that would make an American sugar profiteer or bootlegger seem a piker. Meanwhile the Yank or Tommie or Poilu went to his own commissary or to the British Navy and Army Canteen Bureau, “N. A. C. B.” to the doughboy’s memory, or to our various “Y” canteens and at a fixed rate of exchange—a rate fixed by the bankers in London—to use his roubles in buying things. He could also use the roubles in buying furs and skins of the Russians who still had the same saved from the looting Bolsheviki. At the rate first established, an English pound sterling was exchangeable for forty-eight roubles and vice versa. But on the illicit market, the pound would bring anywhere from eighty to one hundred and forty roubles. The American five dollar bill which was approximately worth fifty roubles in this “pegged” rouble money on the market when an American ship was in the harbor, would bring one hundred to one hundred and fifty roubles. No wonder the doughboy who was stationed around Archangel or Bakaritza found it possible to stretch his money a good way. Many a dollar of company fund was made to buy twice as much or more than it otherwise would have bought. And in passing, let it be remarked that the Yank who had access to N. A. C. B. and other canteen stores was not slow in joining the thrifty Russki in this trafficking game, illicit though it was. And truth to tell, many a case of British whiskey was stolen by Yank and Tommie and Russki and Poilu and sent rejoicing on its way through these devious underground channels of traffic. One American officer in responsible position had to suffer for it when he returned to the States. The doughboys and medics and engineers who were up there are still filled with mixed emotions on the subject, a mixture of indignation and admiration.

“Let him now who is guiltless throw the first stone.”

Returning to the discussion of currency, let it be recorded that after the market was flooded with all sorts of money and after the ships stopped coming because of the great ice barrier, the money market became wilder than ever. Finally the London bankers who had been the victims of this speculation, decided upon a new issue of pegged currency. At forty to the pound the old roubles were called in. That is, every soldier who had forty-eight roubles could exchange them for forty new crisp and pretty roubles. Their beauty was marred by the rubber stamp which was put over the sign of old Nicholas’ rule, which the thoughtless or tactless London money maker printed on the issue. The Russian would have none of this new money with that suggestion of restoration of Czar rule. Inconsistently enough they still prized the old Nickolai rouble notes as the very best paper currency in the land, and loud was the outcry at giving forty-eight Nickolais for forty English-printed and guaranteed roubles of their own new Archangel government.

To stimulate the retirement of all other forms of currency, which measure in a settled country would have been a sensible economic pressure, the Archangel government set a date when not forty-eight but fifty-six roubles might be exchanged for forty new roubles. Then a date for sixty-four, then for seventy-two and then eighty. Thus the skeptical peasant and the suspicious soldier saw his old roubles steadily decline in exchange value for the new roubles. Of course they had always grabbed all the counterfeit stuff and used it in exchange with no compunctions. That was the winning part of the game. Now they were pinched. It afforded some merriment to hear the outcries of some who had been making rolls of money in the trafficking.

At the same time there was real suffering on the part of peasants in far distant areas who could not get their currency up for exchange or for stamping and punching which itself was finally necessary to even get the eighty-forty rate. They felt mistreated. To their simple hearts and ignorant minds, it was nothing short of robbery by the distant London bankers. Soldiers on the far distant fronts were caught also in the currency reform. Some of the fault was neglect by their own American officers and some was indifference to the subject by those American officers at Archangel who were in position to know what was going to be the result of the attempt to peg the currency at a fixed rate.

An officer who was in Archangel during the summer on Graves Commission service after the American units had been withdrawn, reports that speculators for a song bought up great bales of the old Kerensky and Nickolai currency supposed to be cancelled, dead, defunct stuff, and when there was a considerable evacuation of central Russians who had been for months refugees in Archangel, this currency came out of hiding, and its traffickers realized a handsome profiteerski by selling it to the returning people at sixty to the pound sterling, for in interior Russia the old stuff was still in circulation. At any rate that was Shylokov’s advertisement. During the summer, the money market, says Lieut. Primm, became a violent wonder. On one day a person could not obtain two hundred and fifty roubles for one hundred North Russian roubles and a day or two later he might be importuned to take three hundred old for one hundred new.

Neither the soldiers nor the Russians saw any justice in this flip-flopping of the currency market, to which of course they themselves were contributors. The thing they saw clearly was that when they had need of English credit (that is, checks) to send money to London banks or when they wanted to buy goods from England or America, then they could buy only with the new, the guaranteed rouble, which might be dear, even at one hundred and twenty-five to the pound sterling and was dearer of course in terms of old roubles, the more the demand was for the new roubles which were in the hands of speculators who manipulated the market as sweetly for themselves as the American profiteers with their oral and written advertisements manipulate our foodstuffs and goods for us. On the other hand, if the soldier or peasant or small merchant had dues coming to him in English money he then found them valued at forty to the pound sterling. This difference between eighty and one hundred and twenty-five he thought (naturally enough to his unsophisticated mind) was due to the vacillation in policy of enforcement of the pegged rate and prosecution of the traffickers.

However opinion may differ as to the blame for the inability to peg the exchange, we know it was a bonanza to the speculators. Ponzi ought to have been there to compete with the whiskered money sharks. And we know there were Americans as well as British, French, Russians and other nationals who were numbered among those speculators.

After all is said we must admit that the money situation was one that was exceedingly difficult to handle. It was infinitely worse in Bolshevikdom. The doughboy who used to find pads of undetached counterfeit Kerenskie on the dead Bolsheviks, can well believe that thirty dollars of good American chink one day in the Soviet part of Russia bought an American newspaper man one million paper roubles of the Lenine-Trotsky issue, and that before night, spending his money at the famine prices in the worthless paper, he was a dead-broke millionaire.