Bonzo's War (3 page)

The PDSA states in 2013 with justifiable pride that its brave ‘Animal Rescue squads helped to save and treat over a quarter of a million pets buried and injured by debris during the Blitz.' Its 1947 history meanwhile accounts for the ‘treatment' of almost 3.68 million animals in the six war years (‘including lethalling'), while this number excludes the mass panic-killing of 1939–40. Not all, of course, were due to enemy action or wartime circumstances and not all were destroyed.

Battersea records ‘145,000 dogs [passing] through during the course of the war', while the Metropolitan Police reports the destruction of 77,217 of them by its south London contractors and a further 9,236 by the ODFL North London Dogs Home in the period 1939–44. ‘There is no statutory requirement on the police as regards cats,' it was noted, ‘no figures are therefore available.'

Pets, on the whole, do not leave diaries, memoirs or letters. Fortunately for the author of this book, the British obsession with the domestic pet meant that there was an outpouring of words written by humans on the subject throughout the years of the Second World War.

The principle animal welfare charities of the period mentioned above have largely survived and I am grateful to their archivists. They published their own magazines
(The Cat, PDSA News, The Animal World, The Dogs Bulletin, The Animals' Defender
etc.) and annual reports, while the turbulent affairs of the semi-official umbrella organization, the National Air Raid Precaution Animals Committee (NARPAC), are amply recorded at the UK National Archives.

In spite of paper shortages, bombing, and evacuation, those splendid enthusiast publications such as
Our Dogs, Cat World, The Dog World, Fur and Feather, Bee Craft, Cage Birds, The Goat, Kennel Gazette
etc. kept going throughout the conflict with their own insightful reflections on total war. The
Tail-Wagger Magazine
, fabulously, featured articles contributed by pets.

Horse & Hound, The Field, Farmers Weekly, Eggs, The Smallholder, The Veterinary Record
etc. take the story of wartime animals into a pastoral context. And wartime
newspapers, local and national, had a passion for hero animal stories that continues undiminished. The archives of the Zoological Society of London, the Imperial War Museum Department of Documents and Mass-Observation are all pet-friendly.

The files of the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of Food tell the alarming story of the dwindling food bowl – the issue, apart from the actions of their owners, which truly determined the fate of wartime animals. War Office and Air Ministry files contain the official story of Britain's war dogs, while Home Office files recount the amazing tale of the 1944–45 London rescue dogs.

All pet names, – ‘Dusty', ‘Blackie', ‘Little One', ‘Teeny Weenie', ‘Hitler' etc. – are as originally reported.

Bonzo was found by Mass-Observation to be one of the most popular dog names of 1941. It was still all the rage after the cartoon dog first drawn by Englishman George Studdy in 1922, which inspired a worldwide craze and the naming of a vast number of real-life Bonzos (including two pre-war winners of the
Daily Mirror
Brave Dog award). From 1929, there was a feline equivalent, ‘Ooloo'.

Oo-Oo
(sic)
was a Maida Vale cat who came into Our Dumb Friends' League hands in unusual circumstances on the eve of war. I would like to have met Oo-Oo – in fact I am sure I have done. These two will be our guide to certain wartime events.

Abbreviations

ADL
Animal Defence League

ARP
Air Raid Precautions

ATS
Auxiliary Territorial Service

AWDTS
Army War Dog Training School

BEF
British Expeditionary Force

BUF
British Union of Fascists

CD
Civil Defence

CMP
Corps of Military Police

CPL
Cats Protection League

LAPAVS
London and Provincial Anti-Vivisection Society

MAFF
Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries

MAP
Ministry of Aircraft Production

MFH
Master of Fox Hounds

MFHA
Master of Fox Hounds Association

M-O
Mass-Observation

NARPAC
National ARP Animals Committee

NCDL
National Canine Defence League

NVMA
National Veterinary Medical Association

ODFL
Our Dumb Friends' League

PDSA
People's Dispensary for Sick Animals

RAVC
Royal Army Veterinary Corps

RCVS
Royal College of Veterinary Science

RE
Royal Engineers

RSPCA
Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals

USAAF
United States Army Air Force

VP
Vulnerable Point

ZSL
Zoological Society of London

 

 

 

In Memoriam

Happy memories of Iola TW. 695778. Sweet, faithful friend, given sleep September 4th, 1939, to be saved suffering during the war. A short but happy life – 2 years 12 weeks. ‘Forgive us, little Pal, you were too nervous to be sent away. Au revoir' Terribly missed by all at 6, St. Ives Road, Birkenhead. S. 66

Tail-Wagger Magazine
, October 1939

Nobody could say they had not been warned. When news came on 1 September 1939 that Poland had been invaded only the most obtuse British pet owner could believe that, this time, the long-heralded war with Germany could be averted.

Look at the fuss there had been twelve months before. In the space of two frantic weeks, Mr Neville Chamberlain, the British Prime Minister, had flown to Germany three times to meet Herr Hitler and discuss the limits or otherwise of the Führer's territorial demands in Europe. His last destination had been Munich.

An animal-loving politician (and there were some such) wrote not long after the events: ‘On 28 September 1938, men and women awoke with the idea that this would be the last day of peace and within, maybe, 24 hours London would be drenched with poison gas or reduced to ruins with high explosive or both.'

That was the day that Hitler's ‘give-me-your-frontiers' ultimatum to poor little Czechoslovakia was due to expire. It really looked like this was it.

