Bonzo's War (25 page)

The Cat
was not quite convinced of this yarn while Professor Julian Huxley of London Zoo did not believe it either but he admitted that those animals that take notice of aircraft are often aware of them well before any human beings. ‘The large majority of beasts and birds pay surprisingly little attention to air raids,' he said, ‘but a minority react in individual and often unpredictable ways.' In the fascinating matter of extra-sensory and psychic cats,
The Cat
commented:

It is, of course, difficult to assess the accuracy of observation of cat owners, unless one knows them. Sometimes the involuntary excitement by air raids might tend to make them attribute some of their own feelings to their cats.

But
The Cat
conceded that felines were indeed very ‘telepathic', instantly picking up agitation in humans. If someone nursing a cat gave a sudden start, ‘the cat usually flies off her lap. It may be, therefore, that a cat somehow senses the attention, perhaps a little anxious, given to passing aircraft by its human entourage, when they suspect it of being an enemy, and so appears to notice it more than a friendly ‘plane.'

Enemy animals were under fire. How were they reacting? A few RAF-delivered bombs had fallen on Berlin Zoo, killing an eland (a type of antelope). ‘It seemed incredible that a zoological garden with its innocent animals could be seriously considered as a target,' wrote director Lutz Heck of his November 1941 baptism of fire. Well, look who started it. At first the elephants had been disturbed by the
anti-aircraft guns but now they went to sleep, he reported. The monkeys were agitated however but the beasts of prey soon got used to it. ‘Lutting', the Terrier, seemed to enjoy it, ‘soon realising that the sound of the sirens meant he would be going out and he could resume his ratting'.

From the Cats Protection League headquarters in war-torn Slough, the editor of
The Cat
suggested the telepathic powers of felines meant they picked up the nervousness of their owners as much as audible signals of approaching danger. And a member of the Canine Defence League wrote about her four ‘most intelligent dogs'. These dogs could speak:

When Nazi bombers are miles away, we cannot hear them. But the dogs will rouse from their sleep under the table, go outside and whimper. Then they bark a little and come back and tell me, ‘Missus, they're coming.'
²⁷

The Veterinary Record
had a more scientific approach. ‘Throughout the country, pets have ceased to be alarmed at bombs falling or guns firing,' it reported. Their ‘acute sense of hearing, and the rapidity with which they take cover had spared them' as pets found, ‘with unerring instinct, sheltered places from which they emerge free from harm.' The
Record
also noted a universal phenomenon:

Cats bombed out seem to pick their way out of trouble, and wander more or less leisurely away midst the noise, dust and smoke, eventually returning to sit on the ruins of their former homes.

Horses too ‘have calmly carried on,' said the
Record
. They had become used to random loud noises through mingling with motor traffic on the street. Even fire was no cause for concern: ‘In the East End of London, 54 horses were removed from a stable through an avenue of flame without injury. From the blazing stables of a brewery, 82 horses were evacuated without mishap.'

No cows had yet stampeded under Blitz conditions although milk yields might be down – ‘Cattle appear to take quite an inquisitive interest in incendiary bombs, and some have been observed nosing round the bombs as they burned.'

Pigs had ‘slept sonorously' through an air raid ‘although the roof over them had been completely wrecked' (in fact they had been in an abattoir awaiting slaughter). Every single pig from a devastated piggery in Scotland was rescued alive.

But sheep were nervous under bombing and ran ‘hither and thither over the pasture'. Some showed an acute nervous disturbance – possibly ‘shell shock' or ‘vertigo', according to
The Veterinary Record
– ‘One farmer reported that his sheep went round like dancing Dervishes.'

‘The herding instincts of farm animals accounted for many casualties,' according to
ARP News
, in which the countryman author, Clifford W. Greatorex, told the story of a fox which ran into a house and sought sanctuary behind an easy chair in the sitting room in a Midlands village – ‘where he stayed until daybreak'.

