A to Z 2024

 

A to Z Challenge 2024

This year my blog posts for the April 2024 Challenge will be about the recipients of the Dickin Medal, which you can read about here. They are in alphabetical, not chronological order, within the different letters.

All Alone

During WWII, pigeons were used by Allied and Axis powers. Thousands of pigeons were donated to the Allied war effort by British breeders. Marksmen and falcons were used to kill or catch the pigeons.

When a pigeon arrived at its home loft or coop, a bell sounded as it entered, so that the person on duty was alerted to it returning with a message.

All Alone was a war pigeon from the National Union of Racing Pigeons (N.U.R.P.) and served with the National Pigeon Service (N.P.S.) She was a blue female who was parachuted into Vienne, France, with an undercover agent in August 1943. The agent discovered vital information about a secret paramilitary group tasked with assassinations, attacks on the French Resistance, and rounding up Jews for deportation.

All Alone carried the information more than 400 miles back to England in under twenty-four hours. For this she was awarded the Dickin Medal in 1946.

What a sad but appropriate name for a brave bird, who saved so many lives.  

Antis 1939-1953

At the beginning of WWII, two pilots, one Czech, Václav Robert Bosdĕch, one French, Pierre Duval, were on a reconnaissance flight over Germany, when the aircraft was hit and crashed.  Seeking shelter in an abandoned farmhouse, the two airmen found a starving Alsatian puppy and fed him chocolate and gave him water. Needing to escape back to the French lines, they locked the puppy in the house with more chocolate and water. Within moments, the puppy began howling and fearing discovery by the Germans, the men decided they must return and kill the puppy. Bosdĕch went back but had not the heart to kill him, instead tucking him inside his jacket. French troops searching for the downed pilots found them and took them back to base. The Czech airmen serving with the French Air Force delighted in the puppy and decided to call him Antis.

After May 1940, when the war was no longer ‘phoney’, Antis flew on missions with Bosdĕch and then travelled with him by sea to Gibraltar and on to England, though the quarantine laws meant that Antis had to be smuggled ashore. 

Bosdĕch was based first at 311(Czechoslovak) Squadron RAF in Liverpool, where Antis searched for survivors of an air raid. Later the squadron was posted to Norfolk. The regulations forbade dogs flying, but Antis took part in about 30 missions and became the Squadron mascot, though he was always closest to Bosdĕch and slept at the foot of his bed. 

Bosdĕch returned to Czechoslovakia with Antis after the war, but when people who had served with the Allies began to be persecuted by the communists, he and several others escaped, helped by Antis, who guided them away from dangers so that they could cross into Western Germany.

Antis was awarded the Dickin Medal in 1949 and lived with Bosdĕch in England, after his master became a British national, until he died in 1953, aged 14. He was buried at the animal cemetery in Ilford, Essex. The Czech words ‘Vĕrný az do smrti’ on his grave stone translate as ‘Faithful unto death’.

Apollo 1992-2006

Apollo was a German Shepherd dog and one of the first dogs to train as a search and rescue dog in the K-9 unit of the New York Police Department (NYPD)

Following the collapse of the twin towers of the World Trade Center on 11^th September, 2001, Apollo was called in with his handler, Peter Davis, to help with rescue operations. Apollo was the first search and rescue dog to arrive on the scene, just 15 minutes after the towers crumpled. He fell into a pool of water, which probably saved his life, as he was soaked, and the flames he encountered did not burn him. Debris also fell on him, but once his handler brushed it off, he continued to work and saved eight lives.

Later, Apollo worked in the Dominican Republic after it was hit by a hurricane.

Apollo was awarded the Dickin Medal in March 2002 as a representative of all the search and rescue dogs who did such sterling work in the chaos of the destruction of the Twin Towers and at the Pentagon.

The citation read, ‘For tireless courage in the service of humanity during the search and rescue operations in New York and Washington on and after 11 September 2001. Faithful to words of command and undaunted by the task, the dogs' work and unstinting devotion to duty stand as a testament to those lost or injured.

In addition, Apollo received the American Kennel Club award for Canine Excellence in 2001. He and several other dogs from the NYPD K-9 unit were celebrated at the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show in 2002 for their work.

 

Apollo died in November 2006, aged 14.