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The Polar Bear Expedition: The Heroes of America's Forgotten Invasion of Russia, 1918-1919
In the brutally cold winter of 1919, 5,000 Americans battled the Red Army 600 miles north of Moscow. We have forgotten. Russia has not.
"AN EXCELLENT BOOK." —Wall Street Journal • "INCREDIBLE." — John U. Bacon • "EXCEPTIONAL.” — Patrick K. O’Donnell • "A MASTER OF NARRATIVE HISTORY." — Mitchell Yockelson • "GRIPPING." — Matthew J. Davenport • "FASCINATING, VIVID." — Minneapolis Star Tribune
An unforgettable human drama deep with contemporary resonance, award-winning historian James Carl Nelson's The Polar Bear Expedition draws on an untapped trove of firsthand accounts to deliver a vivid, soldier's-eye view of an extraordinary lost chapter of American history—the Invasion of Russia one hundred years ago during the last days of the Great War.
In the winter of 1919, 5,000 U.S. soldiers, nicknamed "The Polar Bears," found themselves hundreds of miles north of Moscow in desperate, bloody combat against the newly formed Soviet Union's Red Army. Temperatures plummeted to sixty below zero. Their guns and their flesh froze. The Bolsheviks, camouflaged in white, advanced in waves across the snow like ghosts.
The Polar Bears, hailing largely from Michigan, heroically waged a courageous campaign in the brutal, frigid subarctic of northern Russia for almost a year. And yet they are all but unknown today. Indeed, during the Cold War, two U.S. presidents, Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon, would assert that the American and the Russian people had never directly fought each other. They were spectacularly wrong, and so too is the nation's collective memory.
It began in August 1918, during the last months of the First World War: the U.S. Army's 339th Infantry Regiment crossed the Arctic Circle; instead of the Western Front, these troops were sailing en route to Archangel, Russia, on the White Sea, to intervene in the Russian Civil War. The American Expeditionary Force, North Russia, had been sent to fight the Soviet Red Army and aid anti-Bolshevik forces in hopes of reopening the Eastern Front against Germany. And yet even after the Great War officially ended in November 1918, American troops continued to battle the Red Army and another, equally formiddable enemy, "General Winter," which had destroyed Napoleon's Grand Armee a century earlier and would do the same to Hitler's once invincible Wehrmacht.
More than two hundred Polar Bears perished before their withdrawal in July 1919. But their story does not end there. Ten years after they left, a contingent of veterans returned to Russia to recover the remains of more than a hundred of their fallen brothers and lay them to rest in Michigan, where a monument honoring their service still stands.
In the century since, America has forgotten the Polar Bears' harrowing campaign. Russia, notably, has not, and as Nelson reveals, the episode continues to color Russian attitudes toward the United States. At once epic and intimate, The Polar Bear Expedition masterfully recovers this remarkable tale at a time of new relevance.
"AN EXCELLENT BOOK." —Wall Street Journal • "INCREDIBLE." — John U. Bacon • "EXCEPTIONAL.” — Patrick K. O’Donnell • "A MASTER OF NARRATIVE HISTORY." — Mitchell Yockelson • "GRIPPING." — Matthew J. Davenport • "FASCINATING, VIVID." — Minneapolis Star Tribune
An unforgettable human drama deep with contemporary resonance, award-winning historian James Carl Nelson's The Polar Bear Expedition draws on an untapped trove of firsthand accounts to deliver a vivid, soldier's-eye view of an extraordinary lost chapter of American history—the Invasion of Russia one hundred years ago during the last days of the Great War.
In the winter of 1919, 5,000 U.S. soldiers, nicknamed "The Polar Bears," found themselves hundreds of miles north of Moscow in desperate, bloody combat against the newly formed Soviet Union's Red Army. Temperatures plummeted to sixty below zero. Their guns and their flesh froze. The Bolsheviks, camouflaged in white, advanced in waves across the snow like ghosts.
The Polar Bears, hailing largely from Michigan, heroically waged a courageous campaign in the brutal, frigid subarctic of northern Russia for almost a year. And yet they are all but unknown today. Indeed, during the Cold War, two U.S. presidents, Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon, would assert that the American and the Russian people had never directly fought each other. They were spectacularly wrong, and so too is the nation's collective memory.
It began in August 1918, during the last months of the First World War: the U.S. Army's 339th Infantry Regiment crossed the Arctic Circle; instead of the Western Front, these troops were sailing en route to Archangel, Russia, on the White Sea, to intervene in the Russian Civil War. The American Expeditionary Force, North Russia, had been sent to fight the Soviet Red Army and aid anti-Bolshevik forces in hopes of reopening the Eastern Front against Germany. And yet even after the Great War officially ended in November 1918, American troops continued to battle the Red Army and another, equally formiddable enemy, "General Winter," which had destroyed Napoleon's Grand Armee a century earlier and would do the same to Hitler's once invincible Wehrmacht.
More than two hundred Polar Bears perished before their withdrawal in July 1919. But their story does not end there. Ten years after they left, a contingent of veterans returned to Russia to recover the remains of more than a hundred of their fallen brothers and lay them to rest in Michigan, where a monument honoring their service still stands.
In the century since, America has forgotten the Polar Bears' harrowing campaign. Russia, notably, has not, and as Nelson reveals, the episode continues to color Russian attitudes toward the United States. At once epic and intimate, The Polar Bear Expedition masterfully recovers this remarkable tale at a time of new relevance.
336 pages, Paperback
First published February 19, 2019
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 118 reviews
December 1, 2021
This is a great book about a tragic footnote of the Great War and the Russian Revolution. After the collapse of Imperial Russia and the subsequent peace treaty between Russia and Germany where many divisions was freed up to fight on the Western Front, the allies sent forces to guard stockpiles of weapons from falling into enemy hands that were in Russian ports, and a more grander scheme of supporting White Russian forces to open the Eastern Front again to divert German forces.
This is what lead the men of the 339th Infantry Regiment to the north of Russia and in direct conflict with Bolshevik forces there. The men were bright eyed youngsters who was looking forward to doing their bit fighting Germany on the Western Front, but instead was diverted up north by Woodrow Wilson's decision to support British and French ambitions to counter the revolution of the Reds. The men had first to fight the deadly Spanish Flu that killed a number of them and then the enemy in what can only be described as the most appalling conditions imaginable during the Arctic winter, equipped with inadequate weapons and supplies and falling under a leadership out of touch with fighting conditions.
The author divides the story up into short chapters that is very personal as it mostly focuses on an individual and how he fought the certain actions that are described in that chapter. It is a sad story because these young men had to endure these hardships while the rest of the world was celebrating the end of the Great War in November 1918 while these men had to stay in the frontlines until March 1919, all the while fighting an enemy that was getting stronger by the day while these men never knew exactly why they were there, even after the fact.
