Bonzo's War (28 page)

The Canine Defence League was still doing its campaigning best with its ‘Dog Knit-for-Britain' campaign. ‘Combings from almost every kind of long-haired dog, both pedigree and otherwise, have flowed into these headquarters and have been despatched to the Highland crofters,' the League had announced in the spring. And by
now, ‘the yarn has found its way to an industrious band of voluntary knitters who have made it into an astonishing array of “comforts”'. The secretary of the Ladies' Guild of the British Sailors' Society had written: ‘I was both interested and delighted with the contents of your excellent parcel of comforts. I don't think I have ever seen anything quite like them before.'

Nor had most people. In February 1942 there was news from Edinburgh that a sock for a sea-boot had been knitted from the combings of ‘Mopsy', a seven-year-old Old English Sheepdog.

The RSPCA took a wider view with the launch of its ‘Help Russia's Horses' appeal the same month. The cruel masses that had oppressed the Finns were now our gallant Russian ally – whose ‘cavalry operations are on a vast scale, her transport animals almost innumerable. The assault on Moscow confounded by massed regiments of the famous cossacks until at last the indomitable horsemen prevailed and compelled the first stages of the [German] retreat,' according to
The Animal World
. The appeal turned rapidly into £10,000 worth of veterinary medicines and supplies, with Mrs Winston Churchill as vice president of the War Animals' (Allies) Fund.

All things Russian were suddenly ragingly fashionable. On a winter trip to the frozen port of Polyana in 1941 a Soviet admiral presented the crew of a Royal Navy submarine with a baby reindeer. Named ‘Pollyanna', naturally enough, she spent six weeks aboard. Living underwater with a reindeer posed certain challenges for the fifty-six crew. A barrel of lichen soon ran out and Pollyanna lived on scraps from the galley; she also apparently developed a taste for that wartime favourite, Carnation condensed milk. She arrived safely and was given to Regent's Park Zoo, where she lived out the rest of
the war eating special ‘Welsh moss' brought in by well-wishers from Radnorshire.
³⁰

On 8 September 1941, the Germans had closed the ring around the city of Leningrad. The Zoo, one of the northernmost in the world, had managed to evacuate some animals to Kazan. Others, such as the elephant ‘Betti', died during the initial German bombardment in September 1941. However, many animals remained, among them several big cats and ‘Krasavica' (‘The Beautiful'), a hippopotamus.

In the years that followed until the end of the siege (January 1944), approximately a million people would die in Leningrad from hunger, cold and enemy action. Krasavica's keeper, Evdokia I. Dašina, kept the hippo alive, bringing water from the River Neva, ‘even stepping into the dry pool to hug the animal and calm it down'.

That April, the RPSCA journal carried the Reuters correspondent's account of the Moscow veterinary centre, one of eight in the city, where wounded animals from the front were brought in ‘special lorries'. Mr Alfirorov, regional inspector of veterinary services, showed his advanced animal hospital including an operating table for horses, sunlamps and X-ray apparatus, ‘and a permanent hospital department for nursing civil horses and pets'.

Nearer the front line, the correspondent found, ‘Airedales and Alsatians are used to drag wounded back
on little sledges; there are also a number of larger mongrels, always intelligent.'

Russomania was catching. According to the Tail-Waggers Club, their most registered dog name of 1942 was ‘Timoshenko',
³¹
the Soviet marshal whose name was very much in the news.

The same journal recorded the work of Mrs Gardner of Hailsham, Sussex, where she had led her fellow Woman's Voluntary Service members in collecting and spinning dog hair to make service comforts. They had given a demonstration at Harrods. ‘We can only use the soft combings of such dogs as Pekes, Sheepdogs, Chows, Samoyeds, Keeshonds, Poodles, Spaniels, etc.,' she wrote. ‘Harsh, coarse hair will not spin. Pullovers made to our special pattern are then knitted up, and we have been able to send over sixty of these garments to the Merchant Navy with a special request that we should like them to go to the Russian Convoys.'

