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cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war while shakespeare was being metaphorical when he wrote
julius caesar animals have been a part of warfare from the very dawn of human history from horses
camels and even elephants charging into battle as cavalry mounts to mules hauling supplies to
pigeons and dogs carrying messages time and time again our fine fairy and feathered friends have
displayed extraordinary courage on the battlefield often making the ultimate sacrifice in service of
their human masters yet while human soldiers have for centuries received various medals to honor
feats of gallantry and battle it was not until the second world war that an award was created
to honor their equally heroic animal companions sometimes called the animals victoria cross the
dicken medal was created in 1943 by british animal welfare pioneer maria dicken born on september 22
1870 in hackney dicken ran a successful music studio in wimpole street london until 1899 when
she married a successful accountant to move to hampstead freed of the responsibilities
of work like many wealthy women of her day dicken turned her energies to social work in 1917 while
working in the slums of london's east end dicken was struck by the misery and suffering not only
of the urban poor but also of their animals later writing in her 1950 memoir cry of the animal i saw
many dogs and cats walking on three legs dragging along a broken or injured limb others nearly blind
with mange covered with sores nearly all looking dejected and miserable and searching for food
in the gutter later that year dickens beloved dog fell gravel and died though she was easily able to
afford its treatment her experiences in the east end led her to worry about those who could not
and so on november 17 1916 dicken opened the people's dispensary for sick animals or pdsa a
charity clinic offering free veterinary services to the people of london located in a cellar in the
white chapel district the dispensary was staffed largely by volunteers and featured a large sign
announcing bring your sick animals do not let them suffer all animals treated all treatment free from
these humble beginnings the pdsa grew rapidly in 1921 [ __ ] converted a horse-drawn caravan into a
mobile clinic in order to reach even more animals and owners while in 1923 the pdsa established
six more veterinary clinics across london this number steadily grew to 17 1924 and 57 in 1927
with pdsa clinics treating nearly 410 000 animals every year the organization also expanded its
operations abroad to france romania morocco egypt greece and palestine and in 1928 opened europe's
first dedicated animal sanatorium in ilford essex a 30-acre complex featuring spacious stables and
kennels x-ray and uv light treatment facilities and a state-of-the-art operating theater these
activities were largely funded through private donations including a 50 000 pound endowment from
wealthy animal lover sarah grove hardy yet despite the pdsa's success dicken was not without her
detractors many question the logic of devoting time and energy to the alleviation of animal
rather than human suffering however dickens saw the two problems as inseparably intertwined
pointing out that poor people do not only keep animals as pets but as a means of earning their
living and london's humble dwellings would be overrun with vermin if her inhabitants did not
keep a cat but dicken's greatest opponent was the royal college of veterinary surgeons who
were appalled by the fact that pdsa clinics were staffed by what they saw as unqualified amateurs
the rcvs denounced the pdsa as dangerous and maria dickens is a clueless eccentric with
veterinary surgeon g.h libsy writing in 1926 that it is mainly because there are so many cranks on
these animal welfare committees that our relations have not always been of the best all of us who
have had experience in dog practice know that there are ladies generally childless who have
to turn their attention to something and nearly always they turn to dogs dick encountered by
sending a letter to the journal veterinary record writing i may perhaps be permitted to say that to
claim that knowledge of and capacity to treat ailments of animals are possessed by veterinary
surgeons alone is as ridiculous as she suggests that none but an admitted solicitor or barrister
has any knowledge of the law she further pointed out that the veterinary surgeons act of 1881 only
made it illegal to falsely claim the title of veterinary surgeon it did not make it illegal
to offer veterinary care without a license and in a final throwing down of the gauntlet dicken wrote
to the rcbs that if you are so concerned about the proper treatment of sick animals of the poor
open your dispensaries open them everywhere for there are vast factory mining manufacturing and
dockland areas where nothing at all exists to help the sick animal do the same work we
are doing instead of spending your energy and time hindering us spend it in dealing with this massive
