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Updated: June 22, 2025
But it was decided to burn Upper Toulgas, which was a constant menace to our security, as we had no men to occupy it with sufficient numbers to make a defense and the small outposts there were tempting morsels for the enemy to devour.
Many were reluctant to stay there, and it was nervous work on the black nights when the wind, dismal and weird, moaned through the encompassing forest, every shadow a crouching Bolshevik. Often the order came through to the main village to "stand to," because some fidgety sentinel in Upper Toulgas had seen battalions, conjured by the black night.
That part of Company "B" in the village left at midnight, followed by the force in the blockhouses at 3:00 a. m. After a very hard march we reached Toulgas and established a position there. Our position at Toulgas in the beginning was very unfavorable, being a long narrow string of villages along the Dvina which was bordered with thick underbrush extending a few hundred yards to the woods.
The enemy was given ample time in which to fully occupy the position at Toulgas, which he at once proceeded to do. On the 26th day of April our artillery suddenly opened fire on Toulgas and at the same time dropped a curtain barrage on the far side of the village, making retreat practically impossible.
"In twelve minutes we take Toulgas," was his simple battle order to the Americans. No matter to him that ammunition reserves were not ordered up. Sufficient to him that he showed his men the place to be battled for. And he was a favorite. On the railroad in the fall a young Bolshevik officer surrendered his men to the French.
Corporal Arthur Prince, of "B" Company, who was ambushed and wounded and captured in March, 1919, at Toulgas was, finally in August, 1920, released from hospital and prison in Russia and crippled and sick joined American troops in Germany. His pluck and stamina must have been one hundred per cent to stand it all those long seventeen months.
The company commander was to be drafted as "left bank" commander of a mixed force and hold Toulgas those long, long months. The only help he remembers from Colonel Corbley or Colonel Stewart in the field operations was a single visit from each, the one to examine his company fund book, the other to visit the troops on the line in obedience to orders from Washington and General Ironside.
It was reported to us that the Bolo soldiers held a meeting in which they declared that it was impossible to take Toulgas, and that they would shoot any officer who ordered another attack there. It was during one of the fracases that Lt. Dressing captured his prisoner.
During this time thousands of shells of high explosive gas and shrapnel were placed in the village proper with telling effect. Unable to go forward or back, we inflicted enormous losses upon the enemy, and shortly thereafter the loyal Russians, supported by English infantrymen, entered the village, putting the remaining numbers to flight and once again Toulgas was ours.
Tommie and Scot were often found at Kodish and Toulgas and on the Onega sharing privations and meagre luxuries of tobacco and food with their recently made friends among the Yanks. And in the winter the Yorks at several places stood shoulder to shoulder with doughboys on hard-fought lines.
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