ry fire. With desperation they were to dispute the overwhelming
columns of infantry who were hurled by no less a renowned old Russian
General than Kuropatkin, and at Malo Bereznik and Bolsheozerki, in
particular, to send them reeling back in bloody disaster. They were to
fight the Bolshevik to a standstill so that they could make their
guarded getaway.

Summer was to see these Americans at last handing over the defenses to
Russian Northern Republic soldiers who had been trained during the
winter at Archangel and gradually during the spring broken in for duty
alongside the American and British troops and later were to hold the
lines in some places by themselves and in others to share the lines with
the new British troops coming in twenty thousand strong "to finish the
bloody show." Gaily decorated Archangel was to bid the Americanski
dasvedanhnia and God-speed in June. Blue rippling waters were to meet
the ocean-bound prows. Music from the Cruiser "Des Moines" (come to see
us out) was to blow fainter and fainter in the distance as they cheered
us out of the Dvina River for home.

Now the troops are hurrying off the transport. They are just facing the
strange, terrible campaign faintly outlined. It is now our duty to
faithfully tell the detailed story of it--"The History of the American
North Russian Expedition," to try to do justice in this short volume to
the gripping story of the American soldiers "Campaigning in North
Russia, 1918-1919."

The American North Russian Expeditionary Force consisted of the 339th
Infantry, which had been known at Camp Custer as "Detroit's Own," one
battalion of the 310th Engineers, the 337th Ambulance Company, and the
337th Field Hospital Company. The force was under the command of Col.
George E. Stewart, 339th Infantry, who was a veteran of the Philippines
and of Alaska. The force numbered in all, with the replacements who came
later, about five thousand five hundred men.

These units had been detached from the 85th Division, the Custer
Division, while it was enroute to France, and had been assembled in
southern England, there re-outfitted for the climate and warfare of the
North of Russia. On August the 25th, the American forces embarked at
Newcastle-on-Tyne in three British troopships, the "Somali," the
"Tydeus" and the "Nagoya" and set sail for Archangel, Russia. A fourth
transport, the "Czar," carried Italian troops who travelled as far as
the Murmansk with our convoy.

The voyag