WDET News
- Michigan's "Polar Bears" Remembered
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Nov 6, 2009General - Link to Audio
November 6, 2009 by Pat Batcheller
One of the most decorated American combat units of World War One was comprised largely of soldiers from Michigan. They were known as the Polar Bears…because they were sent to a Russian village near the Arctic Circle to help the British and French quell the Communist revolution. This Sunday…Detroit Public Television will air a documentary produced by the granddaughter of one of the Polar Bears. Pamela Peak says the 55-hundred men arrived in northern Russia near the end of the war…but were forced to remain months after…on the orders of President Woodrow Wilson.
“How we got there was the Czar was on our side in World War One…So the British got the idea we better send in troops to stop Communism so the Czar doesn’t pull away as an ally…but the war ended and we were stuck there.”
Peak says the Polar Bears endured fierce battles with the Bolsheviks in sub-zero weather. And even though they began to question their mission…she says they carried it out heroically. Peak’s two-hour documentary airs at 3:00 Sunday afternoon on Channel 56.