wonder that on the seventh day of this hell a lieutenant with a single
platoon holding the village after receiving magnified reports from his
patrols of strong Bolo flanking forces, imagined a general attack on
Kodish. The French Colonel, V. O. C. O., had said Kodish should not be
held. And in the night he set fire to the ill-fated village and
retreated to the river. Swift came the command from the fiery old
Donoghue: “Back to that village with me, the Reds shall not have it.”
And his men reoccupied it before dawn. But no one but they can ever
know how they suffered. The cold twenty below zero stung them in the
village half burned. Their beloved old commander’s words stung them.
Hateful to them was the certainty that he was grimly carrying out a
written order superior indeed to the French Colonel’s V. O. but which
was not based on a true knowledge of the situation by the far-distant
British officer who went over Col. Lucas’ head and ordered Kodish held.
Could they hold on? They did, with a display of fortitude that became
known to the world and which makes every soldier who was in the
expedition thrill with honest pride and admiration for them. The
Americans held it till they were relieved by a company of veteran
fighters, the King’s Liverpools, supported by a half company of “Dyer’s
Battalion” of Russians.
In passing let it be remarked that the English officer, Captain
Smerdon, soon succeeded in convincing the British O. C. Seletskoe that
Kodish was no place for any body of soldiers to hold. He gallantly held
it but only temporarily, for soon he and the Canadians and trench
mortar and machine gun men and the Dyer’s Battalion men were back under
Major Donoghue holding the old Emtsa river line and its two supporting
blockhouse lines.
Our badly shattered “E” Company and “K” Company went to reserve in
Seletskoe. The former company in the middle of January went to
Archangel for a ten day rest, and will be heard of later in the winter
on another desperate front. Old “K” Company was glad to just find warm
bunks in Seletskoe and regain their old fighting pep that had been
exhausted in the New Year’s period of protracted fighting under
desperate odds. Here let us insert the story of a two-man detachment of
those redoubtable trench mortar men who rivaled their comrades’
exploits with rifle and bayonet or machine gun. Corp. Andriks and Pvt.
Forthe of “Hq” Company trench mortar platoon were loaned for a few days
to the British officer at Shred Makrenga to instruct his Russian troops
in the use of the Stokes mortars. But the two Yanks in the two months
they were on that hard-beset front spent most of their time in actually
fighting their guns rather than in teaching the Russians. This is only
one of many cases of the sort, where small detachments of American
soldiers sent off temporarily on a mission, were kept by the British
officers on active duty. They did such sterling service.
Ever hear of the “lost platoon of “D” Company?” Like vagabonds they
looked when finally their platoon leader, Lt. Wallace, cut loose from
the British officer and reported back to Lieut.-Col. Corbley on the
Vaga. But the erratic Reds would not settle down to winter quarters.
They had frustrated the great push on Plesetskaya with apparent ease.
They had the Allied warriors now ill at ease and nervous.
The trench mortar men and the machine gun men can tell many an
interesting story of those January days on the Kodish Front serving
there with the mixed command of Canadians and King’s Liverpools and
Dyer’s Battalion of Russians. These latter were an uncertain lot of
change-of heart Bolshevik prisoners and deserters and accused spies and
so forth, together with Russian youths from the streets of Archangel,
who for the uniform with its brass buttons and the near-British rations
of food and tobacco had volunteered to “help save Russia.” By the
rugged old veteran, Dyer, they had been licked into a semblance of
fighting trim. This was the force which Major Donoghue had at command
when again came the order to take Kodish. This time it was not a great
offensive push to jab at the Red Army vitals, but it was a defensive
thrust, a desperate operation to divert attention of the Reds from
their successful winter operations against the Shred Makrenga front.
Two platoons of Couriers du Bois, the well trained Russian White Guards
under French tutelage, and those same Royal Marines that had been with
him the first time Kodish was taken in the bloody fight in the fall.
And Lt. Ballard’s gallant platoon of machine gun men came to relieve
the first “M. G.” platoon and to join the drive. They had an old score
to settle with the Bolos, too.
Again the American officer led the attack on Kodish and this time
easily took the village, for the Reds were wise enough not to try to
hold it. Their first lines beyond the village yielded to his forces
after stiff fighting, but the old 12th Verst Pole position held three
times against the assaults of the Allied troops.