In the end this was a useless exercise for the allies, even though it could be seen as an opportunity lost to crush the Soviet Union in it's infancy and thereby saving millions of lives in the years to come under the oppression of Stalin and his Red cronies, but this is easy to say with hindsight. Highly recommended reading as this is well written and researched and very personally written.
This is what lead the men of the 339th Infantry Regiment to the north of Russia and in direct conflict with Bolshevik forces there. The men were bright eyed youngsters who was looking forward to doing their bit fighting Germany on the Western Front, but instead was diverted up north by Woodrow Wilson's decision to support British and French ambitions to counter the revolution of the Reds. The men had first to fight the deadly Spanish Flu that killed a number of them and then the enemy in what can only be described as the most appalling conditions imaginable during the Arctic winter, equipped with inadequate weapons and supplies and falling under a leadership out of touch with fighting conditions.
The author divides the story up into short chapters that is very personal as it mostly focuses on an individual and how he fought the certain actions that are described in that chapter. It is a sad story because these young men had to endure these hardships while the rest of the world was celebrating the end of the Great War in November 1918 while these men had to stay in the frontlines until March 1919, all the while fighting an enemy that was getting stronger by the day while these men never knew exactly why they were there, even after the fact.
In the end this was a useless exercise for the allies, even though it could be seen as an opportunity lost to crush the Soviet Union in it's infancy and thereby saving millions of lives in the years to come under the oppression of Stalin and his Red cronies, but this is easy to say with hindsight. Highly recommended reading as this is well written and researched and very personally written.
December 17, 2020
In the spring, fall, and winter of 1918, American soldiers found themselves in a daily deadly struggle with Bolsheviks in the far, cold North of Russia. More than two hundred of them died in action; others succumbed to diseases, wounds, and the freezing temperatures. The survivors would come to refer to themselves as “Polar Bears”.
The US armed intervention in the Russian Civil War is a curious, little known event, which, however, influenced the subsequent Soviet-American relations. While the Americans tended to ignore it, the Soviets remembered it as an act of invasion up to the downfall of the USSR. James Carl Nelson’s book takes a look at the beginning, at the roots of the mistrust between the two great powers of the 20th century.
The Polar Bear Expedition focuses on the so-called North Russia Campaign, during which American troops were dispatched to Archangel, in the far North, near the White Sea. Nelson’s work impresses with the vividness of its descriptions. The intolerable cold of the Arctic region, frostbitten limbs, hunger, and the bloody fights with the Bolshevik fighters were all shown with detail so great the book reads like a diary. The depiction of the Russian peasants’ huts where the troops were sheltered – smelly, with domestic animals and children sleeping together. The soldiers’ despair, their wonder, are all expressed lively enough for the reader to feel their bitterness. Why, after World War I was finally over, were they still in hostile Russia, fighting and freezing, and dying?
After returning to the USA, the polar bears were mostly silent on what they had endured in the far North, the memories too nightmarish to be shared.
James Carl Nelson’s narrative is meticulously researched and highly compelling. It presents an insightful view of the first-hand experience of the American troops in Archangel. Sure, it doesn’t dig much into the political side of the “excursion” to Soviet Russia, but it’s a brilliantly written, in-depth account of the Polar Bear expedition and the veterans of this unusual conflict.
The US armed intervention in the Russian Civil War is a curious, little known event, which, however, influenced the subsequent Soviet-American relations. While the Americans tended to ignore it, the Soviets remembered it as an act of invasion up to the downfall of the USSR. James Carl Nelson’s book takes a look at the beginning, at the roots of the mistrust between the two great powers of the 20th century.
The Polar Bear Expedition focuses on the so-called North Russia Campaign, during which American troops were dispatched to Archangel, in the far North, near the White Sea. Nelson’s work impresses with the vividness of its descriptions. The intolerable cold of the Arctic region, frostbitten limbs, hunger, and the bloody fights with the Bolshevik fighters were all shown with detail so great the book reads like a diary. The depiction of the Russian peasants’ huts where the troops were sheltered – smelly, with domestic animals and children sleeping together. The soldiers’ despair, their wonder, are all expressed lively enough for the reader to feel their bitterness. Why, after World War I was finally over, were they still in hostile Russia, fighting and freezing, and dying?
After returning to the USA, the polar bears were mostly silent on what they had endured in the far North, the memories too nightmarish to be shared.
James Carl Nelson’s narrative is meticulously researched and highly compelling. It presents an insightful view of the first-hand experience of the American troops in Archangel. Sure, it doesn’t dig much into the political side of the “excursion” to Soviet Russia, but it’s a brilliantly written, in-depth account of the Polar Bear expedition and the veterans of this unusual conflict.
November 30, 2021
The Polar Bear Expedition: The Heroes of America’s Forgotten Invasion of Russia, 1918-1919 by James Carl Nelson is the story of an extraordinary lost chapter in the history of World War I: the story of America’s year-long invasion of Russia, in which a contingency of brave soldiers fought the Red Army and brutal conditions during the fall and winter of 1918–1919. In August 1918, the 339th regiment of the U.S. Army—roughly 5,000 soldiers, most hailing from Michigan—sailed for Europe to fight in World War I. But instead of the Western Front, these troops were headed to Archangel, Russia, a vital port city 1,000 miles northeast of Moscow. There, in the frozen subarctic, amid the chaos of the Russian Civil War, one of the most extraordinary episodes of American history unfolded.
The American North Russia Expeditionary Force—self-dubbed “The Polar Bear Expedition”—was sent to fight the Red Army and aid anti-Bolshevik forces in hopes of re-opening the Eastern Front against Germany. When Russia withdrew from the war due to struggles at home, Germany took advantage and transferred massive amounts of troops to the western front to press their attacks on the allies with overwhelming troop numbers. On the 100th anniversary of the campaign, award-winning historian James Carl Nelson recreates this harrowing, dramatic military operation in which Americans and Bolsheviks fought a series of pitched battles throughout a punishing fall and winter. The allies were concerned that supplies and munitions intended for the Czar's army to help in the fight against Germany might fall into the hands of the red army and the bolsheviks and they were interested in keeping a two-front war in place against Germany.
As the Great War officially ended in November 1918, American troops continued to battle the Red Army and an equally formidable enemy, “General Winter.” Subzero temperatures made machine guns and light artillery inoperable. In the blinding ice and snow, sentries suffered from frostbite while guarding against nearly invisible Bolos camouflaged by their white uniforms. Before the Polar Bears’ withdrawal in July 1919, more than 200 perished from battle, accidents, and the Spanish flu.
But the Polar Bears’ story does not end there. Ten years later, a contingent of veterans returned to Russia to recover the remains of more than 100 of their fallen comrades and lay them to rest in Michigan, where a monument honoring their service still stands: a massive marble polar bear guarding a cross that marks the grave of a fallen soldier.
