Escaping Russia to Riga, 1921

From Kosciuszko, We Are Here!: American Pilots of the Kosciuszko Squadron in Defense of Poland, 1919-1921, by Janusz Cisek (McFarland, 2025), Kindle Loc. 2673ff.

The last prison that Cooper was in was Vladykino. Here with two Polish officers he decided to escape. This time he succeeded. In a way he was forced to escape by his Polish counterparts. In his report filed after reaching Warsaw, he wrote that the two Polish prisoners managed to brake into the prison office in order to forge a few documents for the escape. At this point there was no return. Cooper was very well aware that not only the two direct perpetrators might be shot dead on the spot. He, after all, was considered to be a dangerous anti-revolutionary and enemy of the people. The escape must have happened at the beginning of March, 1921.

Since Cooper himself did not know Russian, he pretended to be mute, and on the long march from Moscow to the Latvian border, Lt. Stanisław Sokołowski and Corporal Stanisław Zalewski facilitated everything for him. They marched in the direction of Wielkie Łuki with Latvia as their general destination, which was then, as through the entire inter-war period, the most efficient crossing point between the workers’ paradise and the outside world. It was through this very border that Boris Savinkov, the famous terrorist, returned to Russia, lured by the mirage of the great anti–Bolshevik conspiracy. Food was obtained by exchanging the clothes they had received in the Amcross packages. The escapees brushed with arrest several times. They were, after all, moving across completely unknown territory with neither a compass nor a map. Cooper recalled that he spent one night up to his neck in water. In any case in an expedition covering over 800 kilometers, the sympathy, or at least indifference, of the local population had to play a crucial role. The last five days of the route to the border was on foot through mud and swamps. At the last minute, a smuggler they had engaged tried to betray the escapees by refusing to lead them across the border. Only threatened with death did he decide to fulfill his part of the contract. The border was crossed at 2:00 A.M. on April 23, 1921. “We came to ‘Amcross’ in rags and without shoes, hungry and completely fatigued,” as Cooper wrote in his first dispatch from Riga.

The shoes were payment for the smuggler who had led them across the border. Cooper would not have been himself if he had not immediately expressed his gratitude to Amcross and brought attention to the need for better care of the American prisoners still held by the Bolsheviks. He wrote about this a few weeks later, to Hoover among others, including a few practical hints. He brought attention to the still existing legal avenues of action by Western charitable organizations in Russia, he stressed the attitude of the two Polish officers and the local population. As an eyewitness, he was also a credible source of information about the conditions prevailing under the communist rule in Russia: “Cooper, a prisoner in Russia, states that Russia is full of propaganda against United States, France and Great Britain; people are told that these countries are responsible for all trouble in Russia. German influence is strong and popular.” In another report he confirmed the level of control by the new regime. “Absolute control of Bolsheviks, either they will stay in control or anarchy.” This experience of the nature of the communist system, gained through direct contact with the iron hand of terror, remained with Cooper throughout his life. He became an unrelenting opponent of the system, and he intended to write a book about his experiences. However he never fully realized his intention. The only fragments were included in his book Things Men Die For. It is worth mentioning here the durability of the anti–American propaganda, whose influence is present even in contemporary academic works. Simonenko, already mentioned in these pages, states in an article about the Kościuszko Squadron that after the signing of the Polish-Bolshevik peace in Riga, Cooper was most ordinarily released from prison and arrived to Poland without any problems. He does not say, however, why he had to overcome the boundless Russian territory in rags and on foot, nor why he crossed the border illegally.

...

Meanwhile, the Polish authorities and the squadron airmen awaited the miraculous rescue of their comrade. His journey from Riga to Warsaw began on April 29, his train reached the capital on May 3, the day celebrated by Poles as Constitution Day. As a witness to the event recalled, “he received a great ovation.” It so happened that this was the first time that Constitution Day had been celebrated without a major war being waged, although the borders had not yet been officially recognized by the Conference of Ambassadors. It is true that in Silesia the third uprising had broken out against the Germans, but Poland was not officially involved in that conflict. Help was provided to the insurgents unofficially using paramilitary organizations such as the Polish Military Organization. Thus, the 3rd of May in 1921 was celebrated solemnly and in an atmosphere of peace, as the new constitution was declared in March and a peace treaty was signed with Russia.