Meanwhile the courageous “French-Russians” had marched fourteen miles
through the woods, encircling the Bolo flank, and fell upon his
artillery position, captured the guns and turned them upon the Red
reserves at Avda. But the other forces could not budge the Reds from
Verst 12 and so the Couriers du Bois, after holding their position
against counter attack all the afternoon, blew up the Red field pieces
and retreated in the face of a fresh Bolo battalion from Avda.
And during the afternoon the Americans who were engaged in this fight
lost an officer whose consummate courage and wonderful cheerfulness had
won him the adoration of his men and the respect and love of the
officers who worked with him.
Brave, energetic, cheerful old Ballard’s death filled the Machine Gun
Company and the whole regiment with mingled feelings of sorrow and
pride. Over and beyond the call of duty he went to his death while
striving to save the fortune of the day that was going against his
doughty old leader Donoghue. He did not know that the Liverpool Company
had left a hole in the line by finding a trail to the rear after their
second gallant but fruitless assault, and he went forward of his own
initiative, with a Russian Lewis gun squad to find position where he
could plant one of his machine guns to help the S. B. A. L. platoons
and Liverpools whom old Donoghue was coming up to lead in another
charge on the Bolo position.
Lt. Ballard ran into the exposed hole in the line and pushed forward to
a place where his whole squad was ambushed and the Russian Lewis gunner
was the only one to get out. He returned with his gun and dropped among
the Americanski machine gunners, telling of the death of Ballard and
the Russian soldiers at the point of the Bolshevik bayonets. Lt.
Commons of “K” Company declares that Ballard met his death at that
place by getting into the hole in the line which he supposed was held
by English and Russians and by being caught in a cross fire of Bolo
Colt machine guns. Whichever way it was, his body was never seen nor
recovered. Hope that he might have been taken as a wounded prisoner by
the Reds still lived in the hearts of his comrades. And all officers
and men of the American forces who came into Detroit the following July
vainly wished to believe with the girl who piteously scanned every
group that landed, that Ballard might yet be heard from as a prisoner
in Russia. No doubt he was killed.
The battle continued. Finally the withdrawal of the Couriers du Bois
and the coming through of the Avda Battalion of the Reds, together with
Red reinforcements from Kodlozerskaya-Pustin, reduced Donoghue’s force
to a stern defensive and he retreated at five o’clock in good order to
the old lines on the river.
The half-burned and scarred buildings of Kodish mournfully reminded the
soldier of the losses that had decimated the ranks of the forces that
fought and refought over the village. Into their old strongholds they
retired, keeping a sharp lookout for the expected retaliation of the
Reds. It came two days later. And it nearly accounted for the entire
force, although that was not so remarkable, Lt. Commons, the Major’s
adjutant, says, because so many even of the shorter engagements on this
and other fronts had been equally narrow squeaks for the Americans and
their Allies.
The Reds in this fight reached the second line of defense with their
flanking forces, and bombarded it with new guns brought up from
Plesetskaya. Meanwhile, all along the front they attacked in great
force and succeeded in taking one blockhouse, killing the seven gallant
Liverpool lads who fought up all their ammunition and defied the Bolo
steel to steel. But the remainder of the front held, largely through
the effective work of the American trench mortar and the deadly machine
gunners shooting for revenge of the death of Ballard, their nervy
leader, held fast their strongholds.
At last the Reds found their losses too severe to continue the attack.
And they had been constantly worried by the gallant Russian Couriers du
Bois, who fearlessly stayed out in the woods and nipped the Bolo forces
in flank or rear. And so they withdrew. There was little more fighting
on this front. The Reds were content to let well enough alone. Kodish
in ruins was theirs. Plesetskaya was safe from threats on that hard
fought road.
This was the last fight for the Americans on the Kodish Front. “K”
Company had already looked for the last time on the old battle scenes
and at the wooden crosses which marked the graves of their heroic dead,
and had gone to Archangel to rest, later to duty on the lines of
communication at Kholmogori and Yemetskoe. Now the trench mortar
platoon and “M. G.” platoon went to the railroad front, and Major
Donoghue was the last one to leave the famous Kodish Front, where he
had won distinction. It was now an entirely British-Russian front and
the American officer who had remained voluntarily to lead in the last
big fight because of his complete knowledge of the battle area now went
to well-earned rest in Archangel.