misery indeed the rcvs's grievance with dicken had less to do with animal welfare than with
the fact that pdsa clinics were seen as stealing business from established veterinary surgeons this
attitude was perhaps best summed up by charles h harscher valuer and selling agent for veterinary
practices who wrote in 1930 i wonder if you are afflicted with one of those dreadful people's
animal dispensaries in your neighborhood which are conducted by white smocked unqualified men
in dozens of towns in the southern counties with disastrous results to many veterinary surgeons and
within the present month i know for a fact that the receipts of two of my clients in kent are
down close to 400 pounds for the year before these establishments were open both of them
took one pound a day cash for treatment of dogs and cats and now they don't take a pound a week
in one of the towns sitting born there are boxers in every shop and public house and of course the
proprietors get free attention for their animals from having the collecting boxes on their counters
bands with white smocked men in charge also daily scour the surrounding villages for patients yet
despite the rcbs best efforts the pdsa continued to go from strength to strength and by 1930
its clinics and mobile units were treating nearly 1 million animals every year the organization
still operates to this day running a network of 48 pet hospitals and hundreds of charity shops
across the uk when the second world war broke out in september 1939 thousands of animals were called
into service just as they had been in the previous war in order to recognize the service and bravery
of these animals in 1943 maria dicken and the pdsa created the dicken medal the medal consists of a
bronze medallion with a laurel reef motif bearing the words the gallantry on one side and we also
serve on the other it is hung from a ribbon with a green brown and blue stripe representing the
naval ground and air forces since its inception the dickens medal has been awarded 73 times
36 to dogs 32 to pigeons four to horses and one to a cat in 2001 the pdsa also created the pdsa
gold medal for animals in civilian service while in 2014 the organization awarded a single honorary
dicken medal to warrior a first world war canadian cavalry horse to commemorate all the animals who
served in conflicts prior to the medal's creation if we were to list the extraordinary exploits
of all 73 metal recipients this video would be multiple multiple hours long so instead here are
but a handful of the bravest furry and feathered warriors to receive the award nearly half of
all dicken medals have gone to carrier pigeons which despite advances in radio communications
technology continued to serve with distinction well into the second world war indeed most allied
bomber and maritime patrol aircraft carried at least one pigeon in case they were shot down or
their radios became an operative so it was that white vision a y-10 attached to number
109 squadron raf found herself adrift when her pby catalina flying boat was forced to ditch
in the north sea on october 11 1943. with the aircraft's radio out of action and paul weather
preventing an aerial search the crew dispatched white vision with a message bearing their current
position the bird flew for nearly a hundred kilometers against a strong headwind before
arriving at her pigeon loft at sullem bow in the shetland islands the search was resumed and all
11 crew members were rescued after only 18 hours at sea for a perseverance on december 2nd 1943
white vision became the very first recipient of the dick and medal other notable winged
recipients include winky and tyke who like white vision saved the lives of aircraft lost at sea
beach coma the first pigeon to bring back news of the disastrous yep raid on august 19 1942 paddy
and gustav the first pigeons to bring back news of the normandy invasion on june 6 1944 kenley lass
the first pigeon to deliver intelligence from an allied agent in enemy occupied france and william
of orange who saved the lives of two thousand british paratroopers in the dutch town of arnheim
during the ill-fated operation market garden in september 1944 but perhaps the most famous pigeon
of the war was g.i joe a seven-month-old male serving with the united states army pigeon surface
on october the 18th 1943 allied forces advancing through italy ordered an airstrike on german
positions around the village of calvi vachia however while the aircraft were
being ready troops of the 169th london infantry brigade succeeded in retaking the town ahead of
schedule unable to reach the american airfield by radio and call off the impending airstrike the
troops instead dispatched g.i joe who flew the 32 kilometer distance in only 20 minutes stopping the
aircraft just as they were about to take off gi joe saved the lives of over 100 soldiers and the
citizens of the town and for his actions he was awarded the dickend medal on november 4th 1946.
