American Polar Bears in Russia: Soldiers of the 339th Infantry and the Archangel Campaign, 1918-1919

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 soldiers’ experience fighting the Red Army and the Arctic winter, a quarter century before the Cold War.