In closing the story of the Americans on the Kodish Front we turn to
the words written us by Lt. John A. Commons:
“Thus the Kodish Front was really home to the men of “K” Company, for
most of their stay in the northern land. To “E” and “L” and Machine Gun
and Trench Mortar “Hq” platoon it was also, but for a shorter period,
their only shelter from the rains of the fall and the bite of the
winter. “K”, however, meant Kodish. There they had their first fight,
there their dead were buried. There they had their last battle. And
there their memories long will return, mostly disagreeable to be sure,
but still representing very definitely their part, performed with
honesty, courage and distinction, in the big work that was given the
Yankee doughboys to do ‘on the other side.’
“The scraps mentioned here were the tougher part of the actions at the
front. In between the line should be read first the cold as it was felt
only out in the Arctic woods, away from the villages and their warm
houses. Then, too, everything was one ceaseless and endless repetition
of patrolling and scouting. Many were the miles covered by these lads
from Detroit and other cities and towns of America among the soft snow
and the evergreens. Many a time did these small parties have their own
little battles way out in the woods. Much has been said here and there
of the influence of Bolshevik propaganda upon the American forces. It
is true that these soldiers got a lot of it, and it is true that these
soldiers read nearly all that they got. But it is true also that there
was not a single incident of the whole campaign which could with
honesty be attributed to this propaganda. On the Kodish Front it is
quite safe to say that there was more of this ludicrous literature—not
ludicrous to the Russian peasant, but very much so to the average
American—taken in than on any other. Scarce a patrol went out which did
not bring back something with which to while away a free hour or so, or
with which to start a fire. It was always welcome.
“But it was seriously treated in the same spirit that moved a corporal
of Ballard’s machine gun platoon who felt strongly the discrepancy
between the remarks of the Bolshevik speaker on the bridge to the
effect that his fellows were moved by brotherly love for the Yanks and
the FACT that nine out of every ten Bolshevik cartridges captured had
the bullets clipped. The corporal reciprocated later with a machine
gun, not for the love but for the bullets.
“So they stuck and fought, suffering through the bitter months of
winter just below the Arctic Circle, where the winter day is in minutes
and the night seems a week. And there is not one who is not proud that
he was once a “side kicker” and a “buddy” to some of those fine fellows
of the various units who unselfishly and gladly gave the last that a
man has to give for any cause at all.”
XVI
UST PADENGA
Positions Near Ust Padenga In January—Bolo Patrols—Overwhelming Assault
By Bolos January Nineteenth—Through Valley Of Death—Canadian Artillery
And Machine Gun Fire Punishes Enemy Frightfully When He Takes Ust
Padenga—Death Of Powers—Enemy Artillery Makes American Position
Untenable—Escaping From Trap—Retreating With Constant Rear-Guard
Actions—We Lose Our Last Gun—“A” Company Has Miraculous Escape But
Suffers Heavy Losses.
Outside of routine patrolling, outpost duties and intermittent shelling
and sniping, the early part of the month of January, 1919, was
comparatively quiet on the Ust Padenga front. The troops now engaged in
the defense of this sector were Company “A,” 339th Infantry, a platoon
of “A” Company, 310th Engineers, Canadian Artillery, English Signal
Detachment and several companies of Russians and Cossacks.
It will be recalled that the main positions of our troops was in
Netsvetiafskaya, on a high bluff overlooking Ust Padenga and Nijni
Gora—the former about a thousand yards to our left front on the bank of
the Vaga, and the latter about a mile to our right front located on
another hill entirely surrounded by a deep ravine and valleys. In other
words our troops were in a V-shaped position with Netsvetiafskaya as
the base of the V, Ust Padenga as the left fork, and Nijni Gora as the
right fork of same. The Cossack troops refused to occupy the position
of Nijni Gora, claiming that it was too dangerous a position and almost
impossible to withdraw from in case they were hard pressed.
Consequently, orders were issued from British headquarters at
Shenkursk, ordering an American platoon to occupy Nijni Gora and the
Cossacks to occupy Ust Padenga.