Pilot Captured by Bolsheviks, 1920

From Kosciuszko, We Are Here!: American Pilots of the Kosciuszko Squadron in Defense of Poland, 1919-1921, by Janusz Cisek (McFarland, 2025), Kindle Loc. 2636ff.

The Bolshevik Cavalry immediately captured him and took him to the HQ of the 2nd Brigade of the 6th Division of Budenny’s Konarmia ['Horse Army']. Peasants who managed to see the events gave an exact description of the airman’s appearance, and on the basis of this, Fauntleroy identified Cooper.

As it happened, the plane was damaged during the landing and Cooper himself lost consciousness. When he came round, he found himself surrounded by Budenny’s cavalrymen. At that moment, the wounds and burns he had suffered in action in September 1918 were his succor. One of the basic Bolshevik practices towards prisoners and people of the captured areas was to seek out the “representatives of the Bourgeousie.” One of the most popular tests of class membership was an analysis of their hands. The so-called “white hands” signified a man who had never done any manual work and therefore was an “enemy of the people.” However, Cooper’s hands were burnt. His second lucky break was his army discharge underwear, which he had on that day. The underwear was stamped with the name of the previous owner, who was Corporal Frank Mosher. Both lucky events allowed Cooper to maintain that he was in reality a corporal of that name who had been enlisted into the Polish Armed Forces. Of course, the Bolsheviks did not entirely believe that story, because even within their ranks the names of the American pilots were known. Apart from that, Cooper had some incriminating documents in his pocket, such as notes addressed to Fauntleroy and, even worse, his memo to Col. Castle regarding the importance of the air force. Its content was unambiguous. Cooper wrote that through their participation in the war, the airmen of the squadron were gaining experience of the role of the air force in a war of maneuvers in geographically wide-open country. This experience, he noted, could have significance in the event of a revival of the war with Mexico. He also summarized his thoughts on the subject of the air force combat effectiveness against the infantry and cavalry. They were certainly not commensurate with even the most sharp-witted corporal.

Cooper was transported to the Division HQ, where he was interrogated by the komdyw, or Division Commander, Timoszenko, who was later to become a Soviet Marshal. They tempted him with the proposition of service as an instructor of the Bolshevik Air Force, but he consistently refused. Even a five-day visit to the Bolshevik Air Squadron did not help to change his mind. Early in his captivity, Cooper attempted to escape. Unfortunately after two days he was caught and imprisoned with a heavy guard. He found himself in Moscow, where in all he spent as much as ten months in various penal facilities. Prison food rations consisted of barely half a pound of black bread per day—and not always. Years later, he recalled his experiences in a reply to a letter from Capt. Marek Mażyński, a Polish airman of 303rd Squadron who in the first years of World War II was also a Soviet prisoner. The men compared notes on prison conditions in the 1920s and the 1940s. Cooper wrote:

For a week in Moscow, nobody had a bite of eat—nothing. One of the prisons I was in was fairly good. The second one was just about as you describe. The third was rougher and tougher than any you describe; there was a good reason for this as my imprisonment was during the starvation period of 1920–1921, where for one week in January (as I have already said) there was absolutely no food in Moscow. Not only had the transportation broke down, but this was the first time the peasants refused to give food to the city workers…. Nothing is more terrible than the breaking of the human spirit by torture, starvation, and the sadistic questioning by “Cheka.” I want to say that in the toughest prison I was in, where men died every night from lack of food and typhus, there were two prisoners who kept other prisoners from complete disintegration. One of the men had lost all his teeth while working in the coal mines of Siberia; he was a 30-year-old baker who had only one tooth. He was from Łódź, Poland. The other man was a man who spoke only a little Polish. This, of course, was me. I take no credit, but credit only the tough training I had at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis.

The prisoners’ situation was saved by food parcels from “Amcross” and one of the English charitable organizations. The living conditions in jail were also severe for other reasons. Cooper recalled gaining permission from the prison authorities to hold prayers in the presence of a priest on Christmas Eve. It was an evening when companions in misery were people of differing confessions and nationalities, including prisoners related to the richest American families. On that day they were joined in prayer, although not all of them were believers. The prisoners’ prayers cemented the Bolsheviks’ hatred towards them as representatives of the social order that they had vowed to destroy.

