t their lives and their troops were nearly frozen in the
woods and badly cut up by the Reds who had been all set for them with a
murderous battery of machine guns. Too late the British-Russian command
of the Pinega Valley found that the Americans had been right in their
strategy which had not failed to properly estimate the Bolo strength and
to properly measure the enormous labor and hardship of the cross-forest
snows. Again the enthusiastic and fearless but woefully reckless Russian
Colonel and English Colonel threw their men into death traps as they had
done previously on other fronts. With success in defense the Reds gained
their nerve back and again, as in December, January and February, began
a drive on Pinega.

Then the stoutness of the city's White Guard defenses and their morale
was put to the test. "K" Company men at Kholmogori waited with anxiety
for the decision, for if Pinega fell then, Red troops would press down
the river to threaten Kholmogori, which, though safe from winter attack
because of the blockhouses built by American Engineers and doughboys,
would be at the mercy of the gunboats the Reds were reported to have
rigged up with guns sent over from Kotlas. But the Pinega artillery and
machine guns and the stout barricades of the Pelegor and Kuligor
infantrymen held out, though one of the gallant Russian officers, who
had won the admiration of the Americans in the winter by continuing
daily on duty with his machine gun company after he had been wounded
severely in the arm, now fell among his men.

Later Allied gunboats ascended the Pinega River and that area was once
more restored to safety. Spring thaw-up severed the Red communications
with Kotlas, which was on the Dvina. The Bolsheviki in the upper Pinega
could no longer maintain an offensive operation. Archangel was relieved
from the menace on its left.

With the Vaga and Dvina Rivers now so well protected by the naval forces
of the Allies, the Bolo drives up the Kodish-Seletskoe road were now no
longer of much strategic importance to them. In the latter part of the
winter they had hopes of themselves controlling the water. Then they had
put on drives at Shred Mekhrenga and at the Kodish front but with severe
losses and no gains. Now in the spring the warfare was reduced to combat
patrol actions with an occasional raid, most of the aggressive being
taken by our Allies, the Cossacks, and Russian Archangel troops.

On the Onega the spring was very