Americans arrive in Archangel

On 4 September 1918 at 10 a.m. three British transports, the Somali, Tydeus and Nagoya, dropped anchor in the Dvina opposite Archangel. They brought American troops to northern Russia: the 339th Infantry Regiment, a battalion of the 310th Engineer Regiment, an ambulance company and a field hospital. They were commanded by Colonel George E. Stewart, a veteran of the fighting in the Philippines and of service in Alaska. According to the history of the US Navy, 4,600 men arrived; other authors give about 4,500. The British chronology of the war recorded under this date that the American contingent had landed at Murmansk. This is a mistake. The transports sailed straight to Archangel, and according to the same naval history the first American soldiers to land at Murmansk, two companies of railwaymen, did so only in April 1919.

“Detroit’s Own”

The 339th Regiment was formed at Camp Custer in Michigan, and most of its soldiers came from Detroit and the surrounding area, hence its nickname “Detroit’s Own”. It belonged to the 85th Division, which sailed for France in the summer. On the way it was detached from the division and prepared in England for war in the far north. There, to their displeasure, the soldiers had to hand in their Enfield rifles and were issued Russian ones. President Woodrow Wilson had long refused to send troops to Russia, and the American commander-in-chief in France, General John Pershing, did not want to give up men from the Western Front. Wilson gave way only in the summer under pressure from the Allies, including Marshal Ferdinand Foch. In his aide-mémoire of 17 July, however, he stipulated that the sole purpose of the American troops at Murmansk and Archangel would be “to guard military stores which may subsequently be needed by Russian forces and to render such aid as may be acceptable to the Russians in the organisation of their own self-defence”. The United States did not intend to interfere in Russia’s internal affairs or to infringe its sovereignty. Wilson agreed to send only one infantry regiment with engineers and medical services.

The voyage and the influenza

The Americans embarked at Newcastle on 25 August, and the convoy put to sea the next day. A fourth ship, the Czar, carried Italians to Murmansk. On the three American transports Spanish flu broke out. On the Somali every bed in the sick bay was taken by the fifth day of the voyage, and by the eighth the medicines had run out. No one had loaded the promised medical supplies on board. The Americans were to have called at Murmansk on the way, but by radio they received orders to hurry straight to Archangel. The handful of Frenchmen, Britons and American sailors who in August had driven the Reds out of the city were now fighting inland against an ever stronger enemy. The sick were carried ashore in the rain on 6 September at Bakaritsa. They were placed in an old Russian Red Cross hospital and in barracks, on bare plank beds, often with only two blankets. According to the regimental history written by its officers, nearly a hundred soldiers died of influenza in the first weeks.

Straight to the front

General Frederick Poole, commander of the Allied forces, had no intention of guarding stores. He wanted to advance on Vologda and Kotlas in order to link up with the Czechoslovaks on the Volga. As early as the afternoon of 5 September Major Young’s 3rd Battalion went ashore at Bakaritsa and at once boarded a goods train. In the morning it reached the newly captured Obozerskaya station, where it relieved the French. Lieutenant Colonel Corbley’s 1st Battalion went up the Dvina under the command of a British general, with orders to reach Kotlas, hundreds of kilometres away. The 2nd Battalion stayed in and around Archangel. The Americans fought under British officers, who were often given temporary promotions so as to outrank their allies. Colonel Stewart received comfortable quarters in a school building, but according to the authors of the regimental history he lost touch with his own battalions, which the British moved without his knowledge.

Washington quickly backed away from further plans. On 26 September the State Department informed the ambassador in Archangel that the United States would send no more soldiers to northern Russia and that those already there would only guard the ports and their immediate surroundings. By then, however, the Americans were already entangled in fighting against the Bolsheviks on several fronts. They formed the largest contingent in the Archangel area. They spent the winter there and returned home only in the summer of 1919.