In 1917, a woman named Maria Dickin founded the People's Dispensary for Sick Animals in the UK.
This organisation treats the pets of UK citizens who can't afford the vet bills—so
surely everyone except the Queen. During the Second World War, dogs and pigeons and
horses were losing their lives serving the Allied war effort, so Maria thought that,
if people could get sweet war medals, animals should be able to get them too.
In 1943, she instituted the PDSA Dickin Medal, the animal equivalent of a Victoria
Cross. Between 1943 and 1949, the Dickin Medal was awarded 54 times.
In this video, we tell the heroic tales of seven Dickin Medal recipients.
As a side-note, Maria married her first cousin, but that was just what you did back then.
A collie named Peter was born in 1941 and purchased by one Audrey Stables for 25
shillings that same year. Audrey found the poor rascal particularly disobedient and destructive,
so she decided to send him off for service in the armed forces, as you do. Serving under the
dog-handler Archie Knight, Peter spent the war as a search and rescue dog in London,
and yes, he was a very good boy. Archie wrote about one of Peter's "finest jobs" in a report:
"We were called 20 hours after the incident and after several hours of
heavy rain. Three bodies were missing and he very quickly indicated in a most unlikely spot,
but he was right, and they uncovered a man and a woman. The next day we were
called to another job. There were so many calls for Peter that I worked him 10 hours
and he never once refused to give all he had. All his marks revealed casualties. I hated to
work him like this—but I also hated to refuse the rescue parties who were asking for him."
On one occasion, Peter even sniffed out a parrot that had been trapped under rubble.
In November 1945, Peter was awarded the Dickin Medal. He met the King and Queen the following
year, and the future queen Princess Elizabeth gave him a kiss on the nose.
After this, Peter was returned to Audrey, whom he'd probably forgiven by now.
When they're not taking a dump on your car, pigeons are off running top secret messages
for the British armed forces. One of the Second World War's bravest homing pigeons
was the Scottish-born lady-pigeon White Vision. Trained by Britain's National Pigeon Service (or
NPS)—which trained some 200,000 patriotic young pigeons from 1939 to 1945—White
Vision was assigned to the Royal Air Force's No. 190 Squadron.
On the 11th of October 1943, she was aboard a Catalina flying boat when the plane was forced
to make an emergency landing in the North Sea. The radio was stuffed, and things were looking pretty
grim. The crew's only hope was White Vision, whom they released with a message indicating
their approximate position. Battling killer headwinds for some 100 kilometres or 60 miles,
White Vision made it back to her loft, and a search party went out and rescued
all 11 human members of her crew after they'd spent around 18 hours in the sea. For her bravery,
White Vision was awarded the Dickin Medal on the 2nd of December 1943.
No matter how cool you think your dog's name is, it's got nothing on Rifleman Kahn,
a German Shepherd who served in the Second World War. A family pet lent to the British War Office,
Kahn was assigned to a battalion of the Scottish rifle regiment
known as the Cameronians, taken into the care of the dog-handler Lance Corporal James Muldoon.
In November 1944, the battalion was sent to fight the Germans in Belgium, in the Battle of Scheldt.
Approaching the island of Walcheren, Muldoon and Kahn's assault craft was lit up by a German boat,
throwing man and dog into the sea. Unsure of what had happened to Muldoon, Khan swam
to shore in search of him. When he couldn't find Muldoon, Khan went back into the sea,
risking heavy shellfire and swimming about 180 meters or 590 feet to find his human companion,
who couldn't swim due to the weight of his pack. Khan then pulled a half-drowned
Muldoon all the way back to the shore, where the pair collapsed from exhaustion.
For his bravery, Rifleman Kahn received the Dickin Medal in March 1945. After the war,
Muldoon went permanently into Kahn's care, not the other way around.
Okay, one more sky-rat and then we're done with them.
NPS.42.31066 "Gustav" was a dude-pigeon trained by a man named
Frederick Jackson for service in the war. On the 6th of June 1944, Gustav was chilling
with the lads aboard an Allied Landing Ship Tank on the way to the beaches of Normandy.
His mission: to report to the UK on behalf of the news correspondent Montague Taylor.
When they were close to the shore, Gustav took flight from the LST with the following message:
"We are just 20 miles or so off the beaches. First assault troops landed
0750. Signal says no interference from enemy gunfire on beach. Steaming steadily in
formation. Lightnings, Typhoons, Fortresses crossing since 0545. No enemy aircraft seen."
