reading and writing and with a big cocoa urn
were stationed at Verst 455, where the headquarters train and reserve
units stood. These cars were moved to points north and south on the line
twice weekly for small detachments to get their ration of biscuit and
sweets, small as it was.

[Illustration: Soldiers seated for dinner at tables decorated with
tablecloths and candles. Walls are decorated with pine boughs.]
RED CROSS PHOTO
Christmas Dinner, Convalescent Hospital

[Illustration: Several soldiers standing in the snow; they being served
food from a rail car.]
U. S. OFFICIAL PHOTO
"Come and Get It" at Verst 455

[Illustration: Soldiers seated on the ground, with Richardson and
McCully in the foreground.]
WAGNER
Doughboys Drubbed Sailors
Brig. Gen. Richardson and Adm. McCully at Army-Navy Game

[Illustration: Large group of soldiers huddled together inside a barbed
wire stockade.]
WAGNER
Yank and Scot Guarding Prisoners

"Another row of cars was maintained at Obozerskaya, where the first
outpost entertainment hut was opened about Christmas time with a program
of moving pictures, athletic stunts and feeds. Shipments were made from
this base to the secretaries at Seletskoe, who did their best to make
the winter less monotonous and miserable for the second battalion men
stationed on that front. The "Y" opened a hut in Pinega in early
November, and by the middle of December had established a point for the
"H" Company men west of Emtsa on, the Onega River line.

"Meanwhile, the Central "Y" hut at Archangel had been remodelled and
fully equipped for handling large crowds, and it served several hundred
allied soldiers daily. Whenever a company of Americans came in from the
front, a special night was arranged for them to have a program in the
theatre hall, with movies, songs, stunts and eats on the bill. A series
of basketball games was carried on between the base unit companies and
other commands which were in Archangel for a week or more awaiting
transfer to another point. Huts were opened in the Smolny base camp at
Solombola, both of them barely large enough to afford room for a cocoa
and biscuit counter, a piano, and a reading room. Shortly after
Christmas another "Y" station was put in commission across the river at
the Preestin railroad terminal, where detachments and individuals often
endured a long wait in the cold or arrived chilled to the bone from a
trip on the heatless cars.

"About Christmas