The Polar Bear Expedition : The Heroes of America's Forgotten Invasion of Russia, 1918-1919

First Title Value for Searching:

Personal Author:

Nelson, James Carl

Physical Description:

viii, 309 pages : ill. ; 24 cm.

Summary:

"The extraordinary true story of America's forgotten invasion of Russia: one-thousand miles north of Moscow, five-thousand brave U.S. troops from Michigan fought the Red Army during the winter of 1918-1919 in brutal arctic conditions."--Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Prologue: Nijni Gora, Russia, January 19, 1919 -- The march to intervention -- Over where -- To Russia. With angst -- We're here because we're here -- Archangel -- Upriver -- The romance of Company A -- The strangest fighting mission ever -- The bridge -- Onega -- Storm clouds -- Friends and comrades -- Verst 445 -- Armistice Day, part 1 -- Armistice Day, part 2 -- The Pinega -- The lonesome death of Francis Cuff -- Medicine men -- A Thanksgiving of sorts -- Better than no war at all -- "K" means Kodish -- The sad case of Sergeant Young -- The silence of Ust Padenga -- The devil comes to Nijni Gora -- Flight -- Vistafka -- To what end -- Why did we go to Russia -- The Ballad of Bolshiozerski -- The Gulag Amerikanski -- From Russia, with love -- Epilogue: A return to Russia.

Subject Term:

Soldiers -- Michigan -- History -- 20th century.

World War, 1914-1918 -- Regimental histories -- United States.

Publication Info:

New York, NY : William Morrow, [2019]

Subject:

Soldiers -- Michigan -- History -- 20th century.

World War, 1914-1918 -- Regimental histories -- United States.

Michigan -- History, Military -- 20th century.

Soviet Union -- History -- Allied intervention, 1918-1920

United States. Army. Infantry Regiment, 339th -- History.

Polar Bear Expedition (1918-1919)

United States. Army. Detroit's Own

United States. Army. Polar Bear Regiment

United States. Army. Polar Bears

United States. Army. Infantry, 339th

United States. Army. 339th Infantry

United States. Army. American Expeditionary Forces. Infantry Regiment, 339th

Detroit's Own (Military unit)

Polar Bears (Military unit)

Armed Forces personnel

Members of the Armed Forces

Military personnel

Military service members

Service members

Servicemen, Military

European War, 1914-1918

First World War, 1914-1918

Great War, 1914-1918

World War 1, 1914-1918

World War I, 1914-1918

World War One, 1914-1918

WW I (World War, 1914-1918)

WWI (World War, 1914-1918)

Mishigen

State of Michigan

SOM

Mich.

ميشيغان

Mīshīghān

Michigan suyu

Miçiqan

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Shtat Michyhan

Мічыган

Michyhan

Мичиган

Míshigin Hahoodzo

Μίσιγκαν

Misinkan

Miĉigano

Miŝigano

Ŝtato de Miĉigano

Me̳t-hiet-kîn

미시간 주

Misigan-ju

미시간

Misigan

Mikikana

מישיגן

מדינת מישיגן

Medinat Mishigen

Michigania

Mičigana

Mičiganas

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Mishigan

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Michigan Shitati

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SAILS ISBN:

9780062852779

9780062852786

Available:

Library	Shelf Number	Shelf Location	Status
Searching... Attleboro Public Library	947.084 NEL	NONFICTION	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Fiske Public Library	947.084 NELSON	NONFICTION	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Foxboro - Boyden Library	947.0841 NELSON	NONFICTION	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Lakeville Public Library	947.084 NEL	NONFICTION	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Plainville Public Library	947.084 NEL	NONFICTION	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Richards Memorial Library	947.0841 N331	NONFICTION	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Taunton Public Library	947.084 N331P	3RD FLOOR STACKS	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Westport Free Public Library	947.084 NEL 2019	NONFICTION	Searching... Unknown

Bound With These Titles

On Order

Summary

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.

Reviews (4)

Publisher's Weekly Review

Nelson (The Remains of Company D) narrates a largely forgotten chapter of WWI, when 5,000 American doughboys of the 339th Infantry Regiment were dispatched to northern Russia in 1918. The expedition's mission was to support opponents of the Russian Revolution and recreate the eastern front against Germany, which had vanished after the Bolshevik government pulled out of the war. But the result was a weak American invasion some 1,000 miles north of Moscow that inexplicably extended past the armistice and "sowed the seeds for recriminations and distrust that would plague U.S.-Russian relations throughout the 20th century-and beyond." Using books, articles, and newspaper accounts-and a crisp character-driven approach-Nelson narrates the expedition's sung and unsung heroes (like Thomas Downs, who cheerfully marched through a seven-mile retreat after losing an eye to a gunshot), horrors, and other events, such as a minor but exaggeratedly reported mutiny that left one company's reputation forever tarnished. Nelson's engrossing narrative will engage military historians, political buffs, and general readers alike. Agent: James Carl Nelson, Hornfischer Literary Management. (Feb.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Kirkus Review

