In the brutally cold winter of 1919, 5,000 Americans battled the Red Army 600 miles north of Moscow. We have forgotten. Russia has not.
“AN EXCELLENT BOOK.” —Wall Street Journal • “INCREDIBLE.” — John U. Bacon • “EXCEPTIONAL.” — Patrick K. O’Donnell • “A MASTER OF NARRATIVE HISTORY.” — Mitchell Yockelson • “GRIPPING.” — Matthew J. Davenport • “FASCINATING, VIVID.” — Minneapolis Star Tribune
… Minneapolis Star Tribune
An unforgettable human drama deep with contemporary resonance, award-winning historian James Carl Nelson’s The Polar Bear Expedition draws on an untapped trove of firsthand accounts to deliver a vivid, soldier’s-eye view of an extraordinary lost chapter of American history—the Invasion of Russia one hundred years ago during the last days of the Great War.
In the winter of 1919, 5,000 U.S. soldiers, nicknamed “The Polar Bears,” found themselves hundreds of miles north of Moscow in desperate, bloody combat against the newly formed Soviet Union’s Red Army. Temperatures plummeted to sixty below zero. Their guns and their flesh froze. The Bolsheviks, camouflaged in white, advanced in waves across the snow like ghosts.
The Polar Bears, hailing largely from Michigan, heroically waged a courageous campaign in the brutal, frigid subarctic of northern Russia for almost a year. And yet they are all but unknown today. Indeed, during the Cold War, two U.S. presidents, Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon, would assert that the American and the Russian people had never directly fought each other. They were spectacularly wrong, and so too is the nation’s collective memory.
It began in August 1918, during the last months of the First World War: the U.S. Army’s 339th Infantry Regiment crossed the Arctic Circle; instead of the Western Front, these troops were sailing en route to Archangel, Russia, on the White Sea, to intervene in the Russian Civil War. The American Expeditionary Force, North Russia, had been sent to fight the Soviet Red Army and aid anti-Bolshevik forces in hopes of reopening the Eastern Front against Germany. And yet even after the Great War officially ended in November 1918, American troops continued to battle the Red Army and another, equally formiddable enemy, “General Winter,” which had destroyed Napoleon’s Grand Armee a century earlier and would do the same to Hitler’s once invincible Wehrmacht.
More than two hundred Polar Bears perished before their withdrawal in July 1919. But their story does not end there. Ten years after they left, a contingent of veterans returned to Russia to recover the remains of more than a hundred of their fallen brothers and lay them to rest in Michigan, where a monument honoring their service still stands.
In the century since, America has forgotten the Polar Bears’ harrowing campaign. Russia, notably, has not, and as Nelson reveals, the episode continues to color Russian attitudes toward the United States. At once epic and intimate, The Polar Bear Expedition masterfully recovers this remarkable tale at a time of new relevance.
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A master of narrative history, James Carl Nelson brings to light a long-forgotten story of America’s involvement during the Russian Civil War. The Polar Bear Expedition is exhaustively researched and rich in detail. A very fine book.
This is a sad tale of America’s ill-advised invasion of Russia at the end of WW1.
The author has obviously done exhaustive research to produce a book which should be mandatory reading for every politician looking to solve problems with force.
It’s a fascinating subject. It’s something I think most Americans do not know about, but something that we all should. I’ve studied history for 55 years and only recently learned of this military expedition.
The book is a very good book, but would have been better, in my opinion, with some trimming. Still, I think this is a book that should be read.
This book suffers from complex organization. The story, while compelling, jumps from place to place, and forward and back in time. The geography and place names are challenging to follow. This is an important story in modern history, but badly bungled in its telling.
The book is an interesting read but I can’t get over the fact that it keeps talking about a temperature of 50 below. I know the World War I years were extra cold but the lowest 10 day temperature in Archangel Russia as of December 23rd, 2020 never gets below zero. I’ll keep checking but it seems inaccurate. That makes me question other parts for accuracy.