The night before, Chamberlain had made his ‘far away country of which we know nothing speech' on the wireless,
after which 150,000 better-off Londoners departed the bomb-menaced capital sharpish for Wales and the West Country in what was described as a ‘continuous rush of cars'. In the great exodus some took their pets with them to find refuge in animal-friendly boarding houses. Some heartlessly left them behind, while others took more extreme measures.

The Our Dumb Friends' League's kennels at Shooters Hill, southeast London, reported plenty of panicky calls demanding a speedy solution to their pet problem. ‘We urged all these enquirers not to be stampeded into premature action, but often without success,' stated the League's end-of-1938 report.

‘Many were hastening into the comparative safety of the country in cars piled high with their belongings and only stopped long enough to hand over their dogs or cats to be kept until either the situation improved or the worst happened, in which case they were to be destroyed forthwith,' it continued.

There was a less drastic but expensive alternative. Some better-off, stick-it-out city dwellers responded to such press announcements as this, made on the 28th by the Bellmead Kennels at Haslemere in Surrey: ‘Ensure the safety of your pets. They will be safe and happy in the quiet depths of the country – away from the horror of noise.'

How reassuring. As war clouds gathered over the Home Counties, there were kindly folk who were there to help. Mrs Barnes of Suntop Kennels, Tonbridge in Kent announced: ‘Send your dogs to happiness and safety. Reduced charges during emergency. Train met.'

I would have gone to stay there myself.

And on the following day, when Hitler invited Mr Chamberlain for a final showdown at Munich, the patrician Mayfair Dogs Ltd of Curzon Street, London W1, wished ‘to
inform owners who would prefer to have their dogs and cats out of the way during the present emergency that they can accommodate them in suitable kennels in the country'.

The drama was not restricted to domestic pets. Other animals were in the firing line. The London Zoological Society added to the gloom by announcing on the 28th: ‘In the event of war all poisonous snakes and spiders will be immediately killed. Should any large animals escape as a result of damage to their cages they will be shot. Men have been detailed for this eventuality.' The aquarium director, Mr E. G. Boulenger, would confide later that as the crisis deepened, he turned off the heat in the reptile house to induce death.

Crowds watching the comings and goings in Downing Street cheered every time a mysterious black cat strode across from the Old Treasury Building
(see
p.34
) and sat on the doorstep. Was it good luck? A German tourist told a reporter that in her country the appearance of a black cat signified very bad tidings indeed.

When on the 30th Mr Chamberlain flew back to London with his piece of paper, there was general rejoicing. The ministerial feline was sent a parcel addressed to the ‘Black Cat No. 10 Downing Street'. It contained two Dover soles sent by an anonymous well-wisher. The heat in the Regent's Park reptile house was turned on again, just in time. For the nation's pets it was ‘Paws in Our Time'.

What happened during ‘Munich' is important towards understanding the enormity of events a year later. That modern war meant the targeting of civilians had long been clear. The bomber aeroplane could apparently bring carnage to anyone's front door, as had recently been made evident in China and Spain.

For months animal welfare groups had already been planning for such a catastrophe descending on Britain.
Sir Robert Gower, Tory MP and chairman of the RSPCA, told a newspaper in May 1938: ‘The experience of Spain [the attack on the Basque city of Guernica] sadly shows the lethality of air attack and many animals would have to be put out of their suffering. Cats, as in many other matters [what did he mean?], are a particularly difficult problem.'

A ‘special, humane cat catcher is being devised,' he announced.

The resulting ‘Cat Grasper' (price 4
s
. 6
d
. including postage) was featured in its advice pamphlet
Animals in Air Raids
published that summer, a horrible contraption like a fishing rod with a running noose, along with an illustration of how to use it – ‘to secure and shoot a cat that has been contaminated with mustard gas'. The use of clumsy gloves with a Webley & Scott captive-bolt pistol and a struggling animal was impractical – far better to use the grasper, it said. Readers were assured that the ‘gas-contaminated' cat in the accompanying grisly photograph was already dead. It is hard to imagine that anyone could seriously regard such a medieval instrument of torture as in any way humane.

‘Air Raid Precautions', as it came to be soothingly called, was all anyone would talk about that summer. And the prospect of mass evacuation from endangered cities. What will you do? Where will you go? What about the children? Do you have pets? Better think ahead.

In July 1938, the civil-servant-turned-MP Sir John Anderson, a ‘po-faced rightwing bureaucrat', as he would later be described, had delivered a comprehensive report on what could or could not be done. The pre-fab, family-size air raid shelter, devised in 1938 to be sunk in the
garden, was named after him. Officials at the Home Office set out to try and turn the recommendations into practical plans – but what about pets? A tiny ‘departmental committee' began to study the issue.

Then in September had come ‘The Crisis'. Munich caught animal welfare charities as and where they were in the general panic. Their immediate concerns were, it might seem, for their own prestige.

The RSPCA, for example, reported in October that in the crisis week it had been ‘inundated' with ‘what to do?' pleas from pet owners. ‘When the good news came through, one could not help reflecting with pardonable pride that it was to the RSPCA that the masses had turned for practical advice,' said its journal,
The Animal World
.

‘During the 48 hours in September when war was in the balance, the society's headquarters received 3,000 telephone calls, some 700 personal inquiries regarding the welfare of animals if hostilities came, and over 10,000 copies were distributed of the pamphlet which the Society alone had had the foresight to prepare in regard to the care of animals in war,' chairman Sir Robert Gower MP would later boast on a fund-raising platform.