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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 (ANREF) 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.

ANNOUNCEMENTS

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ROSTER

Here is a web page containing a list of the U.S. Army officers and enlisted men who served in North Russia.  The list is organized by battalions and companies and can be either browsed or searched using the Ctrl+F keyboard command.  This list was developed and organized by Lt. Col. Roderick A. Hosler, U.S. Army (Ret.) using the University of Michigan Bentley Historical Library's roster information and it is being maintained and updated by the Webmaster as additions and corrections are brought to his attention. .

"VOICES OF A NEVER ENDING DAWN"

In recognition of the 100th anniversary of the Polar Bears' return to Detroit and the 10th anniversary of the filming of the movie "Voices of a Never Ending Dawn", Kevin G. Stark (grandson of Pvt. Louis H. Stark, Co. G, 339th Infantry) dedicated a memorial on his property in the area where some of the winter scenes were filmed.  More information here.

This painting depicts Sgt. Mike Burke’s machine gun squad of “G” Co., 339th Infantry Regiment in combat at Karporgora on the Pinega River front in North Russia. Sgt. Burke is shown firing his Lewis machine gun as the soldier to his right prepares to provide re-loads. That soldier is Cpl. John Toornman, who created this painting from memory. Pvt. Louis H. Stark is the soldier with the wounded left forearm. At the bottom center of the painting are the two men who were killed in this battle, Pvt. Jay Pitts and Pvt. Clarence Malm.  They both now rest in peace at the foot of the Polar Bear monument at White Chapel Memorial Park Cemetery in Troy, Michigan.

Cpl. John Toornman made this painting in the early 1920’s, around the same time that the Polar Bear Association was organized and began holding reunions. John put his painting in his basement, where it stayed until the early 1980’s when he brought it out to show author Dennis Gordon who was researching his book, “Quartered in Hell”. Gordon received permission to use Toornman's painting as the cover artwork for his book, which has been out of print for decades. Toornman later gifted the painting to his son, Gene, more than 30 years ago. During the filming of “Voices of a Never Ending Dawn” in March 2009, Gene Toornman shared his painting with the film producers and the grandson of Pvt. Louis H. Stark. In 2018, the Toornman family has graciously made this painting available to the Polar Bear Memorial Association for use in their centennial commemorations of the service and sacrifice of the Polar Bear soldiers.

Public Memory of the Polar Bears

Captain Matthew J. DiRisio is a United States Army officer who was pursuing a MA in history through George Mason University prior to starting a new assignment teaching history to the cadets at West Point.

Capt. DiRisio reached out to the Polar Bear Memorial Association, writing, "I am currently working on a project studying the public memory of the Polar Bear Expedition. I became interested in the Polar Bear Expedition when I was in middle school and my parents bought me the book "When Hell Froze Over" for my birthday. Fast forward more than a decade and I am in grad school and finally able to do some research/writing on the topic. My project concerns how the public memory of the Polar Bear Expedition stayed alive regionally versus nationally. My professor bet me that I would not be able to find enough information on the 339th to write a 3,000 word paper."

Capt. DiRisio won that bet. Here is his finished project: "Frozen in Time: Public Memory, the Polar Bear Expedition, and the Triumph of the Regional Vernacular"

Bentley Historical Library

The Bentley Historical Library's "Polar Bear Expedition Digital Collections" web site  features digitized content from their "Polar Bear Collections" that are archived at their facility on the University of Michigan's North Campus.  Back in the 1960s the Bentley Historical Library began collecting personal papers of the Polar Bear veterans through a collaboration with the Polar Bear Association. Around 2006 the Library began digitizing this collection and making it available on-line. Their web site contains

1. 63 collections digitized in 2004 by the University Library.
2. 17 collections digitized by the U of M School of Information and Bentley Historical Library.
3. 19 collections digitized by donors.
4. A roster of soldiers who served with the Polar Bears, containing 6,813 names.
5. Collections of books, newspapers, periodicals, and maps digitized from our collection.
6. Links to Polar Bear-related publications digitized by others.

Official Photographs taken in North Russia, 1918-1919

Browse the lists of official captions for (510) photographs taken in North Russia by the U.S. Army Signal Corps.The lists are complied in order of increasing SC number. The SC number is usually found in the lower left hand corner of the image, next to the U.S. Army Signal Corps logo. Many of the captions identify the subjects in the photo by their name, rank and/or unit. Information on how to obtain copies of these photos can be found on this page.

"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