However, it is most likely reports from writings, as the book seems to be and the soldiers and sailors probably didn’t carry thermometers around with them. When you are in the boonies it is COLD!
Another reason why US Troops must be governed and controlled by US officers. It’s worth your time to read.
This book is a part of history that I never about. It was pretty sad
A topic that few know anything about.
I am a retired soldier. I retired after I returned from Desert Storm. I also served in Vietnam. I respect what these men did but feel so sad for the wasted lives.
Great history of a war I never heard of before
It was a tragic story. I knew a fellow who in the British army there and I now wish I* had asked him more about his service.
Put real faces on an overlooked historical event, America’s participation in the Russian civil war between the Bolsheviks and the royalist White Russians. The American units were hung out to dry with no clear backing from the government or allies as to what its real mission was supposed to be. Tragic yet heroic.
Who knew that there were Americans in Russia, during and after World War I, who ended up fighting the Communists? Who knew that there were no real plans to bring them home until their wives and mothers demanded that Congress get them out of the harrowing situation they were in, and return them home? Who knew that hundreds of Americans were casualties there? Well, if you read this book, you’ll know, and perhaps will have a better appreciation of all the many ways and places our men fought during World War I. It’s well worth reading.
I looked forward to The Polar Bear Expedition for the better part of the year, hoping that it would be similar to The Winter Fortress, another tale of wartime exploits in the polar north. Unfortunately, after two attempts at this one, I think I’m calling it quits.
James Carl Nelson catalogued the 1919 expedition that saw 5,000 American soldiers – including the Michigan-based 339th – battling the newly-formed Soviet Red Army. Also, the Spanish flu. These men expected to be headed to the Western Front when they enlisted (or were drafted) late in World War I, only to be shipped north of the Arctic Circle and into the throes of the Russian civil war and General Winter, that frozen season that did in Napoleon and would later do in the Wehrmacht.
While this under-known episode of World War I(ish) history is interesting in its own right, I got bogged down in the writing and found the book difficult to read for more than 20 minutes at a time. This is a case of an author having conducted a tremendous amount of research, but needing to edit it down to a more manageable and cohesive whole.
For those who are interested in every.last.aspect. of World War I, this might be a worthwhile and fulfilling read. For those who prefer their history to have more of a narrative feel, The Polar Bear Expedition is harder to recommend.
(This review was originally published at https://www.thisyearinbooks.com/2019/11/the-polar-bear-expedition-heroes-of.html)
An excellent book, well-researched, historic and tragic…rm
If you believe you know a lot about WWI, you just might be as surprised as I was when you read of the Allied expedition into Russia just prior to the Armistice in 1918. The “Polar Bears”, as they called themselves, were doughboys mainly from Detroit who were shipped out, not to France but Russia to aid the White Army and anyone else opposing The Bolsheviks. Their combat tour continued well past the Armistice and to top it off they were cold, starving, and not even sure of what their mission was. A good read of a little-known operation a century ago.
A truly bizarre aspect of America’s history in the early 20th century. Not a gripping read, but still intriguing.
With exceptional research and his proven story-telling brilliance, James Carl Nelson has brought us the gripping, untold true story of American soldiers fighting not on the Western Front but on the frozen battlefields of the Russian Civil War. The Polar Bear Expedition shines a long-overdue spotlight on one of the most neglected chapters of the First World War.
James Carl Nelson masterfully tells the incredible story of ‘Detroit’s Own’ Doughboys, who were sent a thousand miles north of Moscow to battle the Bolsheviks in minus-60 degree winds. How most of these unsung heroes survived, how five ‘Polar Bears’ returned to reclaim those who didn’t a decade later, and how the ripples from that conflict washed right up to the 2016 election, are all mysteries Nelson solves. You’ll wonder why you’ve never heard of this amazing story before.
I love untold stories and James Carl Nelson serves up a great one by bringing to light a forgotten period of American history. Using primary sources, he skillfully weaves together the story of the Polar Bears and their unsung expedition to Russia. The Polar Bear Expedition is an exceptional book that vividly evokes the drama, chaos, and stench of battle.