This intel was crucial, and Gustav bloody knew it. Despite strong headwinds, he muscled through
his 240-kilometre or 150-mile journey to Thorny Island, completing the run in just five hours.
His message was the first the British mainland received from the D-Day invasion fleet,
and for delivering it, he received the Dickin Medal in November of that year.
Gustav found it hard to adjust to civilian life after the war,
looking to the bottle to dull the edges of his PTSD.
We really can't do Judy's story justice in this video,
so let us know if you'd like us to make one all about her.
Judy was a Pointer who was born in Shanghai in 1936 and placed on the British gunboat
HMS Gnat as the vessel's mascot later that year. During operations in China,
she used her keen senses to point out hostile aircraft and got knocked up by a French Pointer
after they got married aboard the gunboat Francis Garnier. She later gave birth to 13 puppies.
In June 1939, Judy was transferred to HMS Grasshopper, which went on to participate
in the Battle of Singapore. After the Japanese strafed the ship, Judy and some
other survivors escaped to a beach, where Judy protected the men from snakes.
They later found passage aboard a Chinese junk to Sumatra. Trekking through the dense jungle
towards Padang, Judy warded off predators and even got into a fight with a crocodile. She lived,
though only to get captured by the Japanese on the 29th of March 1942.
Throughout the men's stay at Gloegoer prisoner of war camp in Medan, which was obviously a lovely
place, Judy refused to abandon them. She kept up her comrades' morale with her positive attitude,
warned them whenever a Japanese guard came near, caught rats and snakes for the men to eat,
and got knocked up a second time, despite the fact that she was still married to the French Pontier.
Judy was, funnily enough, a registered prisoner: "81A Gloegoer Medan."
There's more to tell, but after the war, Judy was awarded the Dickin Medal
and interviewed by the BBC for the London Victory Celebrations of 1946.
Simon was born too late to participate in the Second World War, but he didn't let that stop him
from serving the Crown. In March 1948, a seaman from the British frigate HMS Amethyst found Simon
wandering a dockyard in Hong Kong and smuggled him on board. This worked out great for Simon,
who got to roam the ship slaughtering rats and placing their corpses in the other seamen's beds.
He often elected to sleep in the captain's hat, as well, because he was the captain now.
During a clash between the British and the Chinese on the Yangtze river in 1949,
Simon was badly wounded by a shell fired from a Chinese field gun.
The ship's medics removed four pieces of shrapnel from his body, and he somehow survived the affair,
returning to his duties and receiving the Dickin Medal for his bravery. Later, after besting a
ferocious rat named Mao Tse-tung in one-on-one combat, Simon earned the rank of Able Seacat.
Like Judy, there's more to the Mongolian pack horse Staff
Sergeant Reckless's story than we have time for today, but here's some of it.
The US Marine Corps purchased Reckless in 1952 and trained her to be a pack horse for a Recoilless
Rifle Platoon of the 1st Marine Division. Hanging around the unit's camp at night,
she would eat and drink anything she could get her teeth around, including scrambled eggs, Coca-Cola,
beer, and, on one occasion, $30 worth of poker chips. Reckless's war was in Korea, where she
hauled supplies and ammo to her unit and carried the wounded from the front line. In the Battle
of Outpost Vegas in March 1953, Reckless made 51 trips to the front line, all without a handler,
moving over 380 recoilless rifle rounds to her comrades and taking a piece of shrapnel to the
head and another to her left flank. This earned her a Purple Heart and the rank of corporal.
After the war, Reckless was promoted from corporal to sergeant in a formal ceremony,
soon after which she retired. Randolph Pate,
commander of the 1st Marine Division, had the following to say about Staff Sergeant Reckless:
"I was surprised at her beauty and intelligence, and believe it or not,
her esprit de corps. Like any other Marine, she was enjoying a bottle of beer with her comrades.
She was constantly the center of attraction and was fully aware of her importance.
If she failed to receive the attention she felt her due, she would deliberately walk into a group
of Marines and, in effect, enter the conversation. It was obvious the Marines loved her."
Her Dickin Medal was awarded in 2016, posthumously.
But who do you think is the bravest Dickin Medal recipient we covered
today? Do you know of any we didn't cover? Would you marry your first
cousin? Please feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments section below.