If the Red Army could make good use of dogs, so too could the British War Office. Mr Lloyd's experiments near Newbury had continued. After the initial plea of May 1941, the public's offer of dogs had been overwhelming. More space was needed. The Greyhound Association kennels at Northaw, near Potters Bar in Hertfordshire were requisitioned as the new ‘Army War Dog Training School' in spite of what was described as ‘violent opposition'. A Lieutenant Clarke would be its first commandant and Mr Lloyd its chief instructor. Even more dogs would be needed. Guard dogs, messenger dogs and ‘patrol' dogs that, it was proposed, would actually
accompany troops into battle using their clever noses to sniff out the enemy. Nobody really knew if it would work.

Mr Lloyd was not the only war dog enthusiast. Southern England was dotted with airfields, maintenance parks and aircraft factories. They were vulnerable to sabotage and were guarded by the British Army.

Great War veteran, Major James Y. Baldwin, was another military canine enthusiast who for two decades past had been Britain's leading Alsatian breeder. On the Western Front he had come face to nose with an enemy Deutsche Schäferhunde and ‘thought it was a wolf'. Entranced, he would spend two action-filled wartime years in the company of his adopted canine comrade – and in that time ‘never saw an English patrol dog'.

In 1919 he and army chum, Colonel John Moore-Brabazon, the pioneer military aviator, had founded the ‘Alsatian
³²
Wolf Dog Club' and received Kennel Club recognition. As a reserve officer in 1940, Major Baldwin was local defence commander at Staverton Aerodrome in Gloucester, site of the Rotol airscrew factory. According to him, the army platoon guarding this vital site (they made propellers for Spitfires) was ‘useless' – his Alsatians could do better.

In May 1941, his old doggy friend Moore-Brabazon became Minister of Aircraft Production. War dogs now had a powerful political patron.

On 11 September 1941, Major Baldwin staged a grand demonstration at Staverton airfield for Army and Air Force brass. They were advised to book a table at the Plough Inn in the village for luncheon afterwards. It sounded terrifically jolly.

The whole thing was a triumph. Lt-Gen Edmond Schreiber told General Sir Alan Brooke, GOC Home Forces, how ‘convincing' the plan was – ‘He can get the necessary dogs given to him and trained by voluntary effort.' Sending pets to war would mean minimal cost to the Treasury. Judging by the correspondence Lt-Gen Harold Alexander, GOC-in-C, Southern Command, also caught the doggy fever.

Major Baldwin was permitted to recruit eight women and four men, ‘who will be dog owners of considerable experience,' as instructors. He told the Minister, ‘the thing we want the dog to do is scent any stranger within 200 yards'. By November he could report, ‘everyone is dying to get at it although a very large numbers of dogs will be required'. The Treasury approved the ‘experimental' dog scheme on 17 November and kennels were erected by the Royal Engineers on an AA gun site at Staverton aerodrome. It was still nominally an army operation.

Breeding would take 15 months before dogs might be useful. There would have to be a renewed public appeal for mature canines. It was Baldwin's original intention that the dogs would all be Alsatians. However it would be discovered there were not enough of them and not all wolf dog pets were wolfy enough so all sorts of dogs would have to be accepted. An epic canine saga had begun.

On 20 January 1942, the now Lt-Col Baldwin was seconded to the air force and made dog advisor and chief training officer, with an agreeable HQ at Staverton Court, a requisitioned country house near Cheltenham. The aerodrome kennels were transferred to the RAF. There was also to be a ‘reception kennel' at Redditch in Worcestershire, run by a Fl-Lt Ashby, where former pets would undergo an initial two to three weeks' obedience
work, assisted by the well-known Alsatian trainer, Miss M. McConnell.

A joint Army-MAP panel met on 5 March and decided all this would only work if there was a united public appeal for dogs, almost 2,500 of them. Mr Arthur Moss of the RSPCA was at the meeting, a coup on the Society's part in getting back into the Government animal business. Rations would be a matter for the War Office. A senior officer noted:

Any dog debarred from attaching itself to a sizable cookhouse is entitled to a ration of ½ lb condemned meat and 1½ lb of biscuit – dog.

