ANZACs in Arkhangel Page 16

  Yeaman had spent time as a coach-driver in civilian life and was an experienced horse-handler. He was given a crash course in Tartar horse-talk and managed to settle them down. The group then set off, going east and south alternately. After seven hours they were level with their objective and made camp on the swampy ground. They were 3 versts behind the Bolo line.

  At 2 am on 29 August they resumed the march and by 5.30 am were nearing their target. It was a series of strongly fortified blockhouses, sited so their machine guns provided mutual fire support. The strong points were connected by breastworks and log dugouts and enclosed by barbed wire. The Aussies got within 70 metres before they were detected.

  The Bolos opened up with rifle and machine-gun fire and the Australians brought their Lewis guns into action. Darting from tree to tree, they closed in on the blockhouses with Mills bombs. Yeaman records that in the confusion, ‘Newbould takes the gun position we were supposed to take and we take his’.7

  Yeaman’s group accounted for four Bolos killed, seven wounded and forty prisoners. They also took four machine guns and captured a 6-inch gun on the railway siding. Albert Bennett, a Victorian, had been a gunner in the AIF and got the naval gun working. They shelled a Bolo armoured train and cut it off 2 versts up the line.

  One by one the blockhouses were silenced. The last one, though, proved especially stubborn and was holding out. Several men were hit while trying to approach it and Sam Pearse and Chilla Hill were edging their way towards it under heavy fire. They were lobbing Mills bombs at the rifle slits but couldn’t get one through.

  As Hill stood up, he was hit. He gave a cry and fell, with a huge wound in his upper thigh. Some of the men reached him and worked to staunch the bleeding. Hill survived, though his leg was later amputated. But the word went round that the Bolos were using dumdum bullets. The rumour (almost certainly false) enraged the men, especially Pearse, who was Hill’s closest mate.

  Baverstock recounts:

  Pearse called for a pair of wire-cutters and a bag of Mills bombs. Laying on his back he hacked at the strands of barbed wire until he had cleared an aperture. Through this he entered the open area in front of the blockhouse. He was seen to rush to one side of the blockhouse and to drop bombs into the interior. Explosions followed and he was seen to move across when an unexpected burst of fire came from within.8

  Pearse fell to the ground, bleeding heavily from the groin. Ben Williams rushed forward with a Lewis gun and emptied it into the blockhouse, finishing off the occupants.

  Several others had also been hit. Major May, an Englishman who identified strongly with the Aussies and wore a slouch hat, was badly injured. So too was Wilfred Robinson from Fitzroy in Melbourne. He would have died but for the wallet, diary and New Testament in his breast pocket which took the force of one of the bullets. To the Aussies it must have seemed divine providence. Robinson (religion: Baptist) was surely the only Australian carrying a Bible that day.

  Australians move off from a blockhouse on the Bolos’ old winter line. This is believed to be the blockhouse where Sergeant Samuel Pearse won his Victoria Cross and lost his life. (AWM A03725)

  As for Pearse, the bullet had severed his femoral artery. His mates knew instinctively it was a mortal wound.9 His face lost colour as the blood drained out of him. They tried to make him comfortable as he died. Some shed tears. He was the only Australian in the Relief Force to die and his death cast a pall over those on the spot.

  Yeaman did not witness Pearse’s death. He had taken charge of the prisoners and wounded and his diary records it only as an afterthought:

  Take a few photos of the camp. Score a razor, artillery sword and Bolo respirator out of a machine-gun dugout. Go over to headquarters for water and on return take one of the pack horses back for a drink. Bolo shelling all along the railway line. I near run into a big galumph with the pony getting back to camp. Major May got a bullet through each thigh. Sgt Pearse was killed earlier in the day.10

  Once the line of blockhouses was broken, Yemtsa itself fell to the Russians. Over a thousand Bolos surrendered. Others fell back behind the Yemtsa River south of the village, and blew the steel railway bridge behind them.

