d triangle service
ready for them when sailing time arrived. A secretary or two went with
each transport, equipped with a small stock of sweets and cigarettes to
distribute on the voyage. Most of the American secretaries did not
leave, however, until after the troops departed. Some of them remained
until the closing act of the show in August. Two more were captured when
the Bolos staged their mutiny at Onega. All these men eventually were
released from captivity in Moscow and reached America safely.

"The Y. M. C. A. received hearty co-operation from the American Red
Cross, from the American Embassy, and from the American headquarters
units. Sugar and cocoa were turned over frequently by the Red Cross when
the "Y" ran completely out of stocks and an unstinted use of Red Cross
facilities was open at all times to the "Y" men. The embassy and
consulate transmitted the "Y" cables through their offices to England
and America and co-operated with urgent pleas for aid at times when such
pleas were essential to the adoption of policies to better the "Y"
service. The headquarters of the 339th Infantry and the 310th Engineers
responded to every reasonable request made by the "Y" for assignments of
helpers, huts or other facilities in the different areas where work was
carried on. The naval command showed special courtesies in forwarding
supplies on cruisers and despatch boats from England and Murmansk and in
permitting the "Y" men to travel on their ships.

"Altogether more than sixty American secretaries took part in the North
Russian show. About eight or ten of them, however, were on the Murmansk
line, and were said by the American command to have done good work with
the engineers and sailors in that area. Whatever record the American "Y"
made in North Russia, it can in truth be said of the secretarial force
that with few exceptions they gave the best that was in them and they
never felt satisfied with their work. The service which Olmstead and
Cotton and Arnold and Albertson and Beekman and a dozen others rendered,
ranks with the best work done by the Y. M. C. A. men in any part of the
world. Correspondents from the front in France and members of the
American command who arrived late in the day, expressed their surprise
and gratification at the spirit which animated the "Y" workers up in the
Russian Arctic region. But the best test is the record which lives in
the hearts of American soldiers, and on their fairminded testimony