The American North Russia Expeditionary Force—self-dubbed “The Polar Bear Expedition”—was sent to fight the Red Army and aid anti-Bolshevik forces in hopes of re-opening the Eastern Front against Germany. When Russia withdrew from the war due to struggles at home, Germany took advantage and transferred massive amounts of troops to the western front to press their attacks on the allies with overwhelming troop numbers. On the 100th anniversary of the campaign, award-winning historian James Carl Nelson recreates this harrowing, dramatic military operation in which Americans and Bolsheviks fought a series of pitched battles throughout a punishing fall and winter. The allies were concerned that supplies and munitions intended for the Czar's army to help in the fight against Germany might fall into the hands of the red army and the bolsheviks and they were interested in keeping a two-front war in place against Germany.
As the Great War officially ended in November 1918, American troops continued to battle the Red Army and an equally formidable enemy, “General Winter.” Subzero temperatures made machine guns and light artillery inoperable. In the blinding ice and snow, sentries suffered from frostbite while guarding against nearly invisible Bolos camouflaged by their white uniforms. Before the Polar Bears’ withdrawal in July 1919, more than 200 perished from battle, accidents, and the Spanish flu.
But the Polar Bears’ story does not end there. Ten years later, a contingent of veterans returned to Russia to recover the remains of more than 100 of their fallen comrades and lay them to rest in Michigan, where a monument honoring their service still stands: a massive marble polar bear guarding a cross that marks the grave of a fallen soldier.
July 15, 2019
As someone who grew up in the Midwest U.S., I first gained some awareness of the 'Polar Bear Expedition' of 1918-19 --- in which a U.S. Army regiment was sent to Northern Russia in the summer of 1918 ostensibly to guard stores of Allied military equipment at the port of Archangel, but was later used in battle against the Bolsheviks as part of a larger Allied (i.e. British) scheme to overthrow the Bolshevik government in Moscow and bring Russia back into World War I as a way to force Germany to recommit military forces there --- from a story I read in the late 1970s in a local paper about an elderly gentleman in Detroit whom mention was made of as having served in Northern Russia with the U.S. Army in 1919. I never forgot that newspaper story. And so, when I became aware of this book, I was determined to read it. And I'm glad I did, because I learned so much. For instance, who knew that, in addition to the U.S. and Britain, French, Canadian, and some Chinese military forces were involved in military actions against Bolshevik forces in Northern Russia in 1918-1919?
I highly recommend "THE POLAR BEAR EXPEDITION: The Heroes of America's Forgotten Invasion of Russia, 1918-1919" for anyone interested in learning about a long overlooked chapter of U.S. history that can provide valuable lessons for policymakers, academics, U.S. civilian and military leaders, and the general public as to the need (as stated by the White House) to deploy military forces in any part of the world identified as vital to U.S. security interests.
I highly recommend "THE POLAR BEAR EXPEDITION: The Heroes of America's Forgotten Invasion of Russia, 1918-1919" for anyone interested in learning about a long overlooked chapter of U.S. history that can provide valuable lessons for policymakers, academics, U.S. civilian and military leaders, and the general public as to the need (as stated by the White House) to deploy military forces in any part of the world identified as vital to U.S. security interests.
August 27, 2019
This is an odd footnote of the Great War. There is a monument to these men a few miles from where I grew up. I also have vague memories of my father telling me about the Polar Bears and their effort to keep Russia white.
After the fall of the Czarist Russia, the US 339th Infantry Regiment was sent to Archangel, a port 600 miles North of Moscow. Their mission was to guard munitions stores so that they did not fall into the hands of the Germans.
These were men from Middle America and Detroit. They were called the Polar Bears. High command selected men from northern United State because they thought that they would be better suited to handle the cold.
Somehow, these Americans found themselves under British Command and fighting the Bolsheviks. The strange thing is after the armistice was signed they were not recalled from Russia. Instead, they continued to fight on. The mission was not clear and blurred from the start. Apparently, the British and French thought that there would be a grass roots, ground swell of support of the Russian people to rise up and fight the Bolsheviks but this never happened.
This was an oddity. It was a footnote to WWI and the mission was never clear. Several Americans were killed in this pointless, futile effort to fight communism. It was mildly interesting and it will keep you scratching your head and asking yourself, why?
Not a bad read. I gave it three stars because it was well researched and answered a few questions I had about the men known as the Polar Bears.
Here is a link to some photos of the Polar Bears I found in the Detroit News Online edition: https://www.detroitnews.com/story/new...
After the fall of the Czarist Russia, the US 339th Infantry Regiment was sent to Archangel, a port 600 miles North of Moscow. Their mission was to guard munitions stores so that they did not fall into the hands of the Germans.
These were men from Middle America and Detroit. They were called the Polar Bears. High command selected men from northern United State because they thought that they would be better suited to handle the cold.
Somehow, these Americans found themselves under British Command and fighting the Bolsheviks. The strange thing is after the armistice was signed they were not recalled from Russia. Instead, they continued to fight on. The mission was not clear and blurred from the start. Apparently, the British and French thought that there would be a grass roots, ground swell of support of the Russian people to rise up and fight the Bolsheviks but this never happened.
This was an oddity. It was a footnote to WWI and the mission was never clear. Several Americans were killed in this pointless, futile effort to fight communism. It was mildly interesting and it will keep you scratching your head and asking yourself, why?
Not a bad read. I gave it three stars because it was well researched and answered a few questions I had about the men known as the Polar Bears.
Here is a link to some photos of the Polar Bears I found in the Detroit News Online edition: https://www.detroitnews.com/story/new...
April 30, 2022
This whole scenario was so weird.
Americans sent to Russia to help end the war. The war ends and the Americans remain. Until people really start complaining and mutinying. This entire story is the archetype of the question, “Why the hell are we even here?”
Nelson moves through the episode pretty fast and covers seemingly all the major functions and units for the Americans. He adds some interesting anecdotes and really gives time to those who were killed during the battles.
Nelson definitely takes the time to show just how badly run the entire operation was while making sure the soldiers doing the fighting are seen as the heroes they are.
And another historical cliché is confirmed. Truth is stranger than fiction.
Americans sent to Russia to help end the war. The war ends and the Americans remain. Until people really start complaining and mutinying. This entire story is the archetype of the question, “Why the hell are we even here?”
Nelson moves through the episode pretty fast and covers seemingly all the major functions and units for the Americans. He adds some interesting anecdotes and really gives time to those who were killed during the battles.
Nelson definitely takes the time to show just how badly run the entire operation was while making sure the soldiers doing the fighting are seen as the heroes they are.
And another historical cliché is confirmed. Truth is stranger than fiction.
December 21, 2024
Histories of wars are bound together by threads of injustice—bureaucratic bungling, “collateral damage,” cowardice, and hubris—all of which lead to meaningless death, mostly of youth. This episodic piece about a little known WWI invasion of Russia from the north by the Allies unfortunately fits squarely into this horrible tradition. It consisted of about 5,000 Americans, and soldiers from England, Scotland, France, Slavic nations, and White Russian Cossacks who enlisted locals. It was decided to open this front late in the war after the Russian Bolsheviks pulled out of fighting the Germans on the Eastern Front. Imagine what it must have been like, a young boy enlisted and trained to fight the Hun and then at the last minute being rerouted to Archangel, Russia to fight “Bolos” in the Russian winter. With James Carl Nelson’s account, you don’t have to use your mind’s eye.
