The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki: Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919

This is the firsthand account of one of history's most overlooked military interventions: the 13,000 American troops who landed in Archangel, Russia in September 1918, not to fight Germans, but to wage war against the nascent Soviet state. Written by three doughboys who were there, it documents the 339th Infantry Regiment and their comrades as they were rapidly deployed into the frozen wilderness of North Russia to confront the Red Guards. The narrative captures the surreal absurdity of their situation: fighting alongside White Russian allies whose cause they barely understood, in a terrain of endless forests and brutal winters, while Spanish influenza swept through the troopships. The book reveals what history has largely erased, that American soldiers and Red Army troops directly fought each other two decades before the Cold War officially began. With 22 pages of photographs, this memoir stands as a vital primary source for anyone curious about the strange, forgotten war that shaped the trajectory of the 20th century.