A to Z Challenge 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.

G

Gander  ?-1941

Gander en route to Hong Kong with The Royal Rifles of Canada, 1941

Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons

Gander was a large, black, male Newfoundland dog. Originally called Pal, and a great favourite with his family, particularly with the children whose sledge he pulled, he accidentally scratched a child’s face one day, causing an injury requiring stitches. His owners were worried that they would be ordered to have him put down and so opted to give him to Quebec City’s Royal Rifles of Canada. 

The regiment was based at Gander International Airport, so the dog was immediately renamed Gander and promoted to Sergeant, becoming the regimental mascot. He enjoyed parading with the troops, bearing his sergeant’s stripes and regimental badge on his harness.

He also liked sleeping on the runway, and there were accounts of pilots reporting that they couldn’t land because he was in the way. Those who were unfamiliar with him thought he was a black bear!

In 1941, the regiment was sent to Hong Kong to defend it against a possible Japanese attack. Although it was autumn, the heat was still extreme, particularly for a dog equipped with a thick, heavy coat for cold conditions. However, he adjusted.

On 18^th December, the day after the attack on Pearl Harbour, Japanese troops attacked the north of the island. Rifleman Andrew Flanagan said, ‘Gander showed no fear of guns or bombs. At the Battle of Lye Mun Gap, he attacked Japanese troops as they landed near the Canadian section.’

The regiment then retreated along an overgrown road but as the Japanese pursued them, Gander ran at them, barking and biting their legs. At night, the Japanese troops attacked again, and once more Gander rushed at them, biting and barking.

Gander was sent to protect wounded soldiers with the hope that he would be safer away from the fighting. A grenade was thrown into the Canadian position and Gander rushed to pick it up and ran towards the Japanese with it. It exploded, killing him.

He was awarded the Dickin Medal in 2000, the first new award to be made since 1949. His citation reads, ’For saving the lives of Canadian infantrymen during the Battle of Lye Mun on Honk Kong Island in December 1941. On three documented occasions, Gander, the Newfoundland mascot of The Royal Rifles of Canada, engaged the enemy as his regiments joined the Winnipeg Grenadiers, members of Battalion Headquarters “C” Force and other Commonwealth troops in their courageous defence of the island. Twice Gander’s attacks halted the enemy’s advance and protected groups of wounded soldiers. In a final act of bravery, the war dog was killed in action gathering a grenade. Without Gander’s intervention, many more lives would have been lost in the assault.’

Gander’s name is listed on the Hong Kong Veterans Memorial Wall in Ottawa, Canada. It was included with the names of 1975 men and two women at the insistence of survivors. 

 

G.I. Joe  1943-1961

G.I. Joe was hatched in North Africa and trained at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey. He served with the United States Army Pigeon Service.

In the WWII Italian Campaign, the village of Calvi Vecchia, in Italy, had been occupied by British troops, who had regained it from the Germans in 1943. They were unable to send a radio signal to pre-empt the planned American air raid, so G.I. Joe was dispatched with the message.

 He flew 20 miles in 20 minutes and delivered the information to the air base at the moment the bombers were preparing for take-off, saving the lives of the civilians and the troops. 

G.I. Joe was the first non-British recipient of the Dickin Medal, receiving it at the Tower of London in 1946, part of the citation stating, ‘The most outstanding flight made by a United States homing pigeon in World War II.’

After the end of the war, he lived with 24 other courageous pigeons at the U.S. Army’s Churchill Loft in Fort Monmouth. After he died, at the grand age of 18, he was preserved and put on display at the U.S. Army Communications Electronics Museum at Fort Monmouth.

 

Gustav

Gustav was bred by Frederick Jackson in Cosham, Hampshire, UK, in the late 1930s, and loaned to the RAF when he was just six weeks old. His first missions involved him working for the resistance, carrying messages out of occupied Belgium.

On 6^th June, 1944, he was one of six pigeons given to Reuters correspondent, Montague Taylor, and was on board an Allied Landing Ship Tank. The invasion fleet was under radio silence, to prevent detection by the enemy.

As the first troops made landfall in Normandy, Gustav was launched with the signal, ‘We are just 20 miles or so off the beaches. First assault troops landed 0750 . . . no interference from enemy gunfire on beach . . . no enemy aircraft seen.’ Gustav flew 150 miles back to his wartime loft on Thorney Island, Chichester, in five hours and sixteen minutes in headwinds reaching 30 mph. The message he delivered was the first information that the Normandy landings had commenced.

Gustav was awarded the DM in September 1944, with the citation, ‘For delivering the first message from the Normandy beaches from a ship off the beachhead while serving with the RAF on June 6 1944.’

After the war, Gustav returned to live with Frederick Jackson. He died of old age. His story, and that of other brave war pigeons, inspired the 2005 animated film ‘Valiant’. In that same year, his Dickin Medal was donated to the D-Day Museum in Portsmouth.