The Polar Bear Expedition

October 29, 2018
Nelson (The Remains of Company D) narrates a largely forgotten chapter of WWI, when 5,000 American doughboys of the 339th Infantry Regiment were dispatched to northern Russia in 1918. The expedition’s mission was to support opponents of the Russian Revolution and recreate the eastern front against Germany, which had vanished after the Bolshevik government pulled out of the war. But the result was a weak American invasion some 1,000 miles north of Moscow that inexplicably extended past the armistice and “sowed the seeds for recriminations and distrust that would plague U.S.-Russian relations throughout the 20th century—and beyond.” Using books, articles, and newspaper accounts—and a crisp character-driven approach—Nelson narrates the expedition’s sung and unsung heroes (like Thomas Downs, who cheerfully marched through a seven-mile retreat after losing an eye to a gunshot), horrors, and other events, such as a minor but exaggeratedly reported mutiny that left one company’s reputation forever tarnished. Nelson’s engrossing narrative will engage military historians, political buffs, and general readers alike. Agent: James Carl Nelson, Hornfischer Literary Management.

In 1918, the U.S. 339th Regiment was deployed to Murmansk, Russia, as part of the Allied intervention in the Russian civil war, in order to fight the Soviet Red Army and assist anti-Bolshevik forces. With this latest work, historian Nelson (I Will Hold: The Story of USMC Legend Clifton B. Cates, from Belleau Wood to Victory in the Great War) avoids a narrow focus on the minutiae of warfare, employing descriptions of the logistical nightmares that came along with a campaign near the Arctic Circle as well as the political entanglements the U.S. forces experienced. Interestingly, it was upon their return to the United States that the 5,000-team unit adopted the moniker the Polar Bears; unfortunately, nearly 200 died owing to harsh weather conditions before their withdrawal. While Nelson mined memoirs written by the Polar Bears, the bibliography is rather sparse on the most recent historiography of the war. VERDICT Nelson adeptly integrates the individual experiences of the regiment with the wider events of the expedition, though sometimes the narrative is overdramatized. Still, this largely overlooked event will interest readers of military history.--Frederic Krome, Univ. of Cincinnati Clermont Coll.

November 15, 2018
A little-known piece of World War I history in a "frozen Hades, [the] last place on earth at the top of the world."Beginning in September 1918, 5,000 American soldiers spent a miserable year fighting Bolsheviks in the Russian Arctic. In this fast-paced account, journalist and historian Nelson (I Will Hold: The Story of USMC Legend Clifton B. Cates, from Belleau Wood to Victory in the Great War, 2016) delivers a detailed, often gruesome narrative of this century-old campaign. In March 1918, Russia's revolutionary government signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with the Central Powers and withdrew from the war, freeing more than 1 million German soldiers to attack Russia's former allies--Britain, France, and America--on the Western Front. Outraged, many Allied leaders yearned to reverse matters. Initially opposed to intervention, President Woodrow Wilson eventually agreed with the official explanation that it was required "to guard military stores which may be subsequently needed by Russian forces and to render such aid as may be acceptable to the Russians in the organization of their own self-defense." As a result, the 339th Infantry Regiment and several ancillary units landed in Archangel in northwest Russia. They served under English command, complaining bitterly of the unpalatable food and inferior cigarettes. Nelson has turned up enough journals, letters, newspaper accounts, and memoirs to give an intimate, blow-by-blow description of a nasty campaign fought under unspeakable conditions against the Red Army, an initially ragtag unit that grew increasingly competent. The author reminds readers that these Americans were citizen soldiers, not professionals, yet they continued to obey orders after the war ended and during the Arctic winter, when temperatures dipped far below zero. More than 200 died. By year's end, family, congressmen, and a few soldiers were complaining. In February 1919, Wilson directed the war department to plan their withdrawal, and by summer, they were gone.A vivid, well-researched history of one of America's many misguided military expeditions.

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February 1, 2019
Why are we here? was the constant refrain from the 339th Infantry Regiment and supporting units of the U.S. Army during one 1918-19 mission. Nelson (Five Lieutenants, 2012) does yeoman's work in telling the stories of these men and their exploits during the little-remembered campaign in Northern Russia during that country's violent convulsions of revolution and civil war in the aftermath of WWI. It is a story of fierce fighting, deadly disease, material deprivation, morale-sapping indecision, and confusion on behalf of American leadership and the Bolsheviks' guerrilla fighters (or Bolos, as Americans called them) during a frigid Russian winter with temperatures regularly reaching 50 degrees below zero. Nelson makes a vague case for this expedition being then and now a source of friction between the U.S. and Russia, but this is mainly a work of narrative history with particular focus on the soldiers' long-neglected first-hand accounts. This is a wild ride through an American military campaign few know much about and a good addition to the history of Russian-American relations, a complex, often urgent subject.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)