A little-known piece of World War I history in a "frozen Hades, [the] last place on earth at the top of the world."Beginning in September 1918, 5,000 American soldiers spent a miserable year fighting Bolsheviks in the Russian Arctic. In this fast-paced account, journalist and historian Nelson (I Will Hold: The Story of USMC Legend Clifton B. Cates, from Belleau Wood to Victory in the Great War, 2016) delivers a detailed, often gruesome narrative of this century-old campaign. In March 1918, Russia's revolutionary government signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with the Central Powers and withdrew from the war, freeing more than 1 million German soldiers to attack Russia's former alliesBritain, France, and Americaon the Western Front. Outraged, many Allied leaders yearned to reverse matters. Initially opposed to intervention, President Woodrow Wilson eventually agreed with the official explanation that it was required "to guard military stores which may be subsequently needed by Russian forces and to render such aid as may be acceptable to the Russians in the organization of their own self-defense." As a result, the 339th Infantry Regiment and several ancillary units landed in Archangel in northwest Russia. They served under English command, complaining bitterly of the unpalatable food and inferior cigarettes. Nelson has turned up enough journals, letters, newspaper accounts, and memoirs to give an intimate, blow-by-blow description of a nasty campaign fought under unspeakable conditions against the Red Army, an initially ragtag unit that grew increasingly competent. The author reminds readers that these Americans were citizen soldiers, not professionals, yet they continued to obey orders after the war ended and during the Arctic winter, when temperatures dipped far below zero. More than 200 died. By year's end, family, congressmen, and a few soldiers were complaining. In February 1919, Wilson directed the war department to plan their withdrawal, and by summer, they were gone.A vivid, well-researched history of one of America's many misguided military expeditions. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Booklist Review

Why are we here? was the constant refrain from the 339th Infantry Regiment and supporting units of the U.S. Army during one 1918-19 mission. Nelson (Five Lieutenants, 2012) does yeoman's work in telling the stories of these men and their exploits during the little-remembered campaign in Northern Russia during that country's violent convulsions of revolution and civil war in the aftermath of WWI. It is a story of fierce fighting, deadly disease, material deprivation, morale-sapping indecision, and confusion on behalf of American leadership and the Bolsheviks' guerrilla fighters (or Bolos, as Americans called them) during a frigid Russian winter with temperatures regularly reaching 50 degrees below zero. Nelson makes a vague case for this expedition being then and now a source of friction between the U.S. and Russia, but this is mainly a work of narrative history with particular focus on the soldiers' long-neglected first-hand accounts. This is a wild ride through an American military campaign few know much about and a good addition to the history of Russian-American relations, a complex, often urgent subject.--James Pekoll Copyright 2019 Booklist

Library Journal Review

In 1918, the U.S. 339th Regiment was deployed to Murmansk, Russia, as part of the Allied intervention in the Russian civil war, in order to fight the Soviet Red Army and assist anti-Bolshevik forces. With this latest work, historian Nelson (I Will Hold: The Story of USMC Legend Clifton B. Cates, from Belleau Wood to Victory in the Great War) avoids a narrow focus on the minutiae of warfare, employing descriptions of the logistical nightmares that came along with a campaign near the Arctic Circle as well as the political entanglements the U.S. forces experienced. Interestingly, it was upon their return to the United States that the 5,000-team unit adopted the moniker the Polar Bears; unfortunately, nearly 200 died owing to harsh weather conditions before their withdrawal. While Nelson mined memoirs written by the Polar Bears, the bibliography is rather sparse on the most recent historiography of the war. VERDICT Nelson adeptly integrates the individual experiences of the regiment with the wider events of the expedition, though sometimes the narrative is overdramatized. Still, this largely overlooked event will interest readers of military history.-Frederic Krome, Univ. of Cincinnati Clermont Coll. © Copyright 2019. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Author's Note: The Polar Bears	p. vii
Prologue	p. 1
Chapter 1 The March To Intervention	p. 3
Chapter 2 Over Where	p. 17
Chapter 3 To Russia. With Angst	p. 27
Chapter 4 We're Here Because We're Here	p. 39
Chapter 5 Archangel	p. 47
Chapter 6 Upriver	p. 53
Chapter 7 The Romance Of Company A	p. 63
Chapter 8 The Strangest Fighting Mission Ever Undertaken	p. 71
Chapter 9 The Bridge	p. 77
Chapter 10 Onega	p. 83
Chapter 11 Storm Clouds	p. 89
Chapter 12 Friends And Comrades	p. 95
Chapter 13 Verst 445	p. 103
Chapter 14 Armistice Day, Part 1	p. 109
Chapter 15 Armistice Day, Part 2	p. 117
Chapter 16 The Pinega	p. 127
Chapter 17 The Lonely Death Of Francis Cuff	p. 133
Chapter 18 Medicine Men	p. 139
Chapter 19 A Thanksgiving Of Sorts	p. 145
Chapter 20 Better Than No War At All	p. 153
Chapter 21 K Means Kodish	p. 163
Chapter 22 The Sad Case Of Sergeant Young	p. 171
Chapter 23 The Devil Comes To Nijni Gora	p. 181
Chapter 24 Flight	p. 193
Chapter 25 Vistafka	p. 201
Chapter 26 To What End	p. 215
Chapter 27 Why Did We Go To Russia	p. 223
Chapter 28 The Ballad Of Bolshie Ozerki	p. 235
Chapter 29 Getting Out	p. 247
Chapter 30 The Gulag Amerikanski	p. 259
Chapter 31 A Return To Russia	p. 269
Epilogue	p. 283
Acknowledgments	p. 285
Notes	p. 287
Bibliography	p. 295
Index	p. 299

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Bound With These Titles

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Summary

Summary

Reviews (4)

Publisher's Weekly Review

Kirkus Review

Booklist Review

Library Journal Review

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