The battle line fanned out some 200 miles in an arc from the southwest to the southeast of Archangel. There were two major obstacles, the first and most important being no clear strategic plan, just a vague, unrealistic notion of some invasion of Moscow…with a few thousand troops! To make it worse, fighting went well into 1919, long after the signed armistice. Second, there was the weather, which not only wore them down, but affected their weapons. Nelson’s attention to detail, how each small American group fought, often with names and descriptions of death of individual soldiers. Most were from Michigan, but soldiers from northern states from Nebraska to New Jersey served. This would be a good book for people who like to read about the details of military combat and especially for family members of the people whose stories fill the book.
To be a complete history, the story should include more about the Bolos. Nelson does share an anecdote of how Leon Trotsky, as Minister of War in the new government, directed forces out of a railroad car to be closer to the action. He also mentions how White Russian Cossacks fought alongside the Allied forces and how many of the locals were sympathetic to any forces opposing the Bolos. That’s about it. They become this amorphous presence, the source of many tragic bullets and mortars, occasional bodies strewn on the battle sites, but we don't much of a picture of them as individuals. Not anything, really. Only about the “good guys.” I understand, for example, why a work of fiction like Karl Marlantes’ Matterhorn , with a point of view, would portray the enemy as an amorphous threat. But I expect more from a history, there has to be some acknowledgment and explanation about the motivations of the opposing side.
Take my rating and thoughts with a grain of salt. I can understand why people would rate it highly, it’s just not for the casual reader of history who has little grounding in this era. For them, and me, a nice article would have been enough.
The battle line fanned out some 200 miles in an arc from the southwest to the southeast of Archangel. There were two major obstacles, the first and most important being no clear strategic plan, just a vague, unrealistic notion of some invasion of Moscow…with a few thousand troops! To make it worse, fighting went well into 1919, long after the signed armistice. Second, there was the weather, which not only wore them down, but affected their weapons. Nelson’s attention to detail, how each small American group fought, often with names and descriptions of death of individual soldiers. Most were from Michigan, but soldiers from northern states from Nebraska to New Jersey served. This would be a good book for people who like to read about the details of military combat and especially for family members of the people whose stories fill the book.
To be a complete history, the story should include more about the Bolos. Nelson does share an anecdote of how Leon Trotsky, as Minister of War in the new government, directed forces out of a railroad car to be closer to the action. He also mentions how White Russian Cossacks fought alongside the Allied forces and how many of the locals were sympathetic to any forces opposing the Bolos. That’s about it. They become this amorphous presence, the source of many tragic bullets and mortars, occasional bodies strewn on the battle sites, but we don't much of a picture of them as individuals. Not anything, really. Only about the “good guys.” I understand, for example, why a work of fiction like Karl Marlantes’ Matterhorn , with a point of view, would portray the enemy as an amorphous threat. But I expect more from a history, there has to be some acknowledgment and explanation about the motivations of the opposing side.
Take my rating and thoughts with a grain of salt. I can understand why people would rate it highly, it’s just not for the casual reader of history who has little grounding in this era. For them, and me, a nice article would have been enough.
March 26, 2019
last October while on vacation we visited a Museum in Houghton MI. there I found an exhibition(most of the pictures in the book were in the displays) on the "Polar Bears," most of whom were recruited in Northern MI. Instead of going to the Western front these american Soldiers were sent to Archangel to support the British/French troops to try to overthrow the Bolsheviks government.
A decent book on a not well known ( both President's Nixon and Reagan didn't know about them while making speeches) American involvement.
A decent book on a not well known ( both President's Nixon and Reagan didn't know about them while making speeches) American involvement.
April 4, 2019
Great story, poor writing. No macro analysis of geopolitical situation, reasoning. Too much micro details.
March 6, 2019
James Carl Nelson exhaustively researched his book about a little-known invasion of Russia in the last months of WWI. In 1919, 5000 U.S. soldiers, largely from Michigan, found themselves 500 miles north of Moscow in combat against the newly formed Soviet Union’s Red Army. Their enemies: The Red Army, bloody battle wounds with insufficient medical resources, and sub-arctic temperatures. For a year, most of these soldiers survived despite all odds against them.
Accounts from many of the survivors grace the back of the book. Diaries and periodical articles outline survival stories, battles, imprisonment, starvation, and even a wedding.
Written as a tribute to their heroism, the author emphasizes not just their plight. A decade later, a contingent of veterans ventured to find the remains of the 200 who had died. Once returned to Michigan, 50 of the recovered bodies were buried. A massive marble statue guards their graves. A polar bear.
Bravery against all odds should be remembered and honored. Thank you, Mr. Nelson.
My thanks to William Morris, an imprint of Harper Collins Publishers, for the advance review copy.
Accounts from many of the survivors grace the back of the book. Diaries and periodical articles outline survival stories, battles, imprisonment, starvation, and even a wedding.
Written as a tribute to their heroism, the author emphasizes not just their plight. A decade later, a contingent of veterans ventured to find the remains of the 200 who had died. Once returned to Michigan, 50 of the recovered bodies were buried. A massive marble statue guards their graves. A polar bear.
Bravery against all odds should be remembered and honored. Thank you, Mr. Nelson.
My thanks to William Morris, an imprint of Harper Collins Publishers, for the advance review copy.
August 17, 2020
2.5
To be honest, here, I don't really remember reading this book... I finished it a long time ago but remember these were right as the pandemic started so that's the reason I haven't updated my book status in a while. It wasn't that fun ...that is all I remember about it.
To be honest, here, I don't really remember reading this book... I finished it a long time ago but remember these were right as the pandemic started so that's the reason I haven't updated my book status in a while. It wasn't that fun ...that is all I remember about it.
March 5, 2019
This long forgotten chapter of WW1 history holds particular significance to me as the spouse of a Michigan boy. It was the winter of 1918-19 and roughly 5,000 soldiers, most hailing from Michigan, had expected to be sent to the Western Front to fight in France. Instead, they ended up 600 miles north of Moscow, locked in bloody combat with the anti-Bolshevik forces fighting the Red Army. Temperatures plummeted to 60 degrees below. Flesh froze to gun metal.
By 1919 there were 45,000 Communist fighters against 6,000 allied troops. More than 200 of the American “Polar Bears” would perish on the icy battlefield. A decade later, comrades would return to bring home the bodies.
In the brutal, sub-arctic north, this heartbreaking story of hardship and bravery was forgotten for many years. Now told through an untapped trove of first hand accounts, this book rewrites the story that Russian and American troops never fought one another in that bloody civil war. Today, a giant marble statue of a Polar Bear stands in Michigan to honor the fallen. Exhaustively researched and full of vivid detail, this is their story.
