Excerpt
When the bombs began bursting in Europe in August of 1914, the United States could only muster some 98,000 Regular Army soldiers backed up by some 27,000 in the National Guard. The U.S. was not in the top ten among armies in the world with those of Russia, Italy, Germany, Austria-Hungary and France numbering in the millions and Great Britain and Japan almost that large. Indeed, the American army was smaller than that of Greece, Turkey, Romania and even Bulgaria.
As war clouds gathered, the U.S. War Department drew up plans to expand the Army to thirty-eight divisions, six being Regular Army, sixteen National Guard and sixteen in a new category known as the “National Army.” The National Army was to draw its officers from the regular force and fill its ranks with draftees, four million of whom were called to arms in the “War to End All Wars.”
One of the National Army units was the 85th Division, to be trained at Camp Custer, near Battle Creek, Michigan. The camp was named for George Armstrong Custer, who commanded Michigan Cavalry Regiments in the American Civil War. Famed as the youngest general officer of the war, he earned his star at age 23. He earned a second star just three years later.
Custer called his brigade the “Wolverines”, and they became known for their spirit and devotion to their leader.
Camp Custer had none of the dash of its namesake.
The camp is described in contemporary accounts as being built on a sand pile with the only living foliage being around the officers’ quarters. Blowing sand “flavored” the soldiers’ food. Living quarters consisted of hastily built, unpainted barracks, the only furniture being steel bunks. Still, the 85th was better off than its southern counterparts who lived in tent cities because of the warmer climates.
The division was organized at Camp Custer on August 25, 1917. Troops began to pour in, primarily from Michigan and Wisconsin, with a smattering from other states. Training was that of a regular infantry division.
On July 22, 1918, exactly 113 days before the armistice would be signed, the 85th Division was loaded on a troop convoy of primarily converted merchant ships and began to zigzag its way toward England.
The men of the 85th generally felt that the war was coming to an end. They thought they would spend a few weeks in England and then ship over to France to help put an end to the war making machine of the Central Powers, perhaps spend a few days in Paris, and then return home to victory parades with bands playing.
Things didn’t turn out that way.
By August, the 85th Division had arrived in England. But the island did not prove to be a way station en route to France. Instead, the division was recast as a “depot” unit, basically a replacement pool for units already in France. And to fulfill the pledge of President Wilson to send an American force to Arctic Russia, four units of the 85th – the 339th Infantry, the 1st Battalion of the 310th Engineers, the 337th Field Hospital and the 337th Ambulance Company – drew the short straws and ended up being the “Polar Bears.”
Perhaps the men of the Custer Division were selected for the assignment to Russia because, being from the Midwest, they were considered best able to handle the weather conditions. Perhaps they were selected just because they were there.
Whatever the case, the Polar Bears, all 4,477 of them, after less than a month in England, were at sea again, this time zigzagging their way through the North Sea.
The men had no special cold weather training. They were outfitted with some warm clothing but this concession was more than offset by having to surrender their British-made Enfield rifles for the Mosin-Nagant type being used by the Russians. The reason given was that among the mounds of equipment at Archangel and Murmansk were millions of cartridges for the weapons being used by the Russians. The fact that the weapons were awkward to use and not very accurate didn’t seem to make a difference.
The British had arrived a month earlier and had pitched their tents at Murmansk, a relatively safe place with a pro-Allied population. The 85th expected to join their British cousins there.
Again they drew the short straw.
The little convoy sailed past Murmansk and dropped anchor at Archangel on September 4, some 400 miles to the south and east, considered to be more pro-Communist.
Still, with the assignment of only guarding the supply dumps, how dangerous could the duty be? The Polar Bears were soon to find out.
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