The extraordinary lost story of America’s invasion of Russia 100 years ago
*** 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. ***
“INCREDIBLE.” — John U. Bacon • “AN EXCEPTIONAL BOOK.” — Patrick K. O’Donnell • “A MASTER OF NARRATIVE HISTORY.” — Mitchell Yockelson • “GRIPPING.” — Matthew J. Davenport • “FASCINATING, VIVID.” — 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.
About the Author
James Carl Nelson received the 2017 Marine Corps Heritage Foundation’s Colonel Joseph Alexander Award for Biography. He is the author of three acclaimed histories of the American experience in World War I: I Will Hold: The Story of USMC Legend Clifton B. Cates, from Belleau Wood to Victory in the Great War; Five Lieutenants: The Heartbreaking Story of Five Harvard Men Who Led America to Victory in World War I; and The Remains of Company D: A Story of the Great War. A former staff writer for the Miami Herald, he lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Praise For…
“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.”
— Mitchell Yockelson, author of Forty-Seven Days: How Pershing’s Warriors Came of Age to Defeat the German Army in World War I
“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.”
— Patrick K. O’Donnell, bestselling author of The Unknowns: The Untold Story of America’s Unknown Soldier and WWI’s Most Decorated Heroes Who Brought Him Home
“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.”
— John U. Bacon, author of The Great Halifax Explosion: A World War I Story of Treachery, Tragedy, and Extraordinary Heroism
“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.”
— Matthew J. Davenport, author of First Over There: The Attack on Cantigny, America’s First Battle of World War I
“[An] engrossing narrative. … Crisp, character-driven.”
— Publishers Weekly
“Urgent. … A wild ride through an American military campaign few know much about. … Nelson does yeoman’s work in telling the stories of these men and their exploits.”
— Booklist
“Fast-paced. … Intimate. … Vivid, well-researched.”
— Kirkus Reviews
“Nelson’s well-written and well-researched history brings this often overlooked war to life. … Intimate. … Heartbreaking. … The Polar Bear Expeditionis more than a great celebration of this little-known conflict.”
— New York Journal of Books