Piłsudski vs. Bolsheviks, 1920

From Kosciuszko, We Are Here!: American Pilots of the Kosciuszko Squadron in Defense of Poland, 1919-1921, by Janusz Cisek (McFarland, 2025), Kindle Loc. 2230ff.

Neither personnel nor materiel reinforcements arrived during the general battle waged near Warsaw, nor was there any aid for Lwów, which was facing its own battle of life and death. At the very beginning of August 1920, when the Bolsheviks occupied the Brest fortress, the road to Warsaw seemed to wide open and defenseless. The fall of the Polish capital appeared to be inevitable. Foreign missions, with a few exceptions, began to evacuate from Warsaw, the world press began to write about the fall of Poland. On August 11 the Universal News Service reported from Washington that the Secretary of State recommended the U.S. legation move to Grudziądz. Other sources confirmed the information.

Piłsudski took full responsibility for the preparation of a counteroffensive. At first his plan depended on a concentration of forces under the cover of the fortress at Brest. When the fortress fell on August 1, his plan had to be completely rethought. The French advisor to the Polish General Staff, General Maxime Weygand, opted for a concentration of forces around Warsaw and a linear defense along the natural lines. Waygand envisiged only a limited counterattack. Rozwadowski, who from July 22 was the Chief of General Staff, proposed a counterattack with a force concentrated near Garwolin. None of these plans gained full recognition by the Commander in Chief. It was on August 6 that Piłsudski prepared the basic idea of his maneuver. It established a broad pincer movement from the south, striking the Bolsheviks’ left wing engaged near Warsaw and closing off their retreat path to the east. Piłsudski simultaneously issued an order dividing the armed forces into three fronts: the Northern, Central, and Southern. The 7th Squadron was assigned to the Southern Front in the area bordered by the line between Włodzimierz Wołyński, Hrubieszów, and Zamość, all the way to the Romanian border. At the same time, the Marshal recommended a concentration of troops in the vicinity of Puławy, under the cover of the Wieprz River, south of Warsaw. This was to be established from the 1st and the 3rd Infantry Division Legions, the 21st Mountain Division, the 14th Wielkopolska Infantry Division and other smaller units. These units had been delegated to carry out the main strike. The key to success was that designated units were to swiftly isolate themselves from the Southern Front, while at the same time effectively defending their right wing in order to prevent Bolshevik units operating in the Lwów area from taking part in battle. The next crucial element for the success of operation was to maintain the complete secrecy of the plan and to guarantee maximum surprise by attacking at the very moment of the full engagement of the enemy near Warsaw. Piłsudski personally led a counteroffensive in the morning hours of August 16 on the Wieprz River. His presence among the units, as Gen. Maxime Weygand wrote, transformed morale, which had been shaken after a retreat lasting a few weeks. The Bolsheviks were completely surprised; they did not expect the Polish armed forces to be ready for a greater offensive. Their defeat was more complete because the day before Piłsudski’s counterattack, the 5th Army under the command of Gen. Władysław Sikorski gained a local success in action north of Warsaw along the Vistula. On August 18 the Poles’ success was already evident. The Bolshevik Mozyr Group, which approached Warsaw from the southeast, was smashed, as was the 16th Army, which attacked Warsaw from Mińsk Mazowiecki and Radzymin.

By August 25 the Bolsheviks had lost 25,000 killed and wounded, with 66,000 taken prisoner and over 231 artillery pieces, 1,023 machine guns, and a huge amount of military equipment captured. The 3rd, 4th, 15th, and 16th Bolshevik Armies found themselves in a panic retreat. The battle was swiftly baptized as the 18th decisive battle in world history. It was already clear that Piłsudski had halted the Bolshevik advance into the heart of Europe.

Ubiquitous Street Signs in Poland

 Zapraszamy lit. ‘We invite’ (= ‘Welcome’) is on nearly every storefront, but I haven’t seen it on welcome mats. One also sees Dziękujemy ‘we thank you’.

Among the most common prohibitive streetsigns are: Zakas Parkowanie ‘No parking’. Many streets have paid (Płatny) parking zones with one interactive Parkomat meter per zone. Blue signs with P mark the beginning, and often specify whether parking is parallel, angled, or perpendicular to the sidewalk. The ends of paid parking zones are marked with blue signs reading Koniec ‘end’.

