Evening star., 1929-10-06
j. S. DEAD IN RUSSIA
ARE ON WAY HOME
Expedition Hastens Work to
Get Bodies Out Before
Winter Sets In.
BY LINDSAY HOBEN.

| ARCHANGEL, Russia, October s
| (N.A.N.AD up here on the edge OF
the Arctic, where Winter already is
appearing and the sun hangs low or
the southern horizon even at noon, the
last Of the American expeditionary
forces are evacuating.
1t is quiet evacuation after a
scarcely known campaign, for the
United States hardly knew its forces
armies and fought against the Boil
sheviks in 1918 and 1919.
Why the Americans came has never
quite been understood, and 1t is gen.
orally written down as one Of the
bulls" of the war, but the last Of the
soldiers are now leaving.
Rows of Iron Boxes.
There are no bugles; no flying colors;
no parades. There are merely rows OF
galvanized iron boxes, soldered, sealed
with name and company stenciled on In
black paint, shellac covered.
The boxes, which are now ready. re-
pose in the warehouse of the Soviet
Wood Export Trust awaiting a boat to
take them from Archangel to Havre
whence they will be taken to New York
and eventually to a special cemetery
being prepared In Detroit. Mich.
Some of the more than 200 American
soldiers killed in the campaign up here
against the Reds were taken back
when the troops withdrew in October
1919. 1t is the 1913 who were left in
scattered graves of the north country
who were now being taken home-men
from the 339th Infantry, the 337th
Ambulance Company, the 310th Engi-
neers.
From Archangel southwark they fell
along the railway, the northern DWina
the Kadysh front, the Omega and the
Vega continent of the northern Dwina
But 10 years have wrought change
Today the Veterans Of Foreign Wars
Mission to the U. S. S. r., financed by
headed by Capt. Stuart Duncan Camp
bell, United States Army, is working
with the full cooperation of the Boil
shevik government in the eXhumation
work.
Personnel Of Mission.
A special delegation appointed by
the Governor of Michigan preceded
Capt. Campbell and his group by a
few weeks and located and marked the
graves. Now Capt. Campbell and Capt
Edwin Summer Bethlehem, jr., Wash
ineton. co-head of the mission, who
represents the Veterans of Foreign
Wars, are executing the actual exhuma-
ton of the bodies.
With them are Walter Dundon, De-
troit, president of the Polar Bear AS
sociation Post: Frank Pespishil, Pater-
son, N. j.; Russell H. butcher. Los An
geles, Calf, and Orlando Overstake
Decatur, Ill. The last three are regu-
larly stationed in France.
Transportation, except for the single
railway running from Archangel to Vo-
logda, is almost confined to the rivers
in this country bordering on the White
Sea. 1t was along these lines of COM
munication that the fighting took place
10 years ago, and 1t is scattered along
these rivers that the bodies lie now In
half-forgotten graves in the tundra
the dreary Arctic forests and in tiny
villages.
But the Soviet Government is Of
fering every assistance" Capt. Camp
bell says, "and we shall obtain a small
river boat to work into the territory
where the more remote graves are"
Dressed as Russians.
The entire mission is very wisely clad
in Russian clothes, from boots to coats
which makes for good will on the part
of the Archangel inhabitants.
Chill winds are blowing down from
Barents Sea and the polar ocean. Cold
rain falls most of the time. Soon the
Dwina and its tributaries will be frozen
Capt. Campbell. Capt. Bethlehem and
the others are hurrying that the last of
the American expeditionary force may
leave the battlefields before another
Arctic Winter settles its cold, grayish
blanket completely over the north coun-
try.
paper Alliance)