Smoky the Brave: How a Feisty Yorkshire Terrier Mascot Became a Comrade-in-Arms during World War II (Otis Archive, 1)
(By Damien Lewis)
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| Author | Damien Lewis |
Smoky the Brave is the extraordinary, touching, and true story of a heroic dog and her adoptive masters in the jungles of the Pacific War. In February 1944, as Japanese military advances threatened to overwhelm New Guinea, a tiny, four-pound Yorkshire Terrier was discovered hiding in the island's thick jungles. The GIs who discovered her thought at first she had been a Japanese army mascot, but it turned out that she didn't understand commands in either Japanese or English. A mystery, she was soon adopted by US Army Air Force Corporal William "Bill" Wynne, an air-crewman in a photo reconnaissance squadron, and became something of a lucky charm for Wynne's unit. When Smoky saved Wynne's life by barking a warning of an incoming shell as their landing craft approached an enemy-held beach, he nicknamed her the "angel from a foxhole."
Smoky's exploits continued when she famously jumped with the unit in a specially designed parachute. But her most heroic feat of the war was running a cable through a seventy-foot pipe no wider than four inches in places to enable critical communication lines to be run across the recently occupied airbase of Luzon. Her efforts saved hundreds of ground-crew from being exposed to enemy bombing, preventing both injury and loss of life.
In recognition of her efforts, and adding to her previously-awarded eight battle stars, Smoky was given the PDSA's Certificate for Animal Bravery or Devotion in 2011. In Smoky the Brave, award-winning war-thriller author Damien Lewis brings to vivid life the danger and excitement of the many missions of World War II's smallest hero.
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