Many shops and restaurants also display Zakas Palenia ‘no smoking’. Lots of Poles smoke or vape and you often encounter groups of people standing around outside taking smoke breaks (in the cold) before going back inside. It took me a while to figure out that the Papierosy advertised at many stores are ‘cigarettes’. What gave it away for me were signs advertising e-papierosy.

Lifts are labeled Winda (sg.) or Windy (pl.). Ground floors (parter) are numbered 0, and basements are numbered -1. Each upper floor is a piętro and the newly upgraded elevator in our building announces piętro zero at the ground floor and piętro minus jeden in the basement where the recycling bins are.

Our rather nice building also has signs that warn residents not to park their rowery ‘bicycles’, hulajnogi ‘scooters’, or deskorolki ‘skateboards’ in the hallways. Hulajnogi elektryczne are as much a danger to pedestrians on Polish sidewalks as they are everywhere else.

Poles have a reputation for being heavy drinkers, and all manner of liquor is readily available even on Sundays in the ubiquitous Żabka convenience shops, but we have been surprised to see so many varieties of very tasty beers and wines (and even hard liquor) on storeshelves and in restaurants that are labeled bezalkoholowe (0,0%).

Polish Signage: Days of the Week

So far, I’m encountering far more Polish in writing than in I am in speech, so I’m learning to read more words than to understand spoken words. I thought I should start a series of blogposts about some of the ubiquitous practical signage that is not much addressed either in my Duolingo lessons or in my grammar books. I’ll start with the way days of the week appear on many commercial doorways.

The long word for Monday is one more reason to hate Mondays: poniedziałek. The rest of the workday names are much shorter: wtorek, środa, czwartek, piątek. All except ‘Wednesday’ end in the diminutive -ek, which helps distinguish two of them from the ordinals czwarty ‘fourth’ and piąty ‘fifth’. Wtorek is related to the older Slavic ordinal for ‘second’, but Polish now uses drugi for ‘second’.

The word for ‘Wednesday’ basically means ‘middle’ (as in German Mittwoch, literally ‘midweek’), and it occurs in compounds such as śródmieście ‘midtown, downtown’.

Sobota ‘Saturday’ comes ultimately from Hebrew via Greek and Latin for Sabbath. But niedziela ‘Sunday’ comes from a Proto-Slavic compound that meant ‘no work’. (English weekend has now also been borrowed into Polish.)

So poniedziałek ‘Monday’ can be parsed into a compound typical of many Slavic languages, with po ‘after’ and a diminutive form niedziałek from niedziela ‘Sunday’, thus ‘the day after no work’. Alternations between l and ł in different forms of the same word are not at all rare in Polish.

Stores that list their hours open for business will often abbreviate Mon–Fri as Pon–Pt, or Mon–Thu as Pon–Czw, if they open longer hours on Fri–Sat. A university calendar abbreviates the weekdays thus: Pn. Wt. Śr. Cz. Pt.

In other contexts, niedziela ‘Sunday’ is often abbreviated Nd. or Ndz., tacitly recognizing its two-morpheme source. Most businesses offer no service hours on Sunday: nieczynne.

Goodwill Tours of Japan, 1927

From Kenichi Zenimura, Japanese American Baseball Pioneer, by Bill Staples, Jr. (McFarland, 2011), Kindle Locations 904-910:

In January, the FAC [Fresno Athletic Club] announced its arrangements to make a second tour of Asia in March with 40 games in Japan scheduled and plans to take the team to China and Korea with a stop in Honolulu on the way home. There were a number of new players on the team. Not included in the initial news wire was the fact that the FAC were visiting Japan at the invitation of Meiji University, or more specifically, Zenimura's cousin, friend and colleague, Takizo Matsumoto, the man formerly known as Frank Narushima, one of the cofounders founders of the FAC. In February, the Japanese American newspaper Rafu Shimpo announced similar news about Lon Goodwin and his Philadelphia Royal Giants.

According to historian Kazuo Sayama, the Philadelphia Royal Giants traveled to Japan on its own budget and "on recommendation by a certain Japanese American entrepreneur in California." Although he is never mentioned by name, historians believe that the entrepreneurial Californian is Zenimura based on his previous interactions with Goodwin and their teams throughout the 1925-26 seasons.

