INTRODUCTION | CEREMONIES & EVENTS | HONOR ROLL | MILITARY DECORATIONS | ENGAGEMENTS

"POLAR BEAR" STORIES | ARTICLES & REF. INFO. | PHOTO ALBUM | MORE LINKS | BOOKS | GUESTBOOK

The "Detroit's Own" Polar Bear Memorial Association is dedicated to honoring and maintaining the memory of the 339th Infantry Regiment, the 1st Battalion of the 310th Engineers, the 337th Ambulance Co. and the 337th Field Hospital of the U.S. Army's 85th Division. These men, officially designated the American North Russia Expeditionary Force and also known as "Detroit's Own" and "Polar Bears", were sent by President Wilson to North Russia where they fought the Bolshevik Red Army from September 1918 through June 1919.

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What's New!

The Bentley Historical Library's "Polar Bear Expedition Digital Collections" web site has been moved to a new location. Click here to visit and bookmark their new site location. This interactive site features the digitized "Polar Bear Collections" housed at the University of Michigan's Bentley Historical Library. Materials include diaries, maps, correspondence, photographs, ephemera, as well as a motion picture. This site also includes the names and associated information about a majority of the men who served in the Polar Bear Expedition, taken from a database that was created by the Library Staff based on any mentions that were made about them in their Polar Bear Collection. The new site location includes all the content found at the earlier site and will eventually include additional content as follows:

1. 63 collections digitized in 2004 by DLPS. With a few exceptions these were on the earlier site
2. 15 collections digitized by the School of Information and Bentley Historical Library. A few of these were on the earlier site.
3. 13 collections digitized by donors. A few of these were on the earlier site.
4. Roster of soldiers who served with the Polar Bears. This was on the earlier site, but corrections and names that were recently discovered have not been added since 2008.
5. Collections of books, newspapers, periodicals, and maps digitized from the "Polar Bear Collections". These were not a part of the earlier site.
6. Links to Polar Bear-related publications digitized by others. This is not a part of the earlier site.
7. 12 collections received in paper form since 2008 which have not yet been digitized.

A new book has been published that includes 53 pages on the history of "The Three Line Rifle, Model 1891 Mosin Nagant". This is the rifle that was used by the men of the American North Russia Expeditionary Force and the author includes information and photos of their use of that rifle in the North Russia conflict.. This book will interest both the casual reader as well as the collector and includes hundreds of photos and illustrations. The other six sections of the book cover additional rifle designs in a similar fashion. “Allied Rifle Contracts in America - Mosin-Nagant, Mauser, Enfield, Berthier, Remington, Savage, Winchester", by Luke Mercaldo; 224 pages; Wet Dog Publications, 2011.

"A Michigan Polar Bear Confronts the Bolsheviks: A War Memoir" was recently published by the Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. Edited by Gordon Olson, this book contains the graphic war memoirs of Godfrey Anderson (1895–1981), who was a member of the 337th Field Hospital Company. He tells of his travels by ship and train to Archangel, Russia, where his unit provided medical care for the men of the American North Russia Expeditionary Force. Anderson's unit set up field hospitals in the vast Arctic wilderness, endured the bitter cold of winter and the ravages of the Spanish flu, rubbed shoulders with Russian villagers and rescued scores of wounded from the advancing Bolsheviks in a harrowing nighttime retreat by sleigh from Shenkursk. Olson's book has been recognized as a 2011 Michigan Notable Book by the Library of Michigan.

"The American Expedition to North Russia in 1918-1919 has been oddly neglected by professional historians, with the result that most US citizens, including even the best educated and well-read, have been unaware of its existence. Partly, this has been because it got underway in the closing weeks of the Great War (now officially called World War I), and like a side show at a circus where they are already striking the tent, it drew little attention.

"Besides that, there was the confusion and obscurity surrounding it with regard to its purpose, especially in Washington and among the American troops who were involved: they literally had no idea what they were being sent to do. Even President Woodrow Wilson, as will be seen, was in a spin of uncertainty as to whether he should or should not authorize the expedition, and the British leadership (for it was to be an Allied operation, including British and French soldiers, but with the British officers in all the top command positions) offered little clarification.

"Without further enlightenment, five thousand American doughboys found themselves, early in September of 1918, after a long, slow trip from England through the icy waters of the Arctic Ocean, disembarking at the Russian port of Archangel - and more than half of them no sooner ashore than they were, with astonishment, packed off to "the front" to fight "the Bolos" - which was to say units of the Soviet Red Army. The operation thus turned out to be, willy-nilly and right from the start, an invasion of Soviet territory."

Ernest M. Halliday - from the Introduction to his book When Hell Froze Over