Wednesday, November 19, 1997
What ever happened to the Siberian wolfhound that was mascot to the 27th Infantry Regiment, the "Wolfhounds," at Schofield Barracks? Wolfhound mascot
carries on traditionThe 11th in the line of such mascots is quartered with the regiment's 1st Battalion.
"Kolchak 11," the Siberian wolfhound now at Schofield, has some brown patches, unlike some of his predecessors who were essentially all white.
He became mascot March 20, 1997, the same day Kolchak 10 was medically retired. Kolchak 11 was only 6 months old when he became mascot. He is the biological son of Kolchak 10, still on the island and cared for by his longtime handler.
The tale of the wolfhound mascot goes back almost 80 years to August 1918, when the regiment sailed from the Philippines to Vladivostok, Siberia. The Siberian venture initially was a highly secret mission to protect Allied military stores in depots along the Trans-Siberian Railway. World War I was still on, and Russia was in the throes of revolution and civil war.
The campaign earned the 27th Infantry the nickname the "Wolfhounds." The regiment left Siberia in April 1920, returned to the Philippines, then came to Hawaii the next year and acquired its first Siberian wolfhound in 1929.
The mascot took his name from Adm. Aleksandr Vassilyevich Kolchak, an anti-Bolshevik leader whose capture and execution marked an end to the civil war.