Much more about the goodwill tours online here.

California Japanese Baseball League, 1926

From Kenichi Zenimura, Japanese American Baseball Pioneer, by Bill Staples, Jr. (McFarland, 2011), Kindle Locations 846-853:

On March 5, the Associated Press announced that "a Japanese baseball league for California, the first of its kind to permanently organize, has been formed for a schedule of Sunday day afternoon games. Fresno, Stockton, Alameda and Sacramento are represented on the circuit. The players are all Japanese, and the games will be played in private parks owned by the Japanese baseball associations in the respective cities on the circuit. The Stockton team has incurred considerable expense in importing a number of players from the Hawaiian islands, while Fresno has gathered in star athletes from various parts of the United States. The schedule starts next Sunday and closes November 3, with an intermission during the summer months."

In the first game of the season for the California Japanese Baseball League (CJBL), the Fresno Athletic Club blanked the Yamato Club of Stockton, 4 to 0, at the Japanese Ballpark in Fresno. Nitta held the Stockton lineup to two hits, while Nushida and Munishi were touched for 11 hits by the Fresno crew. The big sticks for the Japanese were carried by Nakagawa, who drove in two runs - base runners Zenimura and Sukita - with a long single in the fifth. Yoshikawa, Kunitomo, and Iwata all got wood on the ball to drive in the other two runs.

Japan vs. U.S. Baseball, 1924

From Kenichi Zenimura, Japanese American Baseball Pioneer, by Bill Staples, Jr. (McFarland, 2011), Kindle Locations 695-708:

Captain Zenimura and his boys lost two of the three games against the Salt Lake Bees in the spring of 1924, but ultimately they - and to some degree, Japanese American baseball itself - won the respect of their Caucasian peers in the Pacific Coast League. After the series with Salt Lake, the FAC looked forward to some heated contests against Japanese American ball clubs. In April they welcomed the Stockton Yamato to the Firemen and Policemen's ballpark and defeated them, 5 to 4. The Fresno Bee also announced that Zenimura's club "will play a two game series with the Meiji University team here on May 10th and 11th, after which they will plan an invasion of the Orient."

The Meiji University team - the college champions of Japan - planned to tour the East and Midwest, in addition to its games against West Coast clubs including Zenimura's, and then return home on June 29. As it turned out, the San Jose Asahi would be the only Japanese American team to defeat the 1924 Meiji ballclub on its tour in the U.S." Ironically, while the Meiji University ballclub was in the United States touring, President Calvin Coolidge signed into law the Immigration Act of 1924 which effectively ended all Japanese immigration to the U.S. During the months of June and July, Zenimura was busy making plans for the upcoming tour to Japan. Once all the details were addressed and players secured, Zeni distributed the following information on the Associated Press night wire:

FRESNO, July 17. - The Fresno Athletic Club will sail from San Francisco September 2 on board the President Pierce for a tour of the Hawaiian Islands and Japan, it was announced today. The regular team will be reinforced by Pitcher Miyahara of Centre College, Kentucky; Outfielder Tsuda of Whitman College, Washington, Pitcher Nushida of Stockton and a couple of Fresno players yet to be selected. The Fresno Athletic Club claims the Japanese baseball championship of America.

In preparation for the tour, Zenimura had the club increase workouts from three to four times a week. In addition, he scheduled a best-of-three-game series against the tough Fresno Tigers, an independent team led by new manager Art Ramage. The Tigers' new skipper competed at Santa Clara College and enjoyed brief stints in professional baseball with the New York Americans (1916) and Sacramento Senators (1918).

California Baseball in 1921

From Kenichi Zenimura, Japanese American Baseball Pioneer, by Bill Staples, Jr. (McFarland, 2011), Kindle Locations 487-499:

According to historian William F. McNeil, the California Winter League (CWL) experienced an increase in talent during the 1920-21 season. McNeil called it a "breakthrough" year with competition playing at the AA and AAA level. The CWL rise in talent was attributed to the participation of Negro Leagues caliber players with the L.A. White Sox, Lincoln Giants and Alexander Giants. They played all of their games at the newly constructed Anderson Park (aka White Sox Park), named after local black businessman Doc Anderson, and their rosters boasted future Hall of Famers Andy Cooper and Biz Mackey, and a host of local black athletes, including University of Southern California star running back Johnny Riddle. Zenimura and his FAC team would get their chance four years later to test their mettle against these great ballplayers.

