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Private Joseph Edvinson of B Company was part of a crew at a machine-gun post when a shell hit. The rest of the crewmen then went back to report Edvinson's death. "He had gone up in the air one way, and the Lewis gun the other," wrote Boyd. "We established the post a little farther back and went out at dusk to get Edvinson's body. Much was the surprise of the party when he hailed them with, 'Well, I think she's all right.' He had collected himself, retrieved the Lewis gun, taken it apart and cleaned it, and stuck to his post."


Blockhouses Used by the 339th Infantry

Shelling continued over the next several days, with the 18-pounders being unable to effectively engage the Bolshevik gunboats, whose weapons outranged them. Brief but sharp firefights also broke out when Red infantry patrols tested the town's defenses. To strengthen the garrison, Lieutenant John Cudahy and 40 men of the 337th Infantry arrived from France at the end of October to provide reinforcements. Cudahy was so shocked by the dismal living conditions of the Americans in Toulgas that he bought extra food for them with his own money on the black market. The lieutenant must have wondered what he had gotten himself into.

The Germans on the Western Front had not been able to defeat the Allies, even with the divisions they had transferred from the East. In fact, the Germans had been rolled back and were at the point of collapse. The situation in Russia was a different story. Everyone in Toulgas knew that a major attack was coming soon. Although there were many "Bolo" (the Americans' slang for Bolshevik) sympathizers among the townsfolk, most of them genuinely liked the Americans and warned that the attack would come sometime near the anniversary of the 1917 revolution.



At 8 a.m. on November 11, 1918, Bolshevik troops stormed out of the woods at the south end of Toulgas, and B Company's second platoon stampeded over the wooden bridge to take up defensive positions on the other side. Everything ran according to plan; the Allies never wanted to hold the south end, intending to fall back and wait for the Bolos to try to cross the bridge. Then Sergeant Parrish did his deadly work with the Vickers machine gun in the log blockhouse facing the bridge.

Back in the ravine, the Canadians were about to add to the defensive fire with their field guns when one of the men happened to look to his side. Utterly flabbergasted, he saw a horde of Bolsheviks preparing to charge from the west right up the ravine.


a U.S. soldier of the 339th Infantry standing guard while oatmeal is being unloaded into one of the huge warehouses storing U.S. supplies

All along, the Allied officers had assumed that the swampy western flank of Toulgas was impassable for a large force. But the Bolsheviks proved them wrong. For three days before the attack, 500 Red troops had worked their way undetected to a position near the ravine, where they waited until the diversionary attack was launched at the south end of town.

The surprise strike almost certainly would have worked had it not been for a B Company squad with a Lewis gun that happened to be in the ravine near the 18-pounders at that time. The squad poured out such a fusillade that the Bolsheviks thought they were facing a much larger force. The Soviet troops then pulled back and moved around to attempt another attack from the north end of town.

That gave the gunners just enough time to shift position and turn one 18-pounder 180 degrees toward the north. Expert as well as brave, the Canadians fused their shrapnel shells to burst right after leaving the muzzle, like old-fashioned grapeshot. The Reds never got within 50 yards before being cut down by murderous blasts of fire; about 100 were killed outright. The Americans and Canadians had started to congratulate each other after stopping the last attack when they suddenly had a chilling thought: The Bolsheviks had also taken over the undefended hospital in the north end of town, and the Allies had already learned that the Bolsheviks treated wounded prisoners with pistol shots.


Co. B, 339th Infantry on snowshoe patrol, Dvina River, Dec. 31, 1918

For the rest of the morning and afternoon, five Bolshevik gunboats continued to stay just out of the range of the 18-pounders and drop shells all around the blockhouse and ravine, hoping to hit a weak spot. They did not succeed, and the day ended with the Allies wondering what the Reds' next move would be.

Early morning on November 12, the Bolsheviks' plan was revealed plain as the day. The gunboats concentrated fire on the bridge blockhouse. Hour after hour, Allied soldiers watched with a mixture of horror and fascination as shells struck all around the blockhouse without scoring a direct hit. Finally at noon, one did, completely demolishing the structure. On cue, Bolshevik soldiers began to move across the bridge. Then the barrel jacket of a Lewis gun poked out from the heap of broken and smoldering logs of what had once been the blockhouse.


Co. C, 310th Engineers, Bolshie Ozerki Front, Russia, Apr. 8, 1919

The direct hit had killed or seriously wounded everyone inside and had knocked out the Vickers, but Private Charles Bell of B Company also had a Lewis gun. Despite a severe facial wound, Bell stuck to his post as Edvinson had done and kept the Soviets from crossing the bridge, while the Americans outside hurriedly set up another of their Lewises in a trench to form a cross-fire. The Bolsheviks tried again and again to cross the bridge during the rest of the afternoon, but at every attempt machine-gun fire created an impregnable barrier.

Additional Sources:

pages.prodigy.net/mvgrobbel
www.umich.edu
www.worldwar1.com
www.usmilitaryknives.com

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Not content merely to watch, the Royal Scots made a swift attack on the north end of town during the afternoon, dislodging the Bolsheviks and recapturing the hospital. What they then discovered would probably be dismissed as fiction if it were not so well-documented.