Spillers Winalot was the officially recommended rusk – if they could be obtained. Colonel Baldwin pointed out that ‘tattooing the ear flap would be unpopular with owners of Alsatians as it might interfere with the carriage of the ear'. He was surely right.

The newly formed Army Veterinary and Remount Service would administer the actual getting of the dogs. At first its officers, much more accustomed to horses, seemed bemused. ‘The public will be asked to lend them for the duration of the war or for as long as they are required,' it was noted at a meeting on 12 March. The RSPCA would ‘register them on special cards which would then be examined and suitable dogs selected and orders issued for their despatch'. It could be assumed that the RSPCA Inspector doing so ‘must know something about dogs and thus he would prevent masses of unsuitable applications'.

It was also noted that, ‘if [civilian loaned dogs] are ever to be used in war, the wastage will be very high and even if they survive the war there are bound to be considerable
difficulties in returning them to their owners'. It looked like a one-way ticket for pets.

And so a renewed public appeal was made in newspapers and on the wireless for dogs ‘to make a valuable contribution to the national effort'. And just as the year before, the response was overwhelming. This was no longer an experiment. Now dogs were at the heart of it and would stay there. ‘Over 6,000 owners have offered to lend their dogs to the Government for war service,' it would later be reported. ‘The present appeal is for 200 dogs each month. The breeds required are Alsatians and crosses, Airedales, Boxers, working Collies, Bull Terriers, Kerry Blues, Labradors and curly coated Retrievers. The dogs should be not less than 10 months and not more than five years of age.'

There were all sorts of reasons to offer your pet. Mrs B. M. Harold of Norwich offered ‘Tito', an eight-month-old Alsatian because, as she said, ‘I would be much obliged if you could call my dog. Just at present, I find it difficult to keep him as I have two small children. Whether he turns out suitable after his trial, I still wish to have him back.'

In suburban Tolworth, southwest London, ‘Khan', a five-year-old Alsatian, might be getting on a bit but seemed to be what the authorities were looking for. Eight-year-old Barry Railton, who had grown up with Khan since he was puppy, thought that the family pet should do his bit. His father – Mr Harry Railton, a clothing-shop manager – bemusedly agreed. One day, off went Khan in a van to the War Dog School. Would they ever see him again?

And so training proceeded. ‘The handler continually looks after the dog, feeds it and trains it,' it was emphasized. ‘Handlers are the only people who know
each dog's peculiarities. Dogs must not be treated as pets by the troops.' That was very important. But how would dogs used to loving families take to this stern regime?

The first Gloucestershire trainees were sent out on guard duty that spring. On 30 April 1942, the station commander of RAF St Brides in Glamorgan reported: ‘The team of eight dogs has been with us for the past ten days, handlers and dogs are in fine fettle. This method of protecting against sabotage leaves nothing to be desired.' He himself had been detected in a parked aircraft, ‘while in the act of placing a time bomb'.

So, British dogs had a means of surviving, join up, while cats on work of national importance received an extra ration of dried milk powder. But for those pets still in Civvy Street the outlook was bleak. The Junior Food Minister, Major Gwilym Lloyd George, was asked in March whether he would consider, ‘the rationing of horseflesh and other foodstuffs for dogs and cats' – a move which would thus
guarantee they would get something
, even if it was restricted. He would not.

Was he also aware, ‘that women who are working long hours complain that they cannot get suitable foodstuffs for their domestic pets?'

And they'd have to queue for hours to get it. That spring Mrs M. Clayton of Battersea, south London, declared herself to be addicted to listening to ‘the rumours flying round', all of which she heard ‘standing in the cat's meat line, my best source of gossip'. But what an age it took! Later in the summer she recorded in her M-O-monitored diary: 16 April 1942.