By 1919 there were 45,000 Communist fighters against 6,000 allied troops. More than 200 of the American “Polar Bears” would perish on the icy battlefield. A decade later, comrades would return to bring home the bodies.
In the brutal, sub-arctic north, this heartbreaking story of hardship and bravery was forgotten for many years. Now told through an untapped trove of first hand accounts, this book rewrites the story that Russian and American troops never fought one another in that bloody civil war. Today, a giant marble statue of a Polar Bear stands in Michigan to honor the fallen. Exhaustively researched and full of vivid detail, this is their story.
May 22, 2022
All war is stupid, but some wars are stupider than others. At the tail end of World War I, after the tsar was overthrown and Lenin's new government negotiated a separate truce with Germany, Woodrow Wilson faced a choice: he could either send US troops to rethrone one of America's best allies (thanks for Alaska!) or help legitimate the world's geographically largest (ostensible) future democracy. Being Woodrow, he waffled and sent a contingent of US troops to guard caches of war materiel located in Murmansk and Arkhangelsk but do absolutely nothing else. Suddenly, a bunch of young men mostly from Michigan who had been snatched out of their civilian lives to help the war effort were snatched out of the war effort to go to North Russia and...do... something? (Nelson refers to the region that the US troops landed themselves in as North Russia, which always sounds redundant but is technically accurate.) In Arkhangelsk, with winter fast approaching, the Americans bumble around on missions set by the British, who were also in Russia, but with the specific mission of overthrowing the Bolsheviks and reinstating King George's cousin as tsar. Information about the Russian Civil War was muddled and sketchy but there was a Czech battalion, who may still have existed at this point, who were also fighting for the tsar, and the British (and anybody else who showed up in Arkhangelsk on the Allied side of WWI) were supposed to link up with them and take Moscow. This did not happen. The bulk of this book is about the Americans who fought through this winter. The book calls them heroes, and maybe surviving multiple nights of -40º makes anyone a hero regardless of anything else; Emily Ford sure is. These men are not heroes militarily: they win some battles and commit a few war crimes but mostly bumble around in an endless frozen marsh losing comrades and toes. In the end, Trotsky lets the Americans leave unmolested because he understands that achieving a military victory over poorly supplied British and Americans stranded in the hinterland will be bad for international recognition the Bolshevik government. In the end, the survivors get a cool military insignia with a polar bear on it, and the dead are mostly exhumed from the permafrost a decade later. The US has entirely forgotten this military incident, and the Soviets remembered it well and apparently used it as an "Um, actually..." whenever the US talked about not having any ill will towards the Russian people. Because the US army did kill rather a few Russians and converted several tsarist hamlets to Bolshevism. But mostly this is about the boys named Henry and Frank and Asa and other early 1900s first names who went to war for absolutely no reason whatsoever. Are they heroes? Yes, technically, winter in Russia is very cold. But the important thing is that your grandpa wants this book for his birthday and you'll be a hero if you buy it for him.
June 19, 2019
This is an excellent book that gives a thorough feel for what it was like for young American soldiers fighting the Bolsheviks in northern Russia in 1918-1919. They endured environmental hardships difficult to imagine, suffered because of inadequate clothing and food, and fought under dubious British command and without a defined campaign goal. In addition, they continued faithfully for 8 months AFTER the Great War officially ended! What they witnessed of an emerging communist ideology and the life of the peasants living under Bolshevik rule would shape them for the rest of their lives.
I found the comments of several returned prisoners at the end of the book to be poignant for today's social and political milieu:
"They're not making Bolsheviks of any American prisoners. They try to preach Bolshevism to us, but it don't go. They take men who've got brains, who've accomplished something by ability and work and reduce them to the lowest level. Who's gonna stand for that?"
"They're a bunch of thieves and robbers. The leaders are preaching that everyone ought to have the same amount of money, but every leader has a pile of rubles stuck away that would knock your eye out."
"All the honest ones want to get out of Russia as soon as possible. They all want to go to America. If America ever went Bolshevik like Moscow, I'd make myself a lone hand to stand against them."
It is easy to mislead a country when its people do not know history and have lived long amid ease and excess.
I found the comments of several returned prisoners at the end of the book to be poignant for today's social and political milieu:
"They're not making Bolsheviks of any American prisoners. They try to preach Bolshevism to us, but it don't go. They take men who've got brains, who've accomplished something by ability and work and reduce them to the lowest level. Who's gonna stand for that?"
"They're a bunch of thieves and robbers. The leaders are preaching that everyone ought to have the same amount of money, but every leader has a pile of rubles stuck away that would knock your eye out."
"All the honest ones want to get out of Russia as soon as possible. They all want to go to America. If America ever went Bolshevik like Moscow, I'd make myself a lone hand to stand against them."
It is easy to mislead a country when its people do not know history and have lived long amid ease and excess.
June 19, 2019
The good news is that it's obvious the author conducted extensive research to write this book and the results of it show through clearly. The bad news is that this narrative history book is basically a military/war procedural. It's paragraph after paragraph of who went to which hill/town and who got killed, how many wounded and what horrible death they experienced. Due to the mission of these poor soldiers never really being articulated, it's like the whole book has no base other than to relate day after day about this skirmish or that without any context. The reader never really gets an affinity for any of the players and the haphazard manner in which the book unfolds means the reader has to constantly refer to the map in the book which is cumbersome. Pretty dry stuff for an untold story that seems to deserve more.
November 3, 2019
I've always wanted to know more about this expedition of American troops fighting in Russia against the Bolsheviks AFTER World War One was over. Wilson put our troops over there under British command and they spread them out. It has eerie similarities to Vietnam. Men always outnumbered in strange terrain without any coherent notion of why they were fighting. Quagmire. This book was well researched and has a lot of interesting stories. Lots of battle explanations so beware if you don't like that. Good book.
May 22, 2019
I give it 5 Stars because it is meticulous in its research. It is a detailed day to day chronicle of a small but sad event in American history. Not necessarily a page turner, but worth reading for if you have an interest in lessons history gives us about foreign wars.
June 11, 2024
When I purchased this book, I hadn't even picked it out myself. My girlfriend told me to buy it because of the polar bear on it and boy I couldn't be happier she did. James Carl Nelson brings us an amazing read that gives us great insight to perhaps the most unknown operation of the First World War. This is definitely a history lesson I'd bet almost nobody learned in their high school history class. If you are as big of a history nerd as I am, this book is absolutely for you. This book reignited my interest in reading on and researching the First World War and has led to me reading even more of this author's books. Truly a wonderful read.
September 17, 2019
An interesting anecdotal look at the American expedition into Russia. Quickly the original plan of Wilson to simply secure supplies was subsumed by the British who were trying to roll back Bolshevism; a lot of Americans died on the futile endeavor.
February 15, 2020
It's a good book for a person who is new to this part of WWI history. A lot of stories of individual soldiers while at the same time giving a good overview of the situation in Russia in 1918-19.