  Ironside thought the Russian troops completely changed from the men who had previously been mutinying with such regularity.11 Their performance also came as a surprise to General Rawlinson. Soon after arriving Rawlinson had said of them: ‘Their troops won’t fight alone and their officers are hopeless’.12 Now he began to revise his opinion. (The Russian view of Rawlinson was unaltered; one Russian officer remarked that he received them ‘like a viceroy receiving a delegation of niggers’!)13

  The operation was a success for three reasons. First was the improved Russian morale; second was the spirited attack by the Australians; third was the use of gas. The British had given up trying to discharge the stuff from the ground and had improvised bombs by attaching sheet-metal fins and nose cones to the gas canisters. Aircraft had dropped fifty-three gas bombs on Yemtsa station at 12.30 pm and another sixty-two in a second wave six hours later.14

  Diggers at a shelter beside the track at Verst 439. According to Bill Baverstock, this spot was about three-quarters of a mile from where Pearse met his death. A jar of rum—or lime juice—is visible. (AWM A03726)

  The British found their canisters of poison gas would not discharge properly in the windless forests of North Russia. RAF fitters attached nose and fins and the improvised bombs were successfully dropped from aircraft. (IWM Q 016329)

  As smoke obscured the village, the enemy troops fled into the forest. The Bolos thought the gas would blind them permanently and were panic-stricken. In fact, it caused violent nausea, vomiting and difficulty breathing. Those affected staggered about as if drunk. Rawlinson visited the hospitals after the attack and saw the effects on the Bolshevik victims. ‘Went round hospitals and saw Bolo prisoners who had been gassed. Good gas.’15

  The Aussies weren’t exposed to gas at Yemtsa, but the British had earlier issued precautionary orders:

  a. No man to enter the ‘smoked area’ until one and a half hours after the last bomb is dropped.

  b. Cellars and cavities will be avoided.

  c. No water in these villages will be drunk.

  d. Earth is contaminated where bombs drop. Skin contact will be avoided. Closed houses will be specially watched as padded doors may keep out the gas. Cigarette smoking will give some relief if gas is inhaled.16

  Yeaman explored the Bolshevik transport lines the next day to look for souvenirs and saw Yemtsa burning in the distance. Two weeks later he visited the village itself. He shared an evening meal with some of the Russian troops now holding it—six men with spoons, all dipping out of one bowl of bully beef soup.

  Had a walk around the village which is fairly knocked. One water tower levelled by the Bolos, the other in good repair. Large engine shed knocked about. Then get a scooter ride to 422 where the large iron bridge over the Yemtsa River is blown up. Take some photos of Bolo prisoners working on the wreckage.17

  With the fall of Yemtsa, Yeaman’s section was withdrawn to Obozerskaya, leaving the Whites to settle their scores with the Bolsheviks. Stopping at Verst 448 on the way back, Yeaman ‘could hear them shooting Bolos in the woods’. He was present when a Bolshevik commander’s diary revealed he had ordered four Russian prisoners and two British to be shot. ‘He is led out by four Russian officers at 448 and finished off with their revolvers. Makes a fuss about getting shot.’18

  The retreating Bolos blew the railway bridge south of Yemtsa. Despite their British uniforms, these men are Russian Whites. (GAOPDF)

  Pearse’s grave sometime in the 1920s. Pearse was buried at Obozerskaya where 18 British servicemen, mainly RAF, had already been laid to rest. The graves are now lost and the men, including Pearse, are commemorated by plaques at the Commonwealth War Cemetery in Arkhangel. (AWM H06760)

  Pearse’s body, too, was taken back to Obozerskaya. He was buried there with military honours. His grave joined
eighteen others in the Allied military burial ground. Pearse’s comrades erected a Celtic cross and enclosed it with a low railing and a circle of white-painted stones.

  It was the end of the fighting, not only for Pearse, but for his mates too. Or almost the end—on 1 September Yeaman records: ‘Bennett and Oliver have a bit of a scrap and both put under arrest’.

  14

  WITHDRAWAL

  SEPTEMBER 1919

  THE British decision to withdraw had been made public in Arkhangel on 10 August, the very day the Dvina Offensive was launched. The city’s sullen working classes realised the balance of power was shifting and Bolshevik agitation intensified. As British control slackened, the workers grew bolder and nasty brawls broke out with the foreign troops. The British tanks, completely unsuited for use in Russia’s northern forests, came in handy for a show of force against Arkhangel’s civilians. British morale was also bolstered when their offensive proved a success and a strike called by Bolo sympathisers fizzled out.

