The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki | Page 6

Results In Spite Of Red Tape--Raising Stars And Stripes To Hold The
Hospital--Aid Of American Red Cross--Doughboys Dislike British
Hospital--Starting American Receiving Hospital--Blessings On The
Medical Men.
At Stoney Castle camp in England, inquiry by the Americans had
elicited statement from the British authorities that each ship would be
well supplied with medicines and hospital equipment for the long
voyage into the frigid Arctic. But it happened that none were put on the

boat and all that the medical officers had to use were three or four
boxes of medical supplies that they had clung to all the way from Camp
Custer.
Before half the perilous and tedious voyage was completed, the dreaded
Spanish influenza broke out on three of the ships. On the "Somali,"
which is typical of the three ships, every available bed was full on the
fifth day out at sea. Congestion was so bad that men with a temperature
of only 101 or 102 degrees were not put into the hospital but lay in
their hammocks or on the decks. To make matters worse, on the eighth
day out all the "flu" medicines were exhausted.
It was a frantic medical detachment that paced the decks of those three
ships for two days and nights after the ships arrived in the harbor of
Archangel while preparations were being made for the improvisation of
hospitals.
On the 6th of September they debarked in the rain at Bakaritza. About
thirty men could be accommodated in the old Russian Red Cross
Hospital, such as it was, dirt and all. The remainder were temporarily
put into old barracks. What "flu"-weakened soldier will ever forget
those double decked pine board beds, sans mattress, sans linen, sans
pillows? If lucky, a man had two blankets. He could not take off his
clothes. Death stalked gauntly through and many a man died with his
boots on in bed. The glory of dying in France to lie under a field of
poppies had come to this drear mystery of dying in Russia under a
dread disease in a strange and unlovely place. Nearly a hundred of them
died and the wonder is that more men did not die. What stamina and
courage the American soldier showed, to recover in those first dreadful
weeks!
No attempt is made to fasten blame for this upon the American medical
officers, nor upon the British for that matter. Many a soldier, though,
was wont to wish that Major Longley had not himself been nearly dead
of the disease when the ships arrived. To the credit of Adjutant Kiley,
Captains Hall, Kinyon, Martin and Greenleaf and Lieutenants
Lowenstein and Danzinger and the enlisted medical men, let it be said
that they performed prodigies of labor trying to serve the sick men who

were crowded into the five hastily improvised hospitals.
The big American Red Cross Hospital, receiving hospital at the base,
was started at Archangel November 22nd by Captain Pyle under orders
of Major Longley. The latter had been striving for quite a while to start
a separate receiving hospital for American wounded, but had been
blocked by the British medical authorities in Archangel. They declared
that it was not feasible as the Americans had no equipment, supplies or
medical personnel.
However, the officer in charge of the American Red Cross force in
Archangel offered to supply the needed things, either by purchasing
them from the stores of British medical supplies in Archangel or by
sending back to England for them. It is said that the repeated letters of
Major Longley to SOS in England somehow were always tangled in the
British and American red tape, in going through military channels.
At last Major Longley took the bull by the horns and accepted the aid
of the Red Cross and selected and trained a personnel to run the
hospital from among the officers and men who had been wounded and
were recovered or partially recovered and were not fit for further heavy
duty on the fighting line. He had the valuable assistance also of the two
American Red Cross nurses, Miss Foerster and Miss Gosling, the
former later being one of five American women who, for services in the
World War, were awarded the Florence Nightingale Medal.
On September 10th, we opened the first Red Cross Hospital which was
also used in connection with the Russian Red Cross Hospital and was
served by Russian Red Cross nurses. Captain Hall and Lieutenant Kiley
were in charge of the hospital.
A few days later an infirmary was opened for the machine gunners and
Company "C" of the engineers at Solombola.
A good story goes in connection with this piece of history of the little
Red Cross hospital on Troitsky near Olga barracks. There had been
rumor and more or less open declaration of the