On the afternoon of January 18, the fourth platoon of Company “A,” with
forty-six men under command of Lieut. Mead, relieved the second platoon
and took over the defense of Nijni Gora. The weather at this time was
fearfully cold, the thermometer standing about forty-five degrees below
zero. Rumors after rumors were constantly coming in to our intelligence
section that the enemy was preparing to make a desperate drive on our
positions at this front. His patrols were getting bolder and bolder. A
few nights before, one of the members of such a patrol had been shot
down within a few feet of Pvt. George Moses, one of our sentinels, who,
single handed, stood his post and held off the patrol until assistance
arrived. We had orders to hold this front at all cost. By the use of
field glasses we could see considerable activity in the villages in
front of us and on our flanks, and during the night the inky blackness
was constantly being illuminated by flares and rockets from many
different points. It is the writer’s opinion that these flares were
used for the purpose of guiding and directing the movements of the
troops that on the following day annihilated the platoon in Nijni Gora.
On the morning of that fatal nineteenth day of January, just at dawn
the enemy’s artillery, which had been silent now for several weeks,
opened up a terrific bombardment on our position in Nijni Gora. This
artillery was concealed in the dense forest on the opposite bank of the
Vaga far beyond the range of our own artillery. Far in the distance at
ranges of a thousand to fifteen hundred yards, we could see long
skirmish lines of the enemy clad in ordinary dark uniforms. Whenever
they got within range we would open fire with rifles and machine guns
which succeeded in repelling any concerted movement from this
direction. At this time there were twenty-two men in the forward
position in command of Lt. Mead and about twenty-two men in command of
the platoon sergeant in the rear position, After about an hour’s
violent shelling the barrage suddenly lifted, Instantly, from the deep
snow and ravines entirely surrounding us, in perfect attack formation,
arose hundreds of the enemy clad in white uniforms, and the attack was
on.
Time after time well directed bursts of machine gun fire momentarily
held up group on group of the attacking party, but others were steadily
and surely pressing forward, their automatic rifles and muskets pouring
a veritable hail of bullets into the thin line of the village
defenders. Our men fought desperately against overwhelming odds.
Corporal Victor Stier, seeing a Russian machine gun abandoned by the
panic-stricken Russians in charge of same, rushed forward and manning
this gun single-handed opened up a terrific fire on the advancing line.
While performing this heroic task he was shot through the jaw by an
enemy bullet. Still clinging to his gun he refused to leave it until
ordered to the rear by his commanding officer. On his way back through
the village he picked up the rifle of a dead comrade and joined his
comrades in the rear of the village determined to stick to the end. It
was while in this position that he was again hit by a bullet which
later proved fatal—his death occurring that night. He was an example of
the same heroic devotion to duty that marked each member of this
gallant company throughout the expedition. Being thus completely
surrounded, the enemy now advancing with fixed bayonets, and many of
our brave comrades lying dead in the snow, there was nothing left for
those of us in the forward position to do but to cut our way through to
the rear position in order to rejoin our comrades there. The enemy had
just gained the street of the village as we began our fatal
withdrawal—fighting from house to house in snow up to our waists, each
new dash leaving more of our comrades lying in the cold and snow, never
to be seen again. How the miserable few did succeed in eventually
rejoining their comrades no one will ever know. We held on to the crest
of the hill for a few moments to give our artillery opportunity to open
up on the village and thus cover our withdrawal. Again another
misfortune arose to add more to the danger and peril of our withdrawal.
A few days previously our gallant and effective Canadian artillery had
been relieved by a unit of Russian artillery and during the early
shelling this fateful morning, the Russian artillerymen deserted their
guns—something that no Canadian ever would have done in such a
situation. By the time the Russians were forced back to their guns at
the point of a pistol in the hands of Captain Odjard, our little
remaining band had been compelled to give way in the face of the
terrific fire from the forests on our flanks and the oncoming advance
of the newly formed enemy line. To withdraw we were compelled to march
straight down the side of this hill, across an open valley some eight
hundred yards or more in the terrible snow, and under the direct fire
of the enemy. There was no such thing as cover, for this valley of
death was a perfectly open plain, waist deep with snow. To run was
impossible, to halt was worse yet and so nothing remained but to plunge
and flounder through the snow in mad desperation, with a prayer on our
lips to gain the edge of our fortified positions. One by one, man after
man fell wounded or dead in the snow, either to die from the grievous
wounds or terrible exposure. The thermometer still stood about
forty-five degrees below zero and some of the wounded were so terribly
frozen that their death was as much due to such exposure as enemy
bullets. Of this entire platoon of forty-seven men, seven finally
succeeded in gaining the shelter of the main position uninjured. During
the day a voluntary rescue party under command of Lieut. McPhail,
“Sgt.” Rapp, and others of Company “A” with Morley Judd of the
Ambulance Corps, went out into the snow under continuous fire and
brought in some of the wounded and dead, but there were twelve or more
brave men left behind in that fatal village whose fate was never known
and still remains unknown to the present day, though long since
reported by the United States War Department as killed in action. Many
others were picked up dead in that valley of death later in the day and
others died on their way back to hospitals. These brave lads made the
supreme sacrifice, fighting bravely to the last against hopeless odds.