  The effect on the middle classes was different. While foreigners had been bearing the brunt of the fighting, they had scarcely contributed to their own defence. Belatedly, they now stirred themselves to collect money and implement conscription. They inundated Ironside with petitions and deputations begging the British to stay, but he felt scant sympathy for those who had done so little to help themselves.1 He wrote to the War Office that Britain didn’t owe the Russians anything and that no Russians should be evacuated. ‘They are not worth fighting for if they do not stand up.’2

  General Rawlinson (right) at the Relief Force headquarters in Arkhangel in August 1919. Rawlinson, who was no fan of the casual ways of Australians, was brought in to ensure the withdrawal went smoothly. Everything was in hand, however, and he didn’t need to change Ironside’s plans. (IWM Q 16114)

  The British had no faith the Whites could hold out once they left. They urged General Miller to withdraw to Murmansk, which was easier to defend and where they promised to keep him supplied by the Royal Navy. They warned him that, by remaining, he was putting his officers and much of the population at risk of reprisals.

  Miller refused to leave. His troops all came from the Arkhangel area and would not simply abandon their homes for the Arctic wastes of Murmansk. Besides, Admiral Kolchak, nominally Russia’s supreme White commander, had ordered him to fight to the last at Arkhangel. So Miller spent his time trying to persuade the British to reverse their decision. Others did likewise. Tchaikovsky, now in Paris, travelled to London to plead with Churchill, as did the Archpriest of Arkhangel with a delegation of village elders. Churchill heard them out but gave no ground.3

  Meanwhile the withdrawal was under way. The British and the Whites had so far formed one combined army which now needed to be disentangled. To Ironside the Bolos were of less concern than Miller’s troops, whom he feared might turn in mass mutiny. As a last resort he was ready to disarm the entire White Army for the protection of his own. But with the foreigners leaving, Miller’s men felt relief at being their own masters again. Paradoxically, morale in the White Army actually improved and Ironside’s fears of mutiny were not borne out.

  On the Railway Front, the withdrawal was straightforward. Yeaman records spending a couple of days at Obozerskaya, cleaning his kit and getting ready to leave. By 18 September his section was on a train north. They had a wagon to themselves and kept a fire burning in it the whole way. Just two days earlier Yeaman had received his first mail—a letter from home and one from his bank.

  The next day his section was camped at the railway station at Isakogorka, a village of about two thousand, across the river from Arkhangel. The weather had turned cold and the men lit fires and played football to keep warm. Isakogorka had a railway repair shop and a wireless station but it was surrounded by swamp and reeked of stagnant water and human waste.4 There was nothing much to see there apart from the church, but at night the men witnessed a wonderful sight when the whole sky was suffused with the shifting, coloured glow of the aurora borealis.

  Yeaman and his mates kept themselves occupied carting wood for the officers’ mess and cleaning captured Bolo weapons. They did their washing, they read and played cards. Guard duty was taken seriously. Men and machine guns were posted on the water tower in case of an uprising by the local population.

  On the Dvina, the situation was very different. Pulling out there was not simply a matter of packing up and sailing away. The Dvina was at its lowest level for at least twenty years—some said fifty. Though the snowfall had been exceptionally light over the previous winter, Russian opinion was that the British had made matters worse for themselves. To open the river to navigation as early as possible, they had dynamited the ice at the first sign of the thaw. This, the Russians thought, had prevented the banks from absorbing water which usually drained into the river later in the season.5

  In July the Dvina had been less a river than a series of shoals and disconnected pools. At one stage twenty-five barges had been aground at Troitsa where the Australians were based. Although the river had recently risen with the August rains, the gunboats, which drew more water than the barges, were still as good as stranded.

