Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 17, 2025
During the Bolo's smashing in of the Ust Padenga front and the subsequent memorable retreat from Shenkursk this section of field hospital men had their hands full. It was in the field hospital at Shenkursk that the gallant and beloved Lt. Ralph G. Powers of the Ambulance Corps died and his body had to be left to the triumphant Bolos.
They were just in from the evacuation from Shenkursk front, cold and faint from hunger. There was no American medical personnel at that village. They were all at the front. Mess Sgt. Vincent of "F" Company went in to see how the wounded soldiers were getting along. He was just in time to see the British medical sergeant come in with a pitcher of tea, tin cups, hard tack, and margarine and jam.
Mounted Cossacks were instantly dispatched along this trail and after several hours of hard riding returned with word that, due to the difficulty of travel and heavy snows, the enemy had not yet given serious consideration to this trail, and as a consequence was unoccupied by them. Without further delay English Headquarters immediately decided upon total evacuation of Shenkursk.
Powers had been mortally wounded by a shell that entered his dressing station at Ust Padenga where he was alone with six enlisted men. His wounds were dressed by a Russian doctor who was with the Russian company supporting "A" Company. Lt. Powers had gone to the railroad front in September, shifted to the Kodish front during severe fighting, and then to the distant Shenkursk front.
The Red success in pushing our forces out of Shenkursk and down the Vaga made the upper Dvina and Vaga roads constantly subject to raiding parties of the Bolsheviki. Early in February "K" Company came up from Archangel and took station at Yemetskoe, one platoon being left at Kholmogori.
He is the officer whom the Bolshevik artillery tried to snipe with three-inch shells, as he passed from post to post during a quiet time at Verst 445. At Yemetskoe in February, one night just after the terrible retreat from Shenkursk, forty wounded American, British, and Russian soldiers lay on stretchers on the floor in British field hospital.
Arrived at Shenkursk Oct. 19th and delivered prisoners. Relieved Capt. Watson, R. A. M. C., and personnel from duty at detention hospital, and started Field Hospital 337. Returned to Beresnik and found that hospital now working about full capacity. After placing all seriously sick and wounded on board hospital ship "Currier" we proceeded to Archangel, and arrived there Oct. 22nd.
Again assembling our men we once more took up our weary retreat, arriving that evening in Shenkursk, where, worn and completely exhausted, we flung ourselves on floors and every available place to rest for the coming siege, about to begin.
This advance continued for some several days until under the severe marching conditions, lack of food, clothing, etc., a halt was made at Rovdinskaya, a village about ninety versts from Shenkursk, and a few days later more reinforcements arrived under Lieuts. McPhail and Saari. A number of incidents on this advance clearly indicated that we were operating in hostile and very dangerous country.
Countless numbers of us openly cursed the order, for was it not a cowardly act and a breach of trust with our fallen comrades lying beneath the snow in the great cathedral yard who had fought so valiantly and well from Ust Padenga to Shenkursk in order to hold this all important position?
Word Of The Day
Others Looking