100 Dogs Who Changed Civilization (18 page)

At the beginning of the struggle she enjoyed a decidedly loftier status as the mascot of the British warship HMS
Grasshopper
. But the ship was sunk by Japanese torpedoes in 1942, marooning the survivors, Judy included, on an island off Sumatra. The dog sniffed out sources of fresh water for her thirsty comrades, her first display of the resourcefulness that would make her a hero. Unfortunately, she couldn't prevent the crew's capture by Japanese troops and their subsequent shipment to a prison camp.

Judy did, however, go along to the camp, smuggled inside a seaman's sack. Life for the prisoners was brutal, but the noble canine did what she could, often at great personal risk, to help the men around her. Fellow prisoner Frank Williams shared his meager rations with Judy, and in exchange she became his trusted friend, doing her
best to distract the sadistic Japanese guards when they seemed bent on attacking him and the other prisoners. Eventually Williams convinced the camp commandant to register her as an official prisoner—serial number POW81A.

The camp's guards tried repeatedly to shoot Judy, but they weren't the only danger she faced. In addition to taking a couple of bullet wounds, she survived fights with alligators, wild dogs, and even a Sumatran tiger before finally being liberated, along with her human camp mates, at the war's end in 1945. Williams brought Judy back to England, where she was awarded the People's Dispensary for Sick Animals (PDSA) Dickin Medal, England's highest honor for animal valor. Judy got another reward as well—the chance to spend the rest of her life with her beloved Frank Williams. The noble dog expired in 1950 in the African nation of Tanzania, where Williams had taken a job. A stone memorial marks her grave, and her Dickin Medal and the custom collar from which it hung now reside in London's Imperial War Museum.

For centuries gigantic, coal-black Newfoundlands have served as lifeguards on beaches and aboard ships. Their waterproof coats and webbed toes make them excellent swimmers, and their size (more than one hundred pounds [45 kg]), strength, and endurance allow them to plow through pounding surf, grab foundering humans in their jaws, and haul them back safely to land.

These heroic guardians have saved thousands of lives. But even in such celebrated company, the deeds of one canine stalwart stand out. Tang, the ship's dog of the coastal steamer SS
Ethie
, didn't save just one soul from a watery grave—he saved every single person on his vessel.

Just before Christmas of 1919, the
Ethie
departed Port Saunders, Newfoundland, for St. John's Harbor. A violent storm tossed the ship onto the rocks, seemingly dooming its ninety-two passengers and crew. Their only chance was to get a line to rescuers on shore and use it to haul everyone to safety before the storm pounded the hapless vessel apart.

But someone would have to physically carry the line through half a mile (805 m) of freezing, storm-tossed chop to reach the beach. The feat was plainly beyond the physical capabilities of even
the hardiest members of the crew. All save for one.

According to contemporary accounts, the ship's dog, Tang, was more than up to the job. Taking the end of the lifesaving rope in his mouth, he reportedly plunged into the dark, churning sea and dogpaddled his way to the coast, where he handed over the line to waiting rescuers. Once it was secured, the rescue team rigged a pulley system and sent a chair out to the
Ethie
. One by one, the passengers, the crew, and finally the captain were hauled to shore.

The dog's achievement made him a Canadian national hero. He was even awarded a medal by the famous insurance company Lloyds of London. Thanks to Tang, a disaster that easily could have claimed dozens of lives became a mere footnote in maritime history. Today the rusting remains of the ill-starred ship can still be seen on the Newfoundland coast—a silent testament both to the power of the sea and to the indomitable will of a heroic canine.

Canines served on all fronts during World War II, but few as effectively as an innocuous-looking German shepherd/husky/collie mix named Chips. Donated to the war effort by his master, Edward J. Wren of Pleasantville, New York, Chips was trained as a sentry dog and assigned to the 3rd Infantry Division. During the war he served in eight separate campaigns that took him through North Africa, Sicily, Italy, France, and Germany.