September 25, 2024
This is a rather dark book on what the author referred to often as a “strange, strange war,” the Allied intervention in northern Russia in 1918-1919, centered around an area in northwest Russia east of Finland and around the Dvina River (“wide, shallow, sluggish…characterized as northern Russia’s Mississippi River by many” though freezing over in winter), Archangel, and the surrounding region. The fact that it is dark isn’t surprising, as it has a trifecta of depressing subjects. World War I? Check (though perhaps even more depressing, most of the action in Russia took place on or after Armistice Day, a fact not lost on those who fought and those at home who wanted the soldiers back). Russia? Check, stereotype it might be, it seems just about everything I have read on Russia is depressing, and the time period of the book – the Russian Civil War, between Red and White forces – is quite depressing indeed. Arctic? Maybe technically subarctic, but in fifty and sixty degree below temperatures and with severe frostbite a common occurrence, men often fighting in deep snow, the difference matters very little to those suffering. Throw in the fact that is was an absolutely pointless, wasteful, needless affair, this was a very dark book.
The book largely focused on the actions of the men who fought in Russia, mainly on the Americans, though time is spent on British, Canadian, French, and friendly Russian forces as well (with many of the Russians forming the British led and British trained Slavo-British Allied Legion or S.B.A.L.). At times I felt it was almost too close to the ground as it were, the focus on the battles fought by individual units, on the fates of individual wounded men and officers, on their living conditions, suffering from battle wounds and the flu with often little or no medical care (the action coincided with the worldwide flu pandemic)…but as I read more of the book, wondering where was the grand picture of the intervention, came to realize as the author skillfully unfolded the book’s narrative, there really wasn’t one, or to the extent there was, it was vague, shadowy, ill-defined, and conflicting. Just like the men who fought and died in the Russian “nowhere,” the reader was often left pondering what the point was, with actions taken, battles fought, offensives launched, people dying in misery, not for some grand scheme, but only for soldiers trying to save each other, that the men had “endured and persevered and performed heroic acts, many of them, and stood to for the man to the right and the man to the left,” and that was that, with villages taken, burned and abandoned, and then retaken and refortified not out of some great strategic objective (or at least one that wasn’t pie in the sky) but simply to support other outposts of Allied forces or merely to save one unit, that men were fighting and dying not for something other than to protect themselves.
The book largely focused on the brave heroism and tremendous suffering of the American forces deployed to northern Russia, fighting and dying even in the depths of a brutal Russian winter (not that the area was fun to be in apparently even in the spring, summer, or fall, with many descriptions in the book of the region’s “endless marshes and dark, brooding forests of spruce and pine and birch through which few roads ran,…akin to the dark side of the moon…the dull, dungy smell of the muskeg and swamps and the clouds of maniacal mosquitoes that swarm in the north from May to September”). The stars of the book are “the men of the 339th Infantry Regiment, the First Battalion of the 310th Engineers, the 337th Field Hospital, and the 337th Ambulance Company,” most of them from Michigan and to a lesser extent Wisconsin, a group after the conflict that came to refer to themselves as “The Polar Bears,” a deployment that would only end in July 1919, long after the official end of World War I. Not called the Polar Bears during their deployment, they were technically the American Expeditionary Force, North Russia (as opposed to another force, the American Expeditionary Force, Siberia, not covered in the book) and their campaign was called the North Russia Campaign. With maps, photographs, and detailed descriptions with lots of quotes from the men who fought in this “strange, strange war,” author James Carl Nelson described the battles they fought, the suffering of those wounded and killed (and captured, as there were chapters which detailed those captured by the Reds or the Bolsheviks or the “Bolos,” the term most often used in the book), how they had to make do with little or no medicine, often poor or little food, equipment that was substandard or not designed for Arctic conditions, of men towards the end nearly mutinous at what they felt was a brutal and pointless affair (a good bit of time is spent on whether or not the men were actually mutinous, with the author to me successfully arguing that at least the Americans weren’t mutinous so much as any mutiny that occurred was “a tepid affair, more of a brief outburst of pent-up frustrations and homesickness than an actual rebellion,” though nevertheless would be something that would make many of the men “forever and unfairly tarnished”).
Though it is not perhaps the main point of the book nevertheless there is definitely time spent on the why of the intervention and what eventually ended it as well as the list of people responsible for the wasteful intervention and for the action going as poorly as it did. It was a tangled mess of conflicting goals (the Americans wanted originally simply to guard Allied supplied stores, as at one time there was a real fear of 55,000 German troops sent to Finland in April 1918 threatening Allied supplies meant for the Russian army and kept in Murmansk, though as the author put it another American goal was hopefully to “stay the hell out of Russia’s internal affairs,” while the British had this dreamy notion of “fomenting a full-blown counterrevolution against the Bolsheviks,” “beyond a fool’s errand – it was based on a hallucination, a belief that the local Russians would spontaneously rise up and join the Allies and wipe Bolshevism from the face of the earth”), insufficient manpower, friction between American, Canadian, British, and French forces (with American and British forces not always working well together and arguably according to the author American forces suffering under British command), unreliable Russian allies (who to be fair were often poorly treated by the Allies), extremely poor dispersal and use of Allied forces (“the Allies had no intention of a large-scale invasion, but foolishly were parceling their men in dribs and drabs to far-flung outposts, most at least one hundred miles from the relative safety of Archangel, where each faced larger and larger numbers of the enemy,” where every unit “all manned their little Fort Apache in the midst of a hostile wilderness and in the face of growing Bolshevik resistance”), and poor equipment (apparently Shackleton boots are so bad men would rather trudge through the snow in their socks than wear them). Early on in the initial decision to deploy Allied troops to Russia there a was hope to link up with what seemed to me based on this a book a mythical group called the “Czech Legion,” “a large army of veteran soldiers who were then fighting their way east and through Bolshevik opposition along the Trans-Siberian Railroad,” “40,000 to 70,000 men [who] had begun the war as conscripts of the Austro-Hungarian Empire,” with at least as far as the British went a dream of a “re-creation of the Eastern Front” as they hoped to use them to launch another attack on Germany from the east (though even if wasn’t a mythical concept, ceased to mean anything at all after the Armistice).
A dark book but not always grim reading as funnier stories of the men and their escapades as well as even a few moments of romance were included as well. There are a number of photographs, some good maps, an extensive bibliography, and a detailed index. This is probably the most thorough and authoritative review of the various written accounts and memoirs of those who fought in this conflict and there is an extensive notes section detailing these other publications.
