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November 1998 Vol. XXVIII No. 2   CALENDAR Thursday, November 12 @ 7:00 p.m. LHG Meeting, Carnegie Building   Sunday, December 6 11:30-4:00 p. m. Livermore Art Association gallery invites the public to their Holiday Open House. Unique holiday gifts will be offered for sale. Fee admission to the gallery in the Carnegie Bldg.   HERITAGE GUILD HAPPENINGS   There are still copies available of Gary Drummond and Anna Siig's book Tire Klondike News at the Carnegie Bldg for $12 95. These Would surely make a wonderful Christmas gift.   News flash: the 1999 LHG calendars will be available in December.   Livermorean Served in Siberia during World War I by Gary Drummond   For most of America, November 11, 1918 marked the end of World War 1. But for a few U. S. soldiers, the war really wasn't over until 1920, These few included three Livermore men, John J. Kelley, Melvin Allen and Chris Rasmussen, who served in Siberia.

The overthrow of the Russian Czar in 1917 and the signing of a Russian-German peace treaty permitted the Kaiser to move his troops from the Eastern front to France and Belgium The Allies had shipped a great quantity of supplies to far-northwestern Russia and to Vladivostok, Russian Siberia. And so that they might not fall into Bolshevik hands, American and other Allied troops were sent to guard the supplies and munitions until they could be removed. John J. Kelly served at Vladivostok, Siberia from our September 2, 1918 to December 22, 1919, with what was called the Allied Siberian Expeditionary Force. He had been inducted into the U. S. Army at Fort McDowell on May 1, 1918, and after three-months basic training at Camp Fremont, he was shipped overseas. His assignments in Siberia included guard duty at mines and on railroads, and on one occasion he made a 3,000 mile rail trip westward almost to the Ural Mountains accompanying a Red Cross Commission In an interview with a Herald reporter at Christmas, 1919, he described the chaotic conditions throughout Siberia, and especially Vladivostok, and how the Bolsheviks kept up a guerilla warfare that resulted in a number of Americans being killed by snipers By mid 1920, the Allied Siberian Expeditionary Force was disbanded John Kelly returned to Livermore where he continued his employment as assistant cashier at the local Bank of America When he retired, he had been with Bank of America for 49 years. Kelly died in 1972 at age 80

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John J. Kelly

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