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Updated: September 24, 2025
The French Colonel commanding there had himself been cut off at Chinova on the west side of Bolsheozerki and had failed to fight his way through the next day, March 18th, with an escort of "H" Company men, story of which is related elsewhere.
Mention has already been made of the work of "G" and "M" Company platoons on the isolated Pinega Valley lines and of "H" Company guarding the very important Onega-Obozerskaya road, over which passed the mails and reinforcements from the outside world. The cluster of villages called Bolsheozerki was on this road.
Lucas in the morning and the latter determined to push on under escort of the Americans and attempt to reach Bolsheozerki and Oborzerskaya, being at that time ignorant of the real strength of the force of Reds that had interrupted the communications.
Their artillery vigorously shelled the Reds in Bolsheozerki and felt out his advance lines with patrols but were content mainly to stand fast to their works and congratulate themselves that their losses had been so slight after so terrific a struggle. The horse shoes had again been with that outfit of Americans. Three dead, three missing in action, one wounded and three shell shocked.
The next day Lt. Collins with thirty men and a Lewis gun started toward Bolsheozerki to discover the situation with orders to report at Chinova to Col. Lucas, the French officer in command of the Vologda Force. Travelling all night, he reached Col.
Bolsheozerki was a one reel thriller. Kodish had been a repetition of nightmares both for the Reds and the Yanks. Shenkursk had been a five act drama the tragic end of which had been destined when the Americans were ordered to dig in so far forward, isolated from the supporting forces.
To the doughboy, who that week in April was eating his bully and hardtack in the forest at Kurgomin or Khalmogora or Bolsheozerki or Chekuevo or Verst 448, this menu seems like a fairy tale, but he knows that the boys who had fought on the line and fallen before Bolo fire or fallen ill with the hardship strain, were entitled to every dainty and luxury that was afforded by the dobra convalescent hospital.
About noon, March 18th, the detachment in escort formation left Chinova and proceeded without signs of enemy till within four versts of Bolsheozerki, where they were met by sudden burst of a battery of machine guns. Luckily the range was wrong. The horses bolted upsetting the sleighs and throwing Col. Lucas into the neck-deep snow.
"E" Company of Americans resolutely floundered for hours through the five-foot snow to reach a distant viewpoint of the village of Bolsheozerki where they could hear the furious action between "H" and the Reds on the farther side, but by field telephone, were ordered by Colonel Guard to return to Verst 18 on the road and dig in.
As the mail from and to Archangel from the outside world as well as supplies and reinforcements of men were now obliged to use the road from Obozerskaya to Bolsheozerki to Chekuevo to Onega to Kem and so on to Kola and return, it became part of the duty of "H" Company to patrol the road from Chekuevo to Obozerskaya; taking two days coming and two days going with night stops at Chinova or Bolsheozerki.
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