U.S. OFFICIAL PHOTO
Allied Plane Carrying Bombs.
The Reds tried to rally at a ridge of ground a verst in front of Kodish but the dreadful trench mortars again showered them at eight hundred yards with this new kind of hell and they were easily dislodged by the infantry and machine gun fire. At 1:00 p. m. after seven hours hard fighting the Americans were again in possession of Kodish. An interesting side incident of this recapture of Kodish was the defeat of a company of Reds occupying a Kodish flank position at the church on the river two versts away. The Reds disputed but Sergeant Masterson and fifteen men of “E” Company dislodged them. But time was valuable. Donoghue’s battle order that day called for his force to take Kodish and its defenses, Avda and its defenses and to occupy Kochmas. Only a matter of twenty miles of deep snow and hard fighting.
So the enemy was attacked again vigorously at one of the old fighting spots of the fall campaign, at Verst 12. As in the previous fighting the Red Guards, realizing the strategic value of this road fought tenaciously for every verst of it. They had been prepared for the loss of Kodish village itself; it was untenable. But they refused to budge from Verst 12. The trench mortars could not reach their dugout line. And the Red machine guns poured a hot fire into the village of Kodish as well as into the two platoons that forced their way a half a verst from the village toward this stubborn stronghold of the Reds.
Darkness fell on the combatants locked in desperate fight. All the American forces were brought up into Kodish for they had expected to get on to Avda as their order directed. Out in front the night was made lurid by flares and shell fire and gun fire where the two devoted platoons of “K” and “E” Companies with two machine guns of the first platoon of “M. G.” Company hung on. Lts. Jahns, Shillson and Berger were everywhere among their men and met nothing but looks of resolution from them, for if this little force of less than a hundred men gave way the whole American force would be routed from Kodish. There could be no orderly retreat from the village under such desperate conditions in the face of such numbers. They had to stick on. Half their number were killed and wounded, among whom was the gallant Lt. Berger of “E” Company who had charged across the bridge in the morning in face of machine gun fire. Sergeants Kenney and Grewe of “K” Company gave their lives that night in moving courageously among their men. Frost bites cruelly added to the miseries of those long night hours after the fighting lulled at eleven o’clock.
Morning discovered the force digging in. The odds were all against them. Again they were standing in Kodish where after personal reconnaisance Col. Lucas, their nominal superior officer, commanding Vologda Force, had said no troops should be stationed as it was strategically untenable. But a new British officer had come into command of the Seletskoe detachment, and perhaps that accounts for the foolhardy order that the doughty old Donoghue received; “Hold what you have got and advance no further south; prepare defenses of Kodish.” What an irony of fate. His force had been the only one of the various forces that had actually put any jab into the push on Plesetskaya. Now they were to be penalized for their very desperately won success.
The casualties had been costly and had been aggravated by the rapid attacks of the frost upon hands and feet. In temperature way below zero the men lay in the snow on the outskirts and in that lowly village under machine gun fire and shrapnel. They undermined the houses to get warmth and protection in the dugouts thus constructed under them. Barricades they built; and chipped out shallow trenches in the frozen ground. Again the trench mortar came into good use. A platoon of “K” and a platoon of “E” found themselves partly encircled by a strong force of Reds, with a single mortar near them to support. This mortar although clogged repeatedly with snow and ice worked off two hundred fifty shells on the Reds and finally spotted the enemy machine gun positions and silenced them, contributing greatly to the silencing of the enemy fire and to his discouragement.
The firer of this mortar, Pvt. Barone of “Hq” Company, who worked constantly, a standing target for the Bolos, near the end of the fight fell with a bullet in his leg. And so the Americans scrapped on. And they did hold Kodish. Seven were killed and thirty-five wounded, two mortally, in this useless fight. Lt. O’Brien of “E” Company was severely wounded and at this writing is still in hospital. “The memories of these brave fellows,” says Lt. Jack Commons, “who went as the price exacted, Lt. Berger of “E” Company, Sgts. Kenney and Grewe and many other steady and courageous and loyal pals through the months of hardship that had preceded, made Kodish a place horrible, detested, and unnerving to the small detachment that held it.”
Meanwhile their fellows at the river bank with the engineers were slashing down the trees on the Bolo side clearing the bank to prevent surprise of the Allied position over the seven foot ice that now made the river into a winding roadway. More blockhouses and gun positions were put in. It was only a matter of time till they would have to retreat to the old position on the river.
On January 4th Donoghue sent “E” Company back to occupy and help strengthen the old position at the river, from where they sent detachments forward to help “K” and “M.G.” and trench mortar hold the shell-shattered village of Kodish. The enemy confined himself chiefly to artillery shelling, always replied to vigorously by our gallant Canadian section who, though outgunned, sought to draw part of the enemy fire their way to lighten the barrage on their American comrades caught like rats in the exposed village. From their three hills about the doomed village of Kodish the Reds kept up a continuous sharpshooting which fortunately was too long range to be effective. And the enormous losses which the Reds had suffered on their side that bloody New Year’s Day made them hesitate to move on the village with infantry to be mowed down by those dreadful Amerikanski fighters, when a few days of steady battering with artillery would perhaps do just as well.