The Polar Bear Expedition

The Polar Bear Expedition

Author: James Carl Nelson

Publisher: HarperCollins

Published: 2019-02-19

Total Pages: 395

ISBN-13: 0062852795

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In the brutally cold winter of 1919, 5,000 Americans battled the Red Army 600 miles north of Moscow. We have forgotten. Russia has not. "AN EXCELLENT BOOK." —Wall Street Journal • "INCREDIBLE." — John U. Bacon • "EXCEPTIONAL.” — Patrick K. O’Donnell • "A MASTER OF NARRATIVE HISTORY." — Mitchell Yockelson • "GRIPPING." — Matthew J. Davenport • "FASCINATING, VIVID." — Minneapolis Star Tribune An unforgettable human drama deep with contemporary resonance, award-winning historian James Carl Nelson's The Polar Bear Expedition draws on an untapped trove of firsthand accounts to deliver a vivid, soldier's-eye view of an extraordinary lost chapter of American history—the Invasion of Russia one hundred years ago during the last days of the Great War. In the winter of 1919, 5,000 U.S. soldiers, nicknamed "The Polar Bears," found themselves hundreds of miles north of Moscow in desperate, bloody combat against the newly formed Soviet Union's Red Army. Temperatures plummeted to sixty below zero. Their guns and their flesh froze. The Bolsheviks, camouflaged in white, advanced in waves across the snow like ghosts. The Polar Bears, hailing largely from Michigan, heroically waged a courageous campaign in the brutal, frigid subarctic of northern Russia for almost a year. And yet they are all but unknown today. Indeed, during the Cold War, two U.S. presidents, Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon, would assert that the American and the Russian people had never directly fought each other. They were spectacularly wrong, and so too is the nation's collective memory. It began in August 1918, during the last months of the First World War: the U.S. Army's 339th Infantry Regiment crossed the Arctic Circle; instead of the Western Front, these troops were sailing en route to Archangel, Russia, on the White Sea, to intervene in the Russian Civil War. The American Expeditionary Force, North Russia, had been sent to fight the Soviet Red Army and aid anti-Bolshevik forces in hopes of reopening the Eastern Front against Germany. And yet even after the Great War officially ended in November 1918, American troops continued to battle the Red Army and another, equally formiddable enemy, "General Winter," which had destroyed Napoleon's Grand Armee a century earlier and would do the same to Hitler's once invincible Wehrmacht. More than two hundred Polar Bears perished before their withdrawal in July 1919. But their story does not end there. Ten years after they left, a contingent of veterans returned to Russia to recover the remains of more than a hundred of their fallen brothers and lay them to rest in Michigan, where a monument honoring their service still stands. In the century since, America has forgotten the Polar Bears' harrowing campaign. Russia, notably, has not, and as Nelson reveals, the episode continues to color Russian attitudes toward the United States. At once epic and intimate, The Polar Bear Expedition masterfully recovers this remarkable tale at a time of new relevance.


American Polar Bears in Russia

American Polar Bears in Russia

Author: William Thomas Venner

Publisher: McFarland

Published: 2023-01-25

Total Pages: 219

ISBN-13: 1476648387

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At the end of World War I, the U.S. Army 339th Infantry--nicknamed the "Polar Bears"--was deployed to northern Russia to prevent Allied supplies stockpiled near the port city of Archangel from falling into the hands of the Bolsheviks. Drawing on firsthand accounts from men in the regiment, their 18-month campaign is narrated from the point of view of the riflemen, NCOs and officers of companies I and M. Each chapter highlights an individual soldier's experience fighting the Red Army and the Arctic winter, a quarter century before the Cold War.


Wolfhounds and Polar Bears

Wolfhounds and Polar Bears

Author: John M. House

Publisher: University of Alabama Press

Published: 2016-06-15

Total Pages: 264

ISBN-13: 0817318895

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In the final months of World War I, President Woodrow Wilson and many US allies decided to intervene in Siberia in order to protect Allied wartime and business interests, among them the Trans-Siberian Railroad, from the turmoil surrounding the Russian Revolution. American troops would remain until April 1920 with some of our allies keeping troops in Siberia even longer. These soldiers eventually played a role in the Russian revolution while protecting the Trans-Siberian Railroad. This book brings their story to life.


A Michigan Polar Bear Confronts the Bolsheviks

A Michigan Polar Bear Confronts the Bolsheviks

Author: Godfrey J. Anderson

Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing

Published: 2010-09-14

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 0802865208

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Contains the graphic story of a young Michigan soldier's experiences during President Woodrow Wilson's ill-fated 1918 military expedition against the Bolsheviks in the frozen reaches of northern Russia. --from publisher description


Quartered in Hell

Quartered in Hell

Author: Dennis Gordon

Publisher:

Published: 1982

Total Pages: 332

ISBN-13:

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Personalized story of the American North Russia Expeditionary Force of the Allied North Russia Campaign. Deals with the western campaign involving the Murmansk-Archangel area, concentrating on the American commitment.


Polar Bears

Polar Bears

Author: IUCN/SSC Polar Bear Specialist Group. Working Meeting Oslo, Norway)

Publisher: IUCN

Published: 1998

Total Pages: 172

ISBN-13: 9782831704593

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In addition to agenda and minutes of meeting, this contains: summary of Ursus maritimus population status; evaluation of polar bear in relation to 1996 IUCN Red List of Threatened Animals; resolutions; press release; national reports on research in Canada, Greenland, Norway, Russia, and Alaska.


Ice Bear

Ice Bear

Author: Michael Engelhard

Publisher: University of Washington Press

Published: 2016-11-01

Total Pages: 306

ISBN-13: 0295999233

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Prime Arctic predator and nomad of the sea ice and tundra, the polar bear endures as a source of wonder, terror, and fascination. Humans have seen it as spirit guide and fanged enemy, as trade good and moral metaphor, as food source and symbol of ecological crisis. Eight thousand years of artifacts attest to its charisma, and to the fraught relationships between our two species. In the White Bear, we acknowledge the magic of wildness: it is both genuinely itself and a screen for our imagination. Ice Bear traces and illuminates this intertwined history. From Inuit shamans to Jean Harlow lounging on a bearskin rug, from the cubs trained to pull sleds toward the North Pole to cuddly superstar Knut, it all comes to life in these pages. With meticulous research and more than 160 illustrations, the author brings into focus this powerful and elusive animal. Doing so, he delves into the stories we tell about Nature—and about ourselves—hoping for a future in which such tales still matter.


Polar Bears

Polar Bears

Author: Andrew E. Derocher

Publisher: JHU Press

Published: 2012-03-08

Total Pages: 262

ISBN-13: 1421403056

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Presents an introduction to the polar bear, discussing its evolution, physical characteristics, life cycle, predatory behavior, habitat, and the threats to its existence from global warming.


Bears of the World

Bears of the World

Author: Vincenzo Penteriani

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2020-11-30

Total Pages: 500

ISBN-13: 9781108483520

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Bears have fascinated people since ancient times. The relationship between bears and humans dates back thousands of years, during which time we have also competed with bears for shelter and food. In modern times, bears have come under pressure through encroachment on their habitats, climate change, and illegal trade in their body parts, including the Asian bile bear market. The IUCN lists six bears as vulnerable or endangered, and even the least concern species, such as the brown bear, are at risk of extirpation in certain countries. The poaching and international trade of these most threatened populations are prohibited, but still ongoing. Covering all bears species worldwide, this beautifully illustrated volume brings together the contributions of 200 international bear experts on the ecology, conservation status, and management of the Ursidae family. It reveals the fascinating long history of interactions between humans and bears and the threats affecting these charismatic species.