When the Bolsheviks took the hospital without resistance on the morning of the 11th, their commander, true to form, had immediately ordered that all the Allied patients be shot. A high-pitched voice then interrupted, declaring that the first man who pulled a trigger would be shot himself. All eyes turned to see a beautiful woman step forward wearing the standard male Red Army uniform. She turned out to be a fellow officer--and the commander's lover. The Bolshevik commander grudgingly rescinded his order and then led his men in an attack on the 18-pounders in the ravine. Shortly afterward, he was mortally wounded and was brought back to the hospital to die in the presence of "Lady Olga," as the Allies called the woman officer. She stayed to help tend the wounded soldiers of both sides, even after the Scots had taken back the hospital.

In spite of that good fortune at the hospital, the situation in Toulgas worsened on the morning of November 13. Infantry attacks against the bridge and ravine had proved fruitless for the Bolsheviks, so they again switched tactics. They started an almost continuous area bombardment of Toulgas, endangering soldiers and civilians alike. On average, a heavy shell hit the town every 15 seconds throughout the day. When the Allied soldiers looked at some of the shell fragments, they saw to their disgust and dismay that the shells had been manufactured in the United States--a portion of the supplies sent to Archangel that they had been assigned to guard.



As darkness closed in, the situation turned critical. Ammunition was low, and since the one telegraph line to the rear had been cut, neither supplies nor reinforcements were on the way. The temperature had plunged as well, bringing on the first heavy snowfall of winter.

One advantage, at least for the Americans, was that no communications meant no outside British control. Captain Boyd of B Company was in charge of the garrison as ranking Allied officer. Deciding to use his powers to the fullest, Boyd proposed a daring gamble to break the siege.

Boyd had been impressed by the way young Lieutenant Cudahy kept a cool head under fire. Since he had to stay in town as commander, Boyd put Cudahy in charge of B Company with orders to do what the Reds had failed to do on the 11th--mount a surprise flank attack from the western swamp.



In the faint light just before dawn on November 14, the American company carefully moved past Allied sentries into the wooded swamp. Although the Bolsheviks had surrounded Toulgas, Allied sharpshooters had taken care of many of the Bolshevik pickets on the perimeter the previous afternoon, so it was easy enough to get through their lines. Cudahy's specific objective was a group of huts near the south end that was being used as a supply depot. But more than a simple raid was intended. Boyd hoped that a sharp attack would convince the enemy that large reinforcements had arrived and that it would be wise to pull back.

The thick layer of slush under several inches of powdery snow made the going agonizingly slow, as Cudahy led his men in a wide arc and then formed them into a skirmish line at the edge of a meadow. Across the meadow were the huts, along with some Bolsheviks milling about preparing breakfast. With his force still undetected, the lieutenant gave the order to open fire.

By a lucky chance the Red detachment's commissar, or political officer, was killed by one of the first American bullets. When the Bolshevik soldiers witnessed this, and then saw the Americans charge out of the woods, they panicked and began running in wild disorder back toward their larger force overlooking the bridge.



Cudahy was deciding how best to follow up on this success when one of the B Company men peered into a hut and found it was crammed with rifle ammunition. Seeing an opportunity, Cudahy told the men to clear the area around the hut. Then he gave the order to set it on fire.

Like a shooting gallery gone mad, the uproar of the exploding rifle rounds filled the air for miles. When the Bolshevik commander near the bridge heard the commotion, he assumed that a rescue force had broken through from the rear and was trying to trap his force. Consequently, he ordered his men to pull back from the south end of town.

By another lucky chance, the captains of the gunboats had decided at about the same time that the increased cold posed too great a danger of ice forming on the river, and they withdrew their vessels up the Dvina toward Seltso. With their superiority in artillery gone, the Bolshevik ground troops felt they, too, had no choice but to begin a general withdrawal.



The siege of Toulgas was over. It had cost the Allies 28 killed and 70 wounded. A conservative estimate put the Bolshevik dead at 500. When the men of the garrison finally heard the news of the armistice days after the rest of the world, they thought that their prayers had been answered and that their own withdrawal orders were forthcoming. But the Allies were too heavily engaged in the continuing Russian civil war to withdraw so soon. Also, thick ice had formed in the sea around Archangel just as it did on the Dvina and prevented the use of transports, even those with powerful icebreaker bows.

During the rest of 1918 and the first two months of 1919, the Allied garrison had several more sharp encounters, though the Bolsheviks never made as great an effort to take Toulgas while the Americans were there. Bolshevik prisoners later told their captors that the Soviet enlisted men had threatened to shoot their officers if another siege was ordered. The Americans were pleased with their reputation of toughness, but they were positively ecstatic when word came in the spring that they were set to leave Russia. On June 3, 1919, B Company and the rest of the 339th boarded transports at Archangel and steamed away.


Funeral for the fallen of the 339th Infantry Regiment, White Chapel Cemetery, 1930.
Though the Great War had been over for nearly 12 years, some families did not receive their sons home until 1930 with the return of Infantry Regiment #339. Fondly known as the “Polar Bears”, the unit spent the duration of the war in Siberia, fighting the Bolshevik forces that had overthrown the Czar the year prior. Above, Mr. And Mrs. Frank Skocelas are reunited with their son, Private Andrew Skocelas, one final time.

The veterans of the 339th did not feel that they had done much good for Russia. They called themselves "The Polar Bears" at reunions in the years afterward and worked to keep alive the memory of their remarkable exploits. One man did so in a very personal way. When Cudahy's wife gave birth to a daughter, he made "Toulgas" her middle name.