THE forgotten diaries of a longdead soldier have shed new light on a little-known expedition that later became known as “Mr Churchill’s Secret War”.

Stanley Harrison was a private with The Green Howards when they were sent to Russia in late 1918 and he kept notes of his frozen adventures in his diaries.

Now the two small notebooks and other mementos, including an album of photographs, have been presented to the regimental museum, in Richmond, North Yorkshire, by his daughter, Joan Rowbottom, who lives in Nottinghamshire.

They relate the problems with the ship on which two battalions sailed from Dundee in October 1918.

He notes: “Packed like sardines.

Everywhere dirty and very objectionable odours. Men have hardly room to move, yet officers live in absolute luxury . . . a disgrace to the British Army and an insult to the men . . . quartered and treated like pigs.”

Refused permission to go ashore before the ship sailed, the men mutinied, but were eventually brought back under discipline.

No sooner had they left Dundee than the engines broke down and the ship later went aground. The men heard of the Armistice while on Orkney, then sailed for Murmansk in another vessel.

Ostensibly the purpose of the Russian mission was to safeguard military stores and prevent the Germans using the port of Archangel.

But under the influence of Churchill, then Secretary of State for War, it developed into a campaign of aid for the Tsarist White Russian army against the Bolsheviks.

In Murmansk, Pte Harrison soon complained of “very deep snow. Feet, socks, boots, etc, saturated and socks frozen . . . bitterly cold, especially working outdoors.”

There were also tragedies. On Christmas Day 1918 he wrote: “Mr Plumpton (7th Platoon) Officer murdered by a Ruski (unknown) near cinema. Pockets emptied, Sam Browne revolver stolen, also jackboots.

“Everyone truly sorry as he was a really decent officer. All the lads, including me, anxious to go on a raiding party to avenge his death. Why won’t they let us go?”

The murderers were eventually found, tried and executed.

Pte Harrison and his comrades arrived in Archangel in June 1919, when everything was deeply covered in snow, but ten days later he wrote: “Heat this last week has been terrible . . . too hot to eat.”

Pte Harrison left Russia in September – the month the British left Archangel, having handed over their equipment to the White Russians. After being promoted to sergeant, he was demobbed in December that year.

Museum director Lynda Powell said: “The British expedition to Russia is little-known, and Private Harrison’s diary gives a flavour of how the disgruntled soldiers coped at a time when they might have hoped to be going home after four years of fighting in the Great War.”