The book largely focused on the actions of the men who fought in Russia, mainly on the Americans, though time is spent on British, Canadian, French, and friendly Russian forces as well (with many of the Russians forming the British led and British trained Slavo-British Allied Legion or S.B.A.L.). At times I felt it was almost too close to the ground as it were, the focus on the battles fought by individual units, on the fates of individual wounded men and officers, on their living conditions, suffering from battle wounds and the flu with often little or no medical care (the action coincided with the worldwide flu pandemic)…but as I read more of the book, wondering where was the grand picture of the intervention, came to realize as the author skillfully unfolded the book’s narrative, there really wasn’t one, or to the extent there was, it was vague, shadowy, ill-defined, and conflicting. Just like the men who fought and died in the Russian “nowhere,” the reader was often left pondering what the point was, with actions taken, battles fought, offensives launched, people dying in misery, not for some grand scheme, but only for soldiers trying to save each other, that the men had “endured and persevered and performed heroic acts, many of them, and stood to for the man to the right and the man to the left,” and that was that, with villages taken, burned and abandoned, and then retaken and refortified not out of some great strategic objective (or at least one that wasn’t pie in the sky) but simply to support other outposts of Allied forces or merely to save one unit, that men were fighting and dying not for something other than to protect themselves.
The book largely focused on the brave heroism and tremendous suffering of the American forces deployed to northern Russia, fighting and dying even in the depths of a brutal Russian winter (not that the area was fun to be in apparently even in the spring, summer, or fall, with many descriptions in the book of the region’s “endless marshes and dark, brooding forests of spruce and pine and birch through which few roads ran,…akin to the dark side of the moon…the dull, dungy smell of the muskeg and swamps and the clouds of maniacal mosquitoes that swarm in the north from May to September”). The stars of the book are “the men of the 339th Infantry Regiment, the First Battalion of the 310th Engineers, the 337th Field Hospital, and the 337th Ambulance Company,” most of them from Michigan and to a lesser extent Wisconsin, a group after the conflict that came to refer to themselves as “The Polar Bears,” a deployment that would only end in July 1919, long after the official end of World War I. Not called the Polar Bears during their deployment, they were technically the American Expeditionary Force, North Russia (as opposed to another force, the American Expeditionary Force, Siberia, not covered in the book) and their campaign was called the North Russia Campaign. With maps, photographs, and detailed descriptions with lots of quotes from the men who fought in this “strange, strange war,” author James Carl Nelson described the battles they fought, the suffering of those wounded and killed (and captured, as there were chapters which detailed those captured by the Reds or the Bolsheviks or the “Bolos,” the term most often used in the book), how they had to make do with little or no medicine, often poor or little food, equipment that was substandard or not designed for Arctic conditions, of men towards the end nearly mutinous at what they felt was a brutal and pointless affair (a good bit of time is spent on whether or not the men were actually mutinous, with the author to me successfully arguing that at least the Americans weren’t mutinous so much as any mutiny that occurred was “a tepid affair, more of a brief outburst of pent-up frustrations and homesickness than an actual rebellion,” though nevertheless would be something that would make many of the men “forever and unfairly tarnished”).
Though it is not perhaps the main point of the book nevertheless there is definitely time spent on the why of the intervention and what eventually ended it as well as the list of people responsible for the wasteful intervention and for the action going as poorly as it did. It was a tangled mess of conflicting goals (the Americans wanted originally simply to guard Allied supplied stores, as at one time there was a real fear of 55,000 German troops sent to Finland in April 1918 threatening Allied supplies meant for the Russian army and kept in Murmansk, though as the author put it another American goal was hopefully to “stay the hell out of Russia’s internal affairs,” while the British had this dreamy notion of “fomenting a full-blown counterrevolution against the Bolsheviks,” “beyond a fool’s errand – it was based on a hallucination, a belief that the local Russians would spontaneously rise up and join the Allies and wipe Bolshevism from the face of the earth”), insufficient manpower, friction between American, Canadian, British, and French forces (with American and British forces not always working well together and arguably according to the author American forces suffering under British command), unreliable Russian allies (who to be fair were often poorly treated by the Allies), extremely poor dispersal and use of Allied forces (“the Allies had no intention of a large-scale invasion, but foolishly were parceling their men in dribs and drabs to far-flung outposts, most at least one hundred miles from the relative safety of Archangel, where each faced larger and larger numbers of the enemy,” where every unit “all manned their little Fort Apache in the midst of a hostile wilderness and in the face of growing Bolshevik resistance”), and poor equipment (apparently Shackleton boots are so bad men would rather trudge through the snow in their socks than wear them). Early on in the initial decision to deploy Allied troops to Russia there a was hope to link up with what seemed to me based on this a book a mythical group called the “Czech Legion,” “a large army of veteran soldiers who were then fighting their way east and through Bolshevik opposition along the Trans-Siberian Railroad,” “40,000 to 70,000 men [who] had begun the war as conscripts of the Austro-Hungarian Empire,” with at least as far as the British went a dream of a “re-creation of the Eastern Front” as they hoped to use them to launch another attack on Germany from the east (though even if wasn’t a mythical concept, ceased to mean anything at all after the Armistice).
A dark book but not always grim reading as funnier stories of the men and their escapades as well as even a few moments of romance were included as well. There are a number of photographs, some good maps, an extensive bibliography, and a detailed index. This is probably the most thorough and authoritative review of the various written accounts and memoirs of those who fought in this conflict and there is an extensive notes section detailing these other publications.
March 31, 2020
Interesting history of Americans fighting with their allies in Russia against the Bolsheviks through and beyond the WWI Armistice. And doing this in the frigid North of Russia. The book provides a combination of perspectives: the strategic perspective that shows how the fighting was perceived in Russia and by the military leaders of the Allies, and the personal perspective of the soldiers. Strangely, the most memorable part for me was that the strategic perspective wasn’t that memorable. This fighting didn’t seem to have much purpose, and had little historic impact. Many of the military leaders seemed to be, at best average and at worst, drunks. Also memorable were the individual stories of the American men, many killed, most all dealing with frigid cold. I’ll remember this as the “forty below” book – you knew you would hear of a temperature that low and of military action or hunkering down without shelter in that weather, time and again. I appreciated the ending, where the author continued the story to explain what happened to the remaining Allied soldiers and the continuing Bolshevik revolution when the Americans went home. I listened on audio. I found that it was difficult to follow the many place names without a map handy, and I would suggest an understanding of a battle map, or at least a map of the cities, towns, and rivers in the area of Archangel.
January 8, 2021
An unknown war
Interesting account of the American incursion into Russia to fight the Bolsheviks. I knew this happened because I read some of John Reed's works and I had a true Marxist as a philosophy professor in college. This work brought it all back. Of course Americans forgot about this minor aspect of the war while the Soviets never will. Interesting and very detailed.
I received this ebook through a Goodreads giveaway. Thank you.
Interesting account of the American incursion into Russia to fight the Bolsheviks. I knew this happened because I read some of John Reed's works and I had a true Marxist as a philosophy professor in college. This work brought it all back. Of course Americans forgot about this minor aspect of the war while the Soviets never will. Interesting and very detailed.
I received this ebook through a Goodreads giveaway. Thank you.