  Activity at Troitsa was feverish. Everything had to be removed or destroyed so nothing of value was left to the Bolsheviks. On Troitsa beach there were sometimes hundreds of labourers, mainly women and girls, hard at work for 20 roubles a day (plus whatever they could pilfer). There weren’t enough piers to moor all the barges, something which often threw the work into disorder and entailed much loading and unloading. Grounded vessels also caused the river channels to alter, compounding the problems of navigation.

  Bolshevik gunboats still operated further upstream, though the British laid defensive mines to prevent their approaching within range. The Reds enjoyed the advantage of the current and were able to release mines which then floated downstream. According to Brewster, the naval officer, a small boat had to be stationed to intercept the mines as they bobbed downriver. It was dangerous work, attaching a rope and gingerly hauling them to shore to be disabled. He admitted, ‘Personally I was petrified every time I had to do this’.6

  In 1919 the British used the belltower of Troitsa church as an observation post and it sustained some damage from Bolo guns. By 2007 the belltower was entirely gone and the church itself a ruin. (IWM Q 16121)

  The Bolsheviks floated mines downstream towards the British flotilla. Whenever possible they were intercepted and disabled or detonated. This explosion may be a Bolo mine or a charge placed by British engineers to try to clear a sandbar. (GAOPDF)

  There were also ground attacks. Though the Dvina Offensive had been a great success it wasn’t the knockout blow the British liked to think. Trotsky may have been taken aback by the intensity of the offensive but he was able to recover fairly quickly. Even the many prisoners taken were no great loss; they meant two thousand fewer mouths to feed and more potential fifth columnists in Arkhangel.

  Enemy pressure caused frequent disruption. On 6 September Bolo forces advanced against outposts on both banks.7 Naval guns, which were to have been sent north, had to be held back and put into action again. Horses were requisitioned but none had worked in a team before, and every peasant tried to give his own animal as little work as possible. Each was given a stick and told to beat the horse in front! To move the guns 5 kilometres took a team of eight horses six hours.

  Two days later, five hundred Bolos attacked, apparently fresh troops from South Russia. The British claimed to deal with them easily but the Bolos attacked again on successive days and had to be repulsed with bayonet charges. There were continued raids on both banks and Chudinovo and Sluda were both heavily shelled by the Reds. The British grudgingly acknowledged that ‘the enemy had good and able leaders, for the tactics and determination shown were distinctly good’.8

  Meanwhile, the engineers worked on at Troitsa. They cleared sandbars by dredging and depth-charging. They removed guns, mountings and even the engines from the gunboats to try to ge
t them over the sandbars. Above the water line HMS Humber was protected by a belt of 3-inch armour plate, 70 tons in all. Each plate weighed 3 tons and was secured by six bolts fixed securely enough to resist the impact of shell fire. To get the first plate free took forty-eight hours, but within two weeks the rest had been laboriously stripped off and dumped into the Dvina. In the end the Humber succeeded in getting away.

  Enormous efforts were made to save the field guns. They were manhandled with tackle up slopes and over sandy islands. Wooden bridges were built to get them onto the barges. And when the barges ran aground, there was more work to refloat them. One barge was saved by damming a creek, pumping in water, then floating the barge free into the river proper. Everything of use to the enemy was destroyed. Stores were burned or dumped in the river and any remaining bridges and pontoons wrecked.

  Two monitors, the M25 and M27, and the yacht Kathleen could not be saved. They managed to clear a couple of sandbars but then the river fell again and it was impossible to create a channel deep enough. The yacht was dynamited and the monitors were wired with thirteen depth charges apiece. Short circuits caused by rain defeated the first attempt, but eventually the charges fired and the two warships were blown to fragments.

  The demolitions used a lot of explosives. The TNT came packaged in brass tubes and the village children scavenged for the empties. TNT has a sweet taste and the kids took to sucking the tubes like lollies! Equally in demand were unused grenade detonators and instantaneous fuses, which apparently tasted just as sweet.

  As part of the rearguard, the Australians stayed on at Troitsa till 9 September, the day before it was finally abandoned. Their barge, already loaded, was waiting at midstream and they were rowed out to it by Russian women. The next day Troitsa beach was stripped almost bare and the last landing stage soaked in oil and set ablaze.