On July 10, 1943, Chips made his mark in history. During the invasion of Sicily, his unit was pinned down by a machine gun nest. Enraged, Chips charged the gun emplacement and, in spite of taking several bullets, gave its occupants a savage mauling that forced their surrender.

His valor earned Chips a meeting with Allied supreme commander Dwight D. Eisenhower, as well as a Silver Star and Purple Heart. The U.S. Army later revoked both awards, fearing that giving them to a dog was an affront to human soldiers. Chips didn't complain, but it's doubtful that the men in his unit, some of whom wouldn't have survived the war without his vigilance, agreed.

None of history's great military commanders can match the achievements of Alexander the Great. Born in the year 356
BCE
in the tiny nation of Macedon, he led its miniscule army on an epic mission of global conquest, forging the largest empire the world had yet seen before dying at age thirty-two.

His greatest accomplishment was subduing the Persian Empire, the ancient world's only superpower. At the battle of Gaugamela, Alexander routed the Persians by personally leading a cavalry charge into their ranks, straight at their king, Darius. This extremely risky move won him eternal glory—though it could just as easily have cost him his life. It is said that at one point during the onslaught, a war elephant charged Alexander, who was caught by surprise and almost trampled. But at the last moment his huge dog, Peritas, charged the elephant, bit its lower lip, and hung on. The attack gave Alexander just enough time to escape.

Peritas wasn't as lucky. After the battle the Macedonians recovered his body and gave the dog a state funeral. Alexander named a city after the dog, to whom he owed his life and his empire.

Smokie, a Yorkshire terrier weighing in at just four pounds (2 kg), was the smallest pooch—probably the smallest
anything
—to serve in the Pacific during World War II.

Her military career began when an American GI found her, abandoned, in a foxhole on the island of New Guinea. Her savior gave her to another soldier, who sold her to a member of the U.S. Army Air Force, William A. Wynne, for the equivalent of about $6.50. Smokie stuck with Wynne from then on, flying twelve combat missions with the Air Force's 26th Photo Reconnaissance Squadron. During the battle for the Philippines, she even dragged a communications cable seventy feet (21 m) through an eight-inch-wide (20 cm) pipe under an airplane runway.

After
Yank
magazine called Smokie “the best mascot in the South Pacific,” the tiny soldier started making morale visits to hospitals. She continued cheering up sick vets until her death in 1957. Today a monument to this little dog's towering achievements stands in Cleveland.

For hundreds of years, monks have manned a traveler's way station in the forbidding 8,100-foot-high Great Saint Bernard Pass, a treacherous Alpine trail that tenuously links Italy to Switzerland. Established in the eleventh century by Bernard de Menthon, the inhabitants of the monastery looked out for travelers who got into trouble while trying to negotiate the often-frozen, usually snow-clogged, and always avalanche-prone route. During the eighteenth century the monks developed a special corps of hulking mountain dogs to assist them—a breed we know today as the Saint Bernard. Over the years these dogs saved the lives of some two thousand travelers, digging them out of avalanches or guiding them safely through raging blizzards.

But the big, shaggy canines didn't always go by their present name. Thanks to the exploits of one particular guardian—perhaps the most famous rescue canine of all time—the breed was once nicknamed the Barry Dog.

The celebrated Barry worked at the high mountain pass from 1800 to 1810, saving a reported forty travelers from icy deaths. Interestingly, legend holds that the heroic dog died at the hands of
his forty-first attempted rescue—a soldier, lost in a blinding snowstorm, who stabbed the huge creature approaching him, thinking he was a wolf. There is even a prominent monument raised to Barry's memory in Paris that bears the inscription, “He saved the lives of 40 persons. He was killed by the 41st.”

Happily, that tale is a myth. In truth, Barry was taken to the Swiss capital of Berne in 1810, where he spent two years in leisurely retirement before passing peacefully at the age of fourteen. Barry's remains are still displayed at the main entrance of Berne's Natural History Museum. His lithe, muscular body and short hair don't look much like the ideal Saint Bernard show dog of today. But that's to be expected. In his day, dogs in his line of work were judged by what they could do, rather than how they looked.