March 3, 2021
The Western front
The story of the Western front during World War I. The Polar Bears fought their way through marshes and waist deep snow to fight the enemy in their land. Dealing with hunger, freezing temperatures, and not knowing why they were fighting; this group held together and pressed ahead.
#GoodreadsGiveaway
The story of the Western front during World War I. The Polar Bears fought their way through marshes and waist deep snow to fight the enemy in their land. Dealing with hunger, freezing temperatures, and not knowing why they were fighting; this group held together and pressed ahead.
#GoodreadsGiveaway
April 30, 2023
Extremely vivid and well researched, with touching stories that connect you with the men that fought and died in Russia. However, I had a difficult time agreeing with the way it was written. It did not always flow well and was sometimes easy to put down and hard to pick back up. All in all: phenomenal story, decent book.
July 3, 2024
Too little context provided - what was going on in Russia with respect to the Revolution, the fight against the White Army, and why the U.S. chose to intervene including its objectives?
November 11, 2025
Despite stiff competition, this was probably the most ill advised conflict America entered, but if it worked out…
January 29, 2020
The United States sent soldiers to Russia in 1918 through 1919. These soldiers fought against Bolshevik soldiers even after the Armistice ending World War I. This is the story of the experience of the 339th Infantry Regiment in the Allied invasion of Russia. The unit eventually called themselves the Polar Bears and received recognition to so designate themselves. They created a patch and proudly wore it. The unit hailed mainly from the states of Wisconsin, Michigan so it was assumed that they could withstand the harsh winters of Russia. The American Expeditionary Force, North Russia was based out of Archangel and the 339th became part of an allied force commanded by British Officers but including British, Canadian, Polish, French and White Russian forces. Two Hundred Thirty Five soldiers were killed in this expedition and 108 bodies were initially brought back to America when the unit returned. There was a later effort by unit veterans to retrieve the bodies of those left in Russia and they were successful less a dozen who remain buried somewhere in North Russia. These me fought in conditions of temperatures -50 degrees or lower and in waist deep snow. They were frequently without adequate food and warm clothing. The frequently fought in isolated positions against overwhelming odds. Their courage and stamina is incomprehensible under the conditions in which they lived and fought. Many of the returning veterans wrote books about their experiences so the author had excellent sources in addition to official documents. Since we just experienced the 100th anniversary of WWI, this is a good book for those interested in the War. In Troy, Michigan in the White Chapel Memorial Cemetery, forty-five of the deceased soldiers returned from Russia were buried on May 30, 1929, an additional four were buried on November 11, 1934 when their bodies were returned. They lay beneath a monument of a polar bear standing over a cross and helmet. The reason the soldiers fought in Russia was never really clear to them nor has it really been articulated since. We should remember this so as to avoid future such actions!
March 26, 2022
This is one of those books where I wished I could rate higher than a 2 but just can't. This is my second James Carl Nelson book that I've read and even though it was better researched and written later than the previous book, I Will Hold, the writing was worse.
Russia during their Civil War is already a confusing topic, but the addition of British and American troops only makes it worse, without having a firm sense of place already established.
It's enough that the soldiers of the 339th Infantry Regiment didn't know what they were doing in Russia, but the author doesn't shed any clarity on it by the end of the book either.
Here's why - it read like an extensive 284-page after action report. He skipped over key details thereby missing out on opportunities to give us either more clarity or context.
Read any page when troops were engaged in battle and you will be treated to a brief overview of the situation in one paragraph, and important decision that needed to be made in the second paragraph, with a brief statement of the conflict resolution and a quote from a participant in the third paragraph, followed by moving a whole day or week in the next paragraph where the same process is repeated again. This does not make for stimulating reading.
As he notes in the Acknowledgments, several of these guys have written books about the topic plus he has had access to extensive resources outside of them.
This is a fabulous story. We can almost fall in love with the characters (he doesn't stick with a character long enough to actually fall in love with him from a literary perspective), but the writing is awful.
When James Carl Nelson hires a better editor or learns how to expand his writing beyond after action reports, I'll pick up another one of his books. He picks great topics. He researches quite well. His writing does a great disservice to his topics.
At the end of the book we are left more confused than when we read the first paragraph.
Russia during their Civil War is already a confusing topic, but the addition of British and American troops only makes it worse, without having a firm sense of place already established.
It's enough that the soldiers of the 339th Infantry Regiment didn't know what they were doing in Russia, but the author doesn't shed any clarity on it by the end of the book either.
Here's why - it read like an extensive 284-page after action report. He skipped over key details thereby missing out on opportunities to give us either more clarity or context.
Read any page when troops were engaged in battle and you will be treated to a brief overview of the situation in one paragraph, and important decision that needed to be made in the second paragraph, with a brief statement of the conflict resolution and a quote from a participant in the third paragraph, followed by moving a whole day or week in the next paragraph where the same process is repeated again. This does not make for stimulating reading.
As he notes in the Acknowledgments, several of these guys have written books about the topic plus he has had access to extensive resources outside of them.
This is a fabulous story. We can almost fall in love with the characters (he doesn't stick with a character long enough to actually fall in love with him from a literary perspective), but the writing is awful.
When James Carl Nelson hires a better editor or learns how to expand his writing beyond after action reports, I'll pick up another one of his books. He picks great topics. He researches quite well. His writing does a great disservice to his topics.
At the end of the book we are left more confused than when we read the first paragraph.
June 11, 2019
When I was a child, I noted that the local VFW post (to which my father, a WWII vet in both the RCAF and the AAF, belonged) had a polar bear statue displayed in the front. This book tells us why, in part. The US actually went to war against the infant Soviet Union in 1918 and 1919, ostensibly to shore up the Eastern Front - which was made moot when Lenin concluded a peace treaty with the Germans near the end of the war. Another rationale was to "save" a battalion of Czech troops who were remaining in Russia at the end of WWI. It evolved into an alliance with the White Russians(along with the British, French, and Canadians) in their civil war against the Bolsheviks.
The invasion being forgotten? Yes. Heroes? Well, the title may help sales in (ironically) red states, but these men failed in their objectives, and were more cannon fodder than heroes. Fortunately, the author is not sparing in assessing blame - though I wish he had incorporated other points of view besides the Americans'. Another shortcoming was a total neglect of this conflict in Vladivostok and the Russian Far East. Nonetheless, given the paucity of any chronicling of this conflict (Max Boot paid a bit of attention to it in his coverage of America's lesser conflicts) I must give the author credit bringing this episode to our attention.
The invasion being forgotten? Yes. Heroes? Well, the title may help sales in (ironically) red states, but these men failed in their objectives, and were more cannon fodder than heroes. Fortunately, the author is not sparing in assessing blame - though I wish he had incorporated other points of view besides the Americans'. Another shortcoming was a total neglect of this conflict in Vladivostok and the Russian Far East. Nonetheless, given the paucity of any chronicling of this conflict (Max Boot paid a bit of attention to it in his coverage of America's lesser conflicts) I must give the author credit bringing this episode to our attention.
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