dogs have often been called man's best friend and thus perhaps unsurprising the largest number of
dicken medals have been awarded to our canine companions many of these recipients served as
rescue dogs helping to locate people trapped under the rubble of collapsed buildings during
the london blitz of 1940. among the first of these was rip a stray terrier discovered wandering the
streets of london by air raid warden e king and adopted as the official mascot of the b-132 air
raid protection post despite being untrained rip soon demonstrated an innate talent for
locating people trapped under rubble and is credited with saving nearly a hundred lives rip
service inspired other air raid wardens who adopt and train dogs for this purpose including fellow
dick and medal recipients jet of lander crumbstone earner and beauty on december 16 1944 sheila a
sheepdog owned by shepherds john dagg and frank moscrop was on the scene when an american b-17
flying fortress bomber carrying a full payload of bombs crashed into the cheviot hills on the border
of england and scotland despite a driving blizzard and near zero visibility sheila discovered four of
the bomber's crew sheltering in a nearby crevice she arrived just in the nick of time leading the
crew away as the bombs aboard the burning wreckage exploded other dogs have actually accompanied
their masters into combat one notable example is bing an alsatian collie cross who served with the
british 13th parachute battalion trained to sniff out the enemy and freeze if he sensed danger bing
parachuted into normandy along with his handler lance corporal ken bailey on june 6 1944. he later
took part in the allied crossing of the rhine into germany and was wounded in action before retiring
and being returned to his original owners another famous paradox was robber collie who served with
the special air service or sas and who is alleged to have made over 20 parachute jumps with the
regiment during the italian campaign however in 2006 it was revealed that rob's exploits were
actually part of an elaborate hoax to prevent the dog from being returned to its original owners
in reality rob never made a single parachute jump and spent the war as the companion of the regiment
quartermaster a dog with a more reliable claim to fame is chips an american german shepherd collie
husky mix who served with the united states third infantry division in north africa sicily
italy france and germany in february of 1943 when his unit was pinned down on the beaches of sicily
by an italian machine gun team chips leapt into the enemy bunker and attacked the gunners forcing
them to surrender in november 1944 german shepherd rifleman khan and his handler lance corporal james
muldoon of the cameroonians were taking part in a night assault on the island of washiran in the
dutch shelt estuary when their assault boat came under heavy [ __ ] causing it to capsize unable to
swim muldoon began to sink to the bottom of the river only to be rescued by rafam and khan who
despite the heavy shelling pulled muldoon to the surface and towed him nearly 200 metres to safety
other dogs have even given their lives to save their units including gander and newfoundland dogs
serving with the royal rifles of canada during the battle of hong kong in december 1941 gander
picked up a japanese hand grenade and rushed it back towards the enemy saving the lives of dozens
of soldiers but dying in the resulting explosion all of the most recent dick and medals have been
also awarded to dogs who were widely used during the afghanistan and iraq wars to locate mines
and improvised explosive devices or ieds such dogs include buster an english springer spaniel
attached to the duke of wellington's regiment who in early 2003 discovered a cache of insurgent
weapons near the iraqi town of safwan sadiya labrador retriever who in november 2005 uncovered
a pressure cooker bomb in the u.n headquarters in kabul and luca the united states marine corps
german shepherd who conducted nearly 400 explosive finding missions and lost her left leg in an ied
blast dick and medals have also been awarded to numerous dogs who helped locate survivors in the
rubble of the world trade centers following the september the 11th 2001 terrorist attacks
including salty rosalie and apollo despite their long and illustrious history of service in warfare
only four horses have received the dick and medal largely because the military utility of horses had
significantly declined by the time the award was created three of these medals were
awarded to regal olga and upstart who served with the london metropolitan police during the second
world war these horses were used to direct traffic and boost civilian morale especially during the
blitz and the late bombardment of london by v1 and v2 guided missiles regal olga and upstall
were particularly noted for their coolness under pressure remaining calm and unfazed even as bombs
exploded all around them the fourth equine medal was awarded to sergeant reckless a mongolian mayor
who served with the fifth regiment of the united states marines during the korean war
in march 1953 sergeant reckless distinguished herself during the battle for outpost vegas making
51 solo trips and carrying nearly 400 rounds of ammunition in a single day while under heavy fire
during a nine-month career sergeant reckless was wounded twice by shrapnel officially promoted to
the field rank of sergeant and received two purple hearts and eight other awards including a marine
corps good conduct medal a national defense service medal a korean service medal and of
course the dicken medal after the war she retired to the fifth marines regiment headquarters at camp
pendleton california where she lived a pampered life until her death in 1968 at the age of 20.
and finally we come to the outlier of our list the sole feline recipient of the dickened medal
simon the cat simon was the ship's cat aboard the royal navy sloop of war hms amethyst in april 1949
when she was fired upon by communist chinese forces in what became known as the yangtze or
amethyst incident one of the chinese shells struck a direct hit on the captain's cabin
seriously wounding simon with shrapnel simon was immediately rushed to the sick bay where medics
tended to his wounds but he was not expected to survive the night miraculously however simon made
a rapid recovery and soon returned to his regular duties boasting morale and helping to eliminate a
rat infestation and protect the amethyst's food stores while the ship remained trapped
on the yangtze for nearly three months after taking out a particularly vicious rat nicknamed
mao zedong after the communist chinese leader simon was promoted to the rank of abel seacat
tragically shortly after returning to england simon contracted a virus and died on november 28
1949 at the age of two the deeds of white vision chip sergeant reckless simon and all other dick
and medal recipients serve to remind us that the bravest and most loyal soldiers are not always
human and no matter how daunting or dangerous the field of battle our animal companions will always
be there fighting right alongside so i really hope you found that video interesting if you did please
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