In February 1921 in New York, a group of Japanese representatives from Waseda, Tokyo, Yokohama and Kobe universities announced that they were eager to take "an all-star baseball team made up of members of the Race," also known as Negro League players, to Japan. Spokesmen for the delegation told reporters that they were eager to see a first-class team of Negro Leaguers play Waseda University, with the goal of helping to foster interest in the pastime in Japan.

Waseda University would have to wait another six years to play a first-class team of Negro League players in Japan. Yet, they only needed to wait three weeks to compete against a first-class team of Japanese American players in Hawaii. On May 9, 1921, the college boys from Waseda battled the Hawaiian Asahi, featuring many of Zeni's former Island teammates and future FAC [= Fresno Athletic Club] teammates. The visiting ballclub was walloped by the Asahis to the tune of 8 to 2.

But U.S.-Japanese baseball relations flourished in the later part of 1921. The Los Angeles Times reported that nine clubs from the Pacific Coast and Hawaii had either made the trip or were making plans to tour Japan. The list of teams invading Japan included a PCL [= Pacific Coast League] all-star star team led by Seattle baseball man Frank Miya; semipro players from Canada and Hawaii; the Seattle Asahi, the top Nisei team of the West Coast; college teams, including the University of California and University of Washington; and the Sherman Indian School of Southern California.

Early Baseball in Hawai'i

From Kenichi Zenimura, Japanese American Baseball Pioneer, by Bill Staples, Jr. (McFarland, 2011), Kindle Locations 266-283, 338-343:

When young Zeni arrived in Honolulu in 1907, ... baseball was already the most popular sport in the islands. For that matter, the game was played in Hawaii long before it was introduced to Japan or to most of the continental U.S. In 1849, Alexander Cartwright - the man recognized as the father of the modern game - moved to Honolulu after a failed attempt at life in California. Upon arrival he quickly became one of the Hawaii's leading citizens by founding the first fire department, library, and baseball field. In 1852, he organized several teams and began to teach the game across the islands. In the mid-1880s, Japanese plantation laborers played baseball to escape the tedious work of the sugarcane fields. As the rivalries between the plantation camp and company teams grew, so did the competition....

The first Japanese American baseball team - the Excelsior - was founded in Hawaii in 1899 by the Rev. Takie Okumura. "I formed a baseball team, made up mostly of boys in my home," Okumura said. "Being the only team among the Japanese, its competitors were Hawaiian, Portuguese and Chinese." The Excelsiors were a successful baseball club and considered one of the pioneering Japanese baseball teams in Hawaii.'

Another early all-Japanese team in Hawaii was the Asahi ("Rising Sun") club, organized by Gikaku "Steere" Noda. The Asahi started off as a group of teenagers honing their skills on the sandlots of Iwilei in 1905. Within a few years they were playing in multi-ethnic leagues competing against the All-Chinese, the Braves (all Portuguese) and the Wanderers (all Caucasians). The diversity of the leagues inspired Noda to say "that through the world of sports, we can promote goodwill and fellowship." Zeni joined the Hawaiian Asahi ballclub club in 1915, and it appears that he gleaned Noda's wisdom and applied it throughout his career on goodwill tours.

...

In January 1915, Honolulu witnessed the development of a formal league comprised of four and sometimes six teams, including a native team, a Japanese team, an American team, and an army team. Over time the league developed senior and junior leagues based on skill level. After touring Japan in 1915, the Hawaiian Asahi competed in the junior league in 1916. That same year, Zenimura joined the Asahi.

Between 1916 and 1919, Kenichi dedicated his playing time to two baseball teams, the semipro Hawaiian Asahi and the Mills High School ball club. Mills, which later changed its name to the Mid-Pacific Institute, was a perennial baseball powerhouse in the late 1910s. In his 1943 Gila River Courier interview, Zeni proudly shared that his Mills High school nine "played the Hilo All-Stars for Hawaii's Inter-Island Championship after defeating prep and semi-pro clubs."