The author of this yarn was also informed by a poultry farmer that, ‘at the sound of an aeroplane, his fowls, with one accord, ran for the shelter of the hen house'.

Pets keeping calm and carrying on was winning them a place in the tableau of national resistance – that and the devotion of their owners. A newspaper columnist in summer 1941 observed Londoners queuing for pet food, ‘ordinary men and women paying tribute to their friends,' as he described them. ‘Such actions prevent one from losing faith in humanity. An isolated case of supposed overfeeding of animals should not be allowed to detract from [such] unselfish efforts.'

That summer, Mass-Observation noticed ‘increased pro-doggism' in a London survey. It was, they said, ‘entirely emotional' in that the feeling was based on pets being ‘part of the family'. This was a ‘predominantly female response'. What the Mass-Observers found was revealing all round.

By now dogs were getting over their fear of air raids, so people said. Mongrels ‘took it' better than thoroughbreds, the strongest effects of air raids being noted by the owners of Dalmatians and Pekingese. Upper-and middle-class people had Alsatians, Spaniels, Retrievers, Setters and
Terriers but very few mongrels. More affluent people worried more about their dogs than less well-off folk.

A woman living in a poorer district of the capital said: ‘When I leave him, he does kick up an awful row. I can hear him all the way down the street. I go to the tube [shelter] and I can't do anything but leave him. He mopes for days afterwards.' She thought ‘holiday homes for dogs', some sort of communal provision to get them out of the cities, would be ideal.

Another London woman said: ‘I have been alone in the house since my husband went and the children were evacuated. That dog's been wonderful company – I mean wonderful.' She added: ‘I've no patience with these people who coddle their dog, feed them on chicken and champagne, and take them to bed with them.'

Mass-Observation tabulated the most popular names for dogs among poorer owners. They were in order: ‘Nip', ‘Bill', ‘Bonzo', ‘Pluto', ‘Spot', ‘Jock' and ‘Rover'. The survey found that the work of ‘NARPAC is not really known or understood' – and concluded to increase the popularity of dogs (for which M-O seemed to be campaigning on a market research contract from the Bob Martin company) – ‘there should be more done to show the ways in which dogs are helping the war effort. There have been singularly few
dog heroes
in this war.'

27
  Speaking dogs were a wartime phenomenon.
The Dog World
of October 1939 had news of a talking dog in Scotland, a Springer Fox Terrier cross in Troon, Ayrshire, who said (in a Scottish dialect) ‘Ome' when asked where he wanted to go, and ‘Mamma' whenever he was asked who was going to take him there. Telepathic, mathematical, philosophical and talking dogs had been a feature of German ‘animal psychology' research for decades. A Dachshund named ‘Kurwenal', who ‘spoke' by barking a certain number of times for each letter of the alphabet, became internationally famous prior to his death in 1937. An intelligent Fox Terrier – ‘Lumpi' – was visited in Weimar by the Duchess of Hamilton and Louisa Lind-af-Hageby in 1937. Louisa gave a lecture on the subject in London on her return, with a list of 62 ‘speaking' animals, most of them dogs, some horses, and ‘Daisy of Mannheim', the educated cat, who was capable of doing simple sums and tapping out a word or two when she saw fit.

The Hundesprechschule (dog speech school) was founded in 1930 by Margarethe Schmidt in Leutenberg, Thuringia. Professor Max Müller, a Munich University zoologist, visited in 1942 and reported dogs making speech-like responses plus the presence of a cat, and that Hitler himself had accepted Schmidt's offer for her dogs to entertain troops. In 1943 their food ration was cut off.

There were few dog heroes, found Mass-Observation. That could change of course, and it would. Thus far courageous pets had got on with enduring the Blitz at home, along with everyone else.

