Michigan Polar Bear Confronts The Bolshevik

This graphic first-person account of a little-remembered event in U.S. history tells the story of young soldier Godfrey Anderson’s experiences during the ill-fated 1918 military expedition against the Bolsheviks in the frozen reaches of northern Russia.

As a member of the American “Polar Bears” medical corps, Anderson describes traveling by ship and train, setting up field hospitals in the vast Siberian wilderness, enduring many hardships, rubbing shoulders with Russian villagers, barely escaping from the Bolsheviks in a harrowing nighttime retreat by sleigh, and much more. His transparent narrative, laced with ironic humor, has an irresistible, wide-eyed quality to it.

A substantial introduction by historian Gordon Olson sets the geopolitical stage for Anderson’s war memoir, which itself does not pass judgment on the American policy that sent him to Russia. All in all, for history and military buffs especially, this is a great story and a terrific read.