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.

J

Jet of Iada  1942-1949  

                        Jet, wearing his Dickin Medal, with Mrs Babcock Cleaver

    Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons

Jet was a black German Shepherd born in 1942 in the Liverpool Iada kennels of Mrs Babcock Cleaver.  When he was nine months old, he was lent to the War Dogs School in Gloucester to be trained in anti-sabotage work. For eighteen months, he carried out anti-sabotage duties and was then sent back to the school for further training as a Search and Rescue Dog. He was assigned to Corporal Wardle and the pair were sent to London. Their partnership was the first to be tasked officially in Civil Defence rescue.

                        Jet searching the ruins with Cpl Wardle, after a V1 hit.

                                                    Image source

In 1945, Jet received the Dickin Medal, ‘For being responsible for the rescue of persons trapped under blitzed buildings while serving with the Civil Defence Services of London.’ He was credited with saving 150 people from bombed buildings.

The citation was word for word exactly the same as Irma’s. With Irma, he took part in the Victory Celebration Parade in London, in June 1946, both proudly wearing their Dickin Medals. As he was marching past Buckingham Palace, he sat down and barked three times.

Jet was a remarkably brave dog. One account reads, ‘While most animals have a natural fear of fire, Jet sometimes had to be held back by his handler from entering burning buildings where the flames were too fierce to enter.’

A further witness said, ‘On one occasion he was searching the ruins of a hotel in Chelsea which had already been thoroughly searched. The ruins had been investigated and dug up several times, but Jet seemed to insist that there was more searching to do.

He was particularly interested in a huge section of a wall which was leaning over but hadn’t quite fallen down. The ruins were very unstable and eventually one of the men very carefully climbed up to the top, where he found an elderly lady who had been trapped on a brick ledge.’

Even in circumstances where collapsed factories were full of dangerous chemicals and toxic smoke, Jet’s superlative sense of smell enabled him to find survivors.

Jet was reunited with his owner in Liverpool after the war, but two years later, he was called to assist in the aftermath of the Whitehaven in Liverpool. pit explosion and tunnel collapse in Cumbria. For that he was given the RSPCA’s Medallion of Valour.

Jet was laid to rest in Calderstones Park, his burial place marked by a stone memorial bearing his graven image.

 

Judy  1936-1950

                                Judy aboard HMS Grasshopper
                                     Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons

It is often said that cats have nine lives, but Judy certainly seemed to have at least as many.

Judy was a liver and white pedigree English Pointer and was given to the Royal Navy in 1936 as a mascot for HMS Gnat, a river gunboat carrying out peacekeeping duties on the Yangtze River. Warships often adopted animals for protection, vermin control and companionship. Judy earned her keep, warning of the approach of river pirates at night.

                                            HMS Grasshopper

Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons

Later, she was transferred to Gnat’s sister ship, HMS Grasshopper, patrolling the sea between Hong Kong and Singapore. Japan joined the war in 1940 and in 1942 Grasshopper was ordered to present-day Jakarta. She left Singapore with about 200 refugees. When Japanese planes attacked, the captain ran the helpless ship aground, all aboard safely reaching shore, along with the crew and passengers of her sister ship, HMS Dragonfly.

Judy was missing, but was found trapped under a locker below decks by a crew member who had been dispatched to the ship to search for anything that might prove useful.

The island they had landed on had no fresh water, but Judy came to the rescue. Chief Petty Officer Leonard Walter Williams, from Grasshopper, said, ‘We landed on the island and naturally water was short. Judy was lost one day . . . so we went to search for her and she had found a patch where she dug a big hole and she had found fresh water for the survivors . . . Judy was a saviour then. She was a marvellous life-saver.’

Men and dog walked for hundreds of miles to Padang in Sumatra, hoping to evacuate to safety, but arrived as the Japanese invaded the city and took them Prisoners of War. During the trek, Judy was attacked by a crocodile. The men patched up the 6” cut on her shoulder and she repaid them by protecting them from snakes and warning of large predators.

Eventually, they were held in the Gloegoer POW camp in Medan. Here, Judy met Leading Aircraftman Frank Williams, with whom she would spend the rest of her life. He had shared his rice with her and she repaid him with her loyalty. In order to save her, for many of the Japanese guards hated her, he persuaded the camp commandant to register Judy as a Prisoner of War and she became POW 81A Gloegoer Medan., the first and only canine POW.

She alerted the prisoners to approaching guards as well as snakes and scorpions and went out into the wider country, killing rats and snakes to supplement the men’s meagre rations.

In 1944, 700 prisoners were destined to transfer to Singapore by ship. No dogs were allowed on board, but Frank Williams trained Judy to lie still in a rice sack. The men had to stand on deck for three hours in blazing heat and Judy remained quietly in a sack over Frank Williams’ shoulder. The ship was torpedoed and fewer than 200 men survived. Williams pushed Judy through a porthole and she dropped 15 feet into the water.   

Later, it was discovered that Judy had helped drowning men by taking them flotsam to keep them afloat. Other men said that they had seen her bringing people ashore, one by one, hanging on to her body. She was saved by the survivors and eventually reunited with Frank Williams. The men were returned to Sumatra, to be used to lay 3,000 miles of railway track through the jungle, frequently moving camp. Every time, Judy accompanied them, by stealth.

In 1945, Judy was ordered to be shot but she disappeared for three days, returning only after the Japanese troops searching for her had left. In August, 1945, VJ Day meant that freedom beckoned, but Frank Williams was concerned that Judy would not be allowed on board the troop ship bound for Liverpool. Once again, all those who had been involved with Judy for so long and who owed her their lives, worked together to smuggle her aboard.

It was not possible for her to avoid quarantine on arrival in UK and she spent six months in quarantine kennels, being regularly visited by Frank Williams and other POWs who had known her. He had to pay the quarantine fee, but had not enough money to meet the charges. An advertisement in Tailwaggers Club Magazine realised 61 donations that more than covered the cost.

Judy was awarded the Dickin Medal in 1946. Her citation ran, ‘For magnificent courage and endurance in Japanese prison camps, which helped to maintain morale among her fellow prisoners and also for saving many lives through her intelligence and watchfulness.’ Frank Williams was awarded the PDSA’s highest honour, the White Cross of St Giles, in recognition of his devotion to his dog.

Frank and Judy spent a year after the war ended visiting the families of POWs who had not survived their incarceration and raising money for charity. In 1948, the pair travelled to Tanzania to live and Judy had a third litter of puppies, this time in freedom.

In 1950, suffering from cancer, Judy was gently put to sleep. She was 14. She was buried in her RAF jacket, which bore her campaign medals, the Pacific Star, the 1939-1945 Star and the Defence Medal. Her Dickin Medal was donated to the Imperial War Museum by Frank Williams’ son, Alan in 2006.