From the minutes of a foreign branch of the church, April 27, 1919:

[Meeting held] on the shores of a small lake, for the purpose of baptizing service. President Zwahlen presided. Singing, “Lo, On the Waters Brink.” Prayer by Sheridan Ballard. Singing, “Ye Elders of Israel.” Elder Hunsaker spoke a few very interesting remarks on the first principles of the Gospel. Bro. Andrew Husberg (the candidate) then spoke, speaking of his assurity [sic] he had found the right Gospel and was going to heed [the] spirit’s promptings. After some very good remarks from Pres. Zwahlen, Bro. Thos. E. Hunsaker led Bro. Husberg into the water and performed the sacred ordinance. After two quartets by the Brethren present, Bro. Husberg was confirm by Elder J.R. Gibbs. Closing Song, “I’ll Go Where You Want Me to Go.” Benediction was pronounced by Bro. J.M. Baxter.

Two circumstances make this particular baptismal service highly unusual. First, the location was a lake near Vladivostok, Siberia. Second, the men listed here were all members of the “Red Triangle Club,” the informal name for LDS members of the Allied Expeditionary Force, Siberia. Branch President Zwahlen was also Pfc. Samuel Zwahlen, Co. D, 31st. Infantry, drafted in 1918 from Ferron, Emery County, Utah. And Bro. Husberg, the newly baptized member, was Pfc. Andrew Husberg, born in Sweden, brought to the US with his family, and drafted from his new home near Reno, Nevada. [1]

As WWI continued in Western Europe, most US soldiers were sent to the front in France and the horrors of trench warfare that took too many lives. By 1918, the Russian Revolution 1918 had effectively removed Russia from the Eastern Front. The Allies had shipped large amounts of munitions, military supplies, and foodstuffs that now sat in warehouses in Vladivostok on the Pacific coast of Siberia, Archangelsk on Russia’s northern White Sea coast, or at various locations along the Trans-Siberian railway. Fearing that the supplies could fall into the hands of the Bolshevik revolutionaries, British and French diplomats convinced Pres. Woodrow Wilson to send US troops to both Archangelsk and a larger number to Vladivostok, as part the Allied effort. Some of the stated reasons for US involvement included helping a force of 40,000 Czechoslovakian troops escape Eastward from the Bolsheviks and guarding the Trans-Siberian railway from both the Bolsheviks and marauding Cossacks. Other reasons may have been attempting to contain or defeat the Bolsheviks, and also keeping an eye on 70,000 Japanese troops, ostensibly allies, but already showing some imperial ambitions.

Some twenty LDS soldiers, mostly from Utah, Arizona, and Wyoming, are know to have participated specifically in the Vladivostok campaign, with Andrew Husberg being the only known convert. Many of these LDS servicemen found each other while training at Camp Fremont near San Francisco, and after being deployed to Siberia in August and September of 1918, they organized a branch and held regular meetings. I have not found who organized them, but Pres. Zwahlen appears to have been exercising normal priesthood authority, and collected both tithing and fast offerings. Many of the men were married with wives at home, some with children, and a few with children on the way. Calling themselves the Red Triangle Club, they met mostly at the YMCA cabin in Vladivostok [2], beginning November 3, 1918, and continuing, at least as far as the minutes indicate, until August 31, 1919, by which time the US troops had begun their withdrawal from Vladivostok.

Many of them had light duties; some served as musicians in the regimental band, others guarded the docks and warehouses of Vladivostok. Some units were deployed further away from Vladivostok, patrolling the rail lines or monitoring the movements of Bolsheviks and allies alike. The minutes indicate that they held their meetings as often as duties would allow, administered the sacrament, enjoyed prepared talks, testimonies, and many musical numbers. Sheridan Ballard played the Violin often, and many of the servicemen sang solos or in quartets. Men were assigned to visit the hospitals where some of their fellow servicemen were sick. Money was collected to provide for a Christmas party in December of 1918. A few known LDS servicemen, deployed away from Vladivostok, apparently never got the chance to meet with the Red Triangle Club.

The US force’s commanding officer, General William Graves, was suspicious of all sides in this conflict, and kept his almost 8,000 troops closely supervised, avoiding conflict as much as possible. When hostilities ended in Western Europe with the Armistice in November of 1918, peace did not come to Siberia quickly. The Germans were no longer a factor, tensions between the Bolsheviks and loyalist White Russian troops escalated, and sporadic fighting continued throughout 1919. Eventually, Washington began to doubt the utility of keeping troops in such an unstable environment, and began withdrawing US troops in March of 1919, with the bulk of them gone by the following winter. A few troops lingered over that winter, and the last of them departed in April of 1920, a full year and a half after the end of hostilities in Western Europe. [3]

A related story to all of this is the story of an LDS serviceman from Arizona, assigned to the 31st Infantry in Siberia, and who participated in a deadly skirmish with Bolshevik forces in April of 1919. That, however, is a separate story …

[1] Andrew Husberg’s conversion stuck. After being released from the service in 1919, he moved to Salt Lake City, married in the temple, and raised a family there.

[2] I wondered about the YMCA cabin, but learned that the YMCA in WWI and in previous conflicts served much the same purpose as USO clubs were to perform in WWII and later. In fact, the YMCA was instrumental in creating the USO between the wars to help men and women serving in the US military.

[3] The US forces stationed in and around Archangelsk (nicknamed the Polar Bear Expedition) had a rougher time of it, although their deployment was shorter, ending in August of 1919. With some 3,000 fewer troops than the AEF Siberia force, they were involved in more direct combat with Bolshevik forces, suffered more from the cold, and had to cover a much larger theater of operations. Total deaths of the AEF Siberia numbered 189 in 19 months of deployment. The Polar Bear Expedition suffered 235 deaths from all causes in just nine months.