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Updated: May 17, 2025
Compared with the winter story of wonderful stamina in enduring hardships at Shenkursk and Kodish and the sanguine fighting of those fronts, this defense of Pinega looks tame.
Scarcely had we gotten our outposts into position when a shell crashed squarely over the village, and again the battle was on. All that day the battle raged, the artillery was now shelling Shenkursk as well as our own position.
It was before the rivers had frozen over and headquarters at Shenkursk was getting ready to install the sledge convoy system which was our only means of transportation during the long winter months.
Rumors were constantly coming in that the Bolo was occupying the villages all along this trail in order to launch a big drive on Shenkursk as soon as winter set in. On these frozen, packed trails, troops, artillery, etc., could be moved as easily and readily as by rail.
Immediately after our arrival within the gates of Shenkursk, the British High Command at once called a council of war to hastily decide what our next step should be. The situation briefly stated was this: Within this position we had a large store of munitions, food, clothing, and other necessaries sufficient to last the garrison, including our Russian Allies, a period of sixty days.
This order absolutely contradicted my order from the American headquarters at Archangel, making me powerless to care for the American soldiers. I wired the British I could not obey it, unless sent from American headquarters. Col. Graham, British officer in charge of Shenkursk column, informed me that I was disobeying an order on an active front, for which the maximum punishment was death.
The enemy was slowly but surely closing in on Shenkursk as evidenced by the following notation, made by one of our intelligence officers in Shenkursk, set forth verbatim: "January 22, Canadian artillery and platoon of infantry left of Nikolofskia at 6:30 a.m., spent the day there establishing helio communication between church towers, here and there. All quiet there.
After a big night's pow-wow and a typical Cossack demonstration of swearing eternal allegiance to their leader and boasting of the dire punishment they were going to inflict upon the enemy, they sallied forth from Shenkursk with their banners gaily flying.
Otto Odjard, as well as Capt. Mowatt, who later died from his wounds. While talking by telephone to our headquarters at Shenkursk, just as we were being notified to withdraw, a shell burst near headquarters, demolishing our telephone connections.
On Oct. 3rd, with Russian medical officer and six American enlisted medical men, we proceeded to Rovidentia, the advance front, about thirty-five miles from Shenkursk on Vaga River. Established a small detention hospital here of ten beds, leaving the Russian medical officer and six American enlisted medical men in charge.
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