Through prisoners later captured by us, we learned that the attacking
party that morning numbered about nine hundred picked troops—so the
reader will readily appreciate what chance our small force had.
All that day and far into the night the enemy’s guns continued
hammering away at our positions. Under cover of darkness the Russians
and Cossacks in the village of Ust Padenga withdrew to our lines—a move
which the enemy least suspected. The following days were just a
repetition of this day’s action. The enemy shelled and shelled our
position and then sent forward wave after wave of infantry. The
Canadian Artillery under command of Lieut. Douglas Winslow rejoined us
and, running their guns out in the open sight, simply poured muzzle
burst of shrapnel into the enemy ranks, thus breaking up attack after
attack. Two days later after a violent artillery preparation, the
enemy, still believing our Russian comrades located in the village of
Ust Padenga, started an open attack upon this deserted position over
part of the same ground where so many of our brave comrades had lost
their lives on the nineteenth. They advanced in open order squarely in
the face of our artillery, machine gun, and rifle fire, but by the time
they had gained this useless and undefended village, hundreds of their
number lay wounded and dying in the snow. The carnage and slaughter
this day in the enemy’s ranks was terrific, resulting from a most
stupid military blunder, but it atoned slightly for our losses previous
thereto. The valley below us was dotted with pile after pile of enemy
dead, the carnage here being almost equal to the terrific fighting
later at Vistavka. When he discovered his mistake and useless sacrifice
of men, and seeing it was hopeless to drive our troops from this
position by his infantry, the enemy then resorted to more violent use
of his artillery. Shells were raining into our position now by the
thousands, but our artillery could not respond as it was completely
outranged. By the process of attrition our little body of men was
growing smaller day by day, when to cap the climax late that day a
stray shell plunged into our little hospital just as the medical
officer, Ralph C. Powers, who had been heroically working with the dead
and dying for days without relief and who refused to quit his post, was
about to perform an operation on one of our mortally wounded comrades.
This shell went through the walls of the building and through the
operating room, passing outside where it exploded and flared back into
the room. Four men were killed outright, including Sgt. Yates K.
Rodgers and Corp. Milton Gottschalk, two of the staunchest and most
heroic men of Company “A.” Lieutenant Powers was mortally wounded and
later died in the hospital at Shenkursk, where he and many of his brave
comrades now lie buried in the shadow of a great cathedral.
This was the beginning of the end for us in this position. The enemy
was slowly but surely closing in on Shenkursk as evidenced by the
following notation, made by one of our intelligence officers in
Shenkursk, set forth verbatim:
“January 22, Canadian artillery and platoon of infantry left of
Nikolofskia at 6:30 a.m., spent the day there establishing helio
communication between church towers, here and there. All quiet there.
At 10:00 a. m. one of the mounted Cossack troopers came madly galloping
from Sergisfskia saying that the Bolos were approaching from there and
that he had been fired upon. He was terrified to death; other arrivals
verify this report. The defenses are not all manned and a patrol sent
in that direction. They are sure out there in force right enough. The
clans are rapidly gathering for the big drive for the prize, Shenkursk.
Later—Orders from British Headquarters for troops at Ust Padenga to
withdraw tonight. 10:00 p. m.—There is a red glare in the sky in the
direction of Ust Padenga and the flames of burning buildings are plain
to be seen. There is —— a popping down there and the roar of artillery
is clearly heard.”