United States or South Sudan ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
One thing the American never did take from the dead Bolo was his Russian tobacco, for it was worse even than the British issue tobacco. A good story is told on one of Donoghue's lieutenants. During the excitement of burning the bridge over the Emtsa at Tiogra, time when the two forces fled from one another, the officer, greatly fatigued, sat down on the bridge during the preparations by the men.
In connection with their mapping work engineers took many pictures, several of which are included in this volume. All the mapping work of the expedition was done by the American engineers. See the one in this volume. The longest bridge constructed was the 280-foot wooden bridge which spanned the Emtsa River. At Verst 445, close to No Man's Land, a sixty-foot crib bridge was constructed by Lieut.
With about two hundred men composed of French soldiers, a few English soldiers, American sailors from the Olympic, and some local Russian volunteers, he had pushed up the Dvina and Vaga to Seletskoe and operating from there had sent a party of French even as far as Emtsa River, a few miles north of Kodish.
It had been in the early weeks of winter during the time that Captain Heil with "E" Company and the first platoon machine gunners were holding the Emtsa bridge line, that the Bolsheviki almost daily tried out their post-armistice propaganda.
"L" Company and Ballard's Machine Gun platoon were hourly prepared to fight for their position at the Emtsa River against the Red force flushed with the victorious recapture of Kodish. 310th Engineers were skillfully and heartily at work on the blockhouses and gun emplacements and log shelters for this Kodish force, doomed to a desperate winter, armistice or no armistice.
He gallantly held it but only temporarily, for soon he and the Canadians and trench mortar and machine gun men and the Dyer's Battalion men were back under Major Donoghue holding the old Emtsa river line and its two supporting blockhouse lines. Our badly shattered "E" Company and "K" Company went to reserve in Seletskoe.
The Onega Force was to make a strong diversion toward the Bolo extreme left; the Kodish Force was to smash through Kodish to Kochmas assisted by a heavy force of Russians and English operating on and through Gora and Taresevo, and thence to Plesetskaya; the French-trained company of Russian Courier-du-Bois were to go on snow shoes through the snow from Obozerskaya to the rear of Emtsa for a surprise attack; and timed with all these was the drive of the Americans and British Liverpools on the Railroad straight at the Bolo fortifications at Verst 443 and Emtsa.
Gardner was now reinforced at the twelfth verst pole, for a patrol had lost a man somewhere on the river flank and it was thought that the enemy was preparing to pass by the flank and bag this body of American fighters by taking the newly constructed bridge on the Emtsa in the rear of Donoghue's small force. This bridge was their "only way home." Their worst fears came true.
Instantly they knew that Reds had worked down the river by the flank from Avda or even from Emtsa on the railroad and were attacking in force three miles to their rear. That made the situation desperate.
After a meal of salt fish and black bread fried in fish oil, and some hot water to drink, we were given an hour's rest and then started on the road again to Emtsa, twenty-four versts away, reaching that railroad point at midnight.
Word Of The Day