The prospect of dogs actually doing something warlike had taken a knock early in 1941 when Army testers looking for four-legged guards concluded that a dog would bark at anyone, friend or foe, who was not his handler. ‘It would be impossible to train a dog to differentiate between a British soldier and a German parachutist,' said the officer in charge of ‘vulnerable points' policy. It was a case of one man, one dog, but individual handlers could not stand guard forever. With thousands of freezing soldiers doing guard duty against invaders, GHQ Home Forces were keen to keep trying. Trials of ‘patrol' and ‘messenger' dogs, which would have to move around a bit between several handlers, looked more promising. Where to get hold of suitable dogs? In May 1941 a stirring press and wireless appeal was made to the British public:

The War Office invites dog owners to lend their dogs to the Army. The breeds most suitable are Airedales,
Collies (rough or smooth), Hill Collies, Crossbreds, Lurchers, and Retrievers (Labrador or Golden), although intelligence and natural ability will be the deciding factors in selection.

‘Rex', the columnist for
Tail-Wagger Magazine
, would one day write of how it was for him:

Well, pals, here's how it's started...

My mistress was listening to the wireless one day, something about big dogs being needed. She got up all of a sudden and said: ‘Rex, you've got to go out and do your duty, you're going to be a “sojer” dog.'

One feels sure that Rex had his paw on the button when he wrote that.

That August, the Leeds branch of the PDSA offered seven dogs. ‘Mick', an Alsatian, did not know any special words of command, according to his auxiliary fireman owner, but ‘he'll answer to Oi!' he said. ‘Few of these dogs would have been transferred from being pets to the military but for the difficulty of getting dog food these days,' it was observed. The owner of ‘Toby', a Spaniel, was on ‘long hours and war work, and that's the main reason little Toby goes into the Army'.

Dog lovers offering their family pets were assured that, ‘those not passing the test will be immediately returned. Selected dogs will be retained for the duration of the war.' Owners were invited to ‘write to The War Dog Training School, Willems Barracks, Aldershot' (the administrative address – the dogs were at Woolton House, Newbury). And it was not just large soldierly-looking dogs: Cocker Spaniels and Pekingese were also on parade. Within four
days the War Office was ‘inundated'. That was enough dogs, it was announced, for now.

So pets, or to be specific dogs, were going to go to war, even if they were only on ‘loan' (‘lend-leash', as one clever journalist described it). But rather than waiting for invasion, there was a cockpit of war where British forces were actually on the offensive. And already there were pets in abundance there.

Since September 1940 the British had been busy confounding the Italian Army's attempt to invade Egypt. It did not get very far. The PDSA hospital in Cairo, so it was reported, was ‘full of dogs which had belonged to the Italians and had been stranded during the ebb and flow of the fighting. Some of them were very well bred, Belgian sheep-dogs, Italian Pointers and Setters, the majority however were pariahs.' There were also numerous cats. In the way of things, they were very soon adopted as pets.

This volunteer army of domestic animals would henceforth accompany the British Army and Air Force in their epic desert campaign. Once selected and trained for war, the first pets from home would be heading out to join them.

In February 1941 the Commander-in-Chief, General Archibald Wavell, was ordered to halt his counter-attack from Egypt into Libya and send troops to Greece. The RSPCA launched a bid to intervene on behalf of Greek animals. Like the doomed missions to Poland and Finland, it did not get very far.

On 12 February an otherwise obscure German commander called Erwin Rommel arrived in Libya to stiffen Italian resistance and soon went on the attack. Commonwealth forces were trapped in the besieged port of Tobruk. Expelled disastrously from Greece meanwhile, British forces had to take refuge on the island of Crete, to
be evicted again by German air landings and rescued by sea on 31 May. Adopted pet animals were with them all the way, according to the PDSA history; they were ‘smuggled out in boxes and kitbags'.

British troops fell back into Egypt and moved meanwhile into Iraq and Syria, lest the whole Middle East be lost. In Cairo, as the PDSA's own history put it, ‘batches of dogs appeared and with them foxes found in the desert. It was a common sight in these dark days to see lorry loads of our soldiers coming in bearded and dusty with their new pets riding with them.'