Odessa.... My condition was too serious to permit my removal and Commander Koehler came ashore and with the aid of Capt. [James] Irvine got a promise from the revolutionists that upon my recovery I would be permitted to leave. This I did and was put on board a Turkish steamer and reached Constantinople safely." After Koehler had made arrangements with the Reds to secure Keyser's safety and eventual evacuation to Constantinople, with his Red escort he next visited the addresses of three American men, and determined that two had already made it safely out of Odessa; however, the third was believed to be in the city and "strongly suspected of pro-Bolshevik leanings". Koehler was then taken back to Red headquarters, where he was able to delay his voluntary departure for a day, and make further observations as he walked ten miles through the besieged city. "I entered two food shops and although there was not a great abundance of supplies, both shops had customers buying food. All money is current: Soviet, Romanov, Kerensky, even Denikin army money, in accordance with the decree to the effect that shopkeepers are required to accept every kind of Russian money tendered to them.... Streets of the town were in deplorable condition. Numerous dead horses and dogs were lying about, but I saw no human bodies,... the Americans I was endeavoring to locate lived in widely separated quarters of the town, so I was able to go practically everywhere I wished... I was particularly on the lookout for signs of German influence, German officers or munitions, any trace of German activity, but failed to discover anything...." About a week after Koehler's departure from Odessa, the Bolshevik government sent a long wireless dispatch to President Wilson and the League of Nations, complaining that after "Captain Keller" had left the city and "given [his] word" that he would not fire on the town, "a murderous fire was opened up from [his] entire squadron and hundreds of innocent women and children were killed thereby." As Koehler wrote to his mother about the deceitful fabrication, "And incidentally, although this message described me as a very terrible and very wicked man, I've always been grateful to the Bolsheviks for it, for in light of these tactics I was able to understand many things not clear to me before." Novorossiysk, March 1920 After the fall of Odessa to the Reds, Koehler