The Dog that Saved My Life: Incredible true stories of canine loyalty beyond all bounds. Isabel George
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Название: The Dog that Saved My Life: Incredible true stories of canine loyalty beyond all bounds
Автор: Isabel George
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Биографии и Мемуары
isbn: 9780007339211
isbn:
In Ottawa, Canada, on 27 October 2000, Gander’s handler, Fred Kelly, accepted the PDSA Dickin Medal -the medal recognized internationally as the animals’ Victoria Cross – on behalf of Gander. The medal is the highest honour any animal can receive for bravery in conflict and it was the day the veteran soldiers and their families had longed for. For Fred Kelly it was, he said, ‘the best day of my life!’ Gander’s Dickin Medal went on to form a proud part of the Canadians’ Defence of Hong Kong exhibition at the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa. To the veterans who meet each year to remember friends fallen and heroes lost, Gander is a hero still.
The Hong Kong Veterans Association of Canada (HKVAOC) is still a very active group of veterans and their families, who continue to fight for the recognition of that period of sacrifice. In August 2009 they succeeded in seeing the unveiling of a memorial wall depicting the battle and the names of the people lost in the conflict. The unveiling was a proud and long-awaited moment for the surviving veterans of the Battle of Lye Mun. It was also the foundation stone for the memorial that will go on to feature a bronze of Canada’s canine hero – Gander.
During the battle for Hong Kong Gander proved that he was a ‘soldier dog’. He was no longer a child’s pet, he was a war dog who slept, ate and drank only when he was not facing the enemy. Gander was not trained to be a messenger or a guard dog, like so many other pet dogs were during the Second World War. He just found himself on active service and did what he had done from the start – he gave his friends comfort, companionship and a cosy reminder of home so very far away. But in the throes of battle, Gander was the soldier dog that the hostilities made him.
Gander is now recognized as a Canadian hero of the Second World War. But to his soldier friends he will always be their best pal.
Judy – Prisoner of War 81A Gloergoer, Medan
‘She was in her short lifetime an inspiration of courage, hope and a will to live, to many who would have given up in their time of trial…
(Frank Williams, Leading Aircraftsman, RAF)
‘Where’s Judy? Has anyone seen her?’
British warship HMS Grasshopper had been torpedoed. Out of the dark, cold and oily water a sailor shouted to his shipmates in the hope that someone had seen Judy, the ship’s mascot. Just moments before the ship was hit, Judy was in her usual place enjoying extra rations in the ship’s galley. She belonged to the entire crew and they all looked after her. She was a lucky mascot who, on her previous ship, HMS Gnat, had been shelled and almost drowned in the Yangtze River. It seemed Judy was in the wrong place at the wrong time once again.
When Singapore fell to the Japanese in February 1942, Grasshopper, a 585-ton river gunboat, left Keppel Harbour in Singapore, bound for Java, her sister ship HMS Dragonfly alongside her. Spotted by a Japanese seaplane both ships were dive bombed. Grasshopper, already battle-scarred from the Malaya-Singapore campaign, took a hit under her bow. Commander Hoffman decided to lay-up his ship in a group of islands to the north of Sinkep, but two miles short of safety the ships came under fire again. Two formations of 81 Japanese bombers passed overhead. Nine of the planes at five-minute intervals dropped their bombs and a mile from land the Grasshopper was hit astern and set on fire. Many of the 75 crew and 50 passengers (Japanese POWs, Royal Marines, Army officers and civilians) jumped overboard and swam for their lives as the commander beached his ship, which took two more hits before it had to be abandoned.
The survivors, marooned on one of the tiny uninhabited islands in the region, gradually gathered together on the sand. They were in desperate straits. There was very little food to salvage from what was left of the Grasshopper and there was no fresh water. Judy had suddenly appeared in the group, much to the relief of the remaining crew. They had lost sight of her in the mayhem of the bombing and assumed she had run for cover in the depths of the ship. Wherever she had been hiding she had, at some stage, made the wise move to head for the water. Weary and covered in oil, the bedraggled dog wandered between the few survivors. The Grasshopper
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