TROOPS IN THE ARCTIC.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LVI, Issue 17189, 17 June 1919, Page 5

TROOPS IN THE ARCTIC.

LIFE ON MURMAN Oi/AST.

MANY HARDSHIPS ENDURED.

The hardships which are being endured by the many low-category men in the British force on the Mnrman coast, were described recently by "a London territorial who has returned from Murmansk. . •

I went out in the City of Marseilles last June, ho said. In . July and.August wo had almost tropical heat and mosquitoes, while in winter there wero 30 to 66 degrees of frost. Murmansk is no place for lowcategory men. When you have the long days in summer the ground becomes a quagmire, but underneath it (3 still frozen, so that nothing grows except Chnstmas trees, furze,- and a short heather. No sane man would live on the Murraan coast, and before the war it was a Russian penal settlement. When arrived the-e was a crowd of refugees of all nations' from , . Northern Russia; v *•, About 1000 of these- were, brought to England in tho Czar steamship. .; Able-bodied. men wero not brought, and were persuaded to enlist in the volunteer forces. •-, They depended on us for foot?, !•. s ..- a .„i-'., : .'". 1 The Murman force controls the- railway .for between 400 and MO reliefs. There is no land connection with Archangel. It was proposed to open » reinder ' sledge route, but ' the contour <>! the land and the. presence, of Bolshevist troops made it imprsfcticable. - When a company were travelling by train from Murmansk to Kandalaksha (about 200 miles) in October.' the Bolsheviks blow them up, and about 100 men were killed and wounded. > Most of tho troops at Murmansk lived in bell tents, without bed boards, until well into winter. Some lived in-railway trucks in December, with the temperature 30 or 40 degrees below zero. There were a few old wooden houses, which were commandeered, but they were alive with vermin. : There was plenty of food, butJ th« motonv of it was simply »v f ftl: tinned stuff all the time, with fresh meat sometimes twice a woek. When I left the Bolsheviks wero massing at Lake Onega, and it was expected that they would advance as soon as tho r:now was. hard "enough. ' Wireless messages can be pent to Murmansk direct from England,, but toe apparatus at Murmansk is not pwerfw enough to send a message to EngisM direct. Messages can he passed on from ebip to ship. , It must bo remembered that in the winter there, a almost continuous darkness. Ju December and January the daylight amounts to 0r,3 how's twilight a day. For middle-aped B men.. that (is rather depressing. If troops are] .to be kept th.ro they should be young men in good condition': not men from 36 to 40 or more- in a low category.