Miltary use of animals WWII.
 

During the war there were many instances of military use of animals, from the cruel, (Soviet Hundminen) to the absurd (PanzerFaust toting Mules), to the very helpful (Elephants on the Ledo Road). Engineers often used indigenous beasts of burden to ease the strain of loading and unloading aircraft and trucks.

Mules were in common use in Burma (see John Masters' writings) and to a lesser extent, in the mountains of Italy as well (YOU try humping a Vickers, its tripod and all its ammunition sometime... :D ).

Australian Signallers in WW2 also used carrier pigeons to relay messages, firstly in the Syrian Campaign, and later in the campaigns in New Guinea and the Islands. Not much of a Bird lover myself, I don't really understand how a mobile Patrol could get a bird to return "Home" to a mobile HQ, but now I see they taught them to read road signs. :teach:

The "Soldier Bear" ...
 

... used by the Poles in Italy. He unloaded 25lber ammo for my father's transport unit.

Macabre animal uses
 

The Americans very successfully "armed" bats with incendiary charges since they can fly their own weight. Released some way from Japanese buildings at night, from a bomber even, they would at dawn or before avail themselves of the roof spaces for roosting, especially wooden tropical buildings and the typical Japanese house.

Pigeons were a used to guide a munition also. The birds were trained to peck at a ship picture to get food and when captively placed in the nose cone of a guided bomb they would do this against a projected image of the target on a crude touch screen that effectively recorded x any y axis commands for munition guidance and thus brought the image back to centre as the corrections took effect on the fins.

As far-fetched as it seems this was entirely successful against ships but a step too far for the JCS committee belief.


The Russians developed an anti-tank dog that was kept half-starved and trained to go under a tank for food; it had a fairly big charge fitted to it and a wooden trigger handle sticking up from its back that would be operated as the dog tried to go under the vehicle. They sometimes preferred and recognised the Russian tanks used in training and sometimes got frightened by the noise, but some 300 German tanks were destroyed or disabled and it was taken very seriously.


R.

I'll betcha none of them did it more than once though. :)

Other uses...
 

Bet none of these critters were "Volunteers"..

Wound Labs: The Department of Defense has operated "wound labs" since 1957. At these sites, conscious or semiconscious animals are suspended from slings and shot with high-powered weapons to inflict battlelike injuries for military surgical practice. In 1983, in response to public pressure, Congress limited the use of dogs in these labs, but countless goats, pigs, and sheep are still being shot, and at least one laboratory continues to shoot cats. At the Army's Fort Sam Houston "Goat Lab," goats are hung upside down and shot in their hind legs. After physicians practice excising the wounds, any goat who survives is killed.(13)

Other forms of military experiments include subjecting animals to decompression sickness, weightlessness, drugs and alcohol, smoke inhalation, and pure oxygen inhalation.

This last paragraph was actually conducted in some of the Airmans messes on most Friday nights..and the only animals around was us..
:drunk: :support:remember

WW2 animal protection against weapons of mass destruction
 

also known as gas masks, for camels,dogs,pigeons,goats, horses
the rarest is the goat gas mask, USofA soldiers had to watch with gas masks on
a goat die in agony while the goat with the mask was OK, They switched to a movie in 1944. I have 7 different horse gas masks. there are gas masks for infants, babies, kids, parents and of course military. Sweden had a gas mask for every man woman and child in 1939. Pigeons won more military medals than horses or dogs or my relatives
dennis :eek: :eek: :eek:

In Aust service, the bravery award to an animal (Dog, Bird, Horse, etc) is known as the Dickin Medal. What are the equivalents elsewhere?

British use of animals in WWII
 

Hello,

As an amusing aside to this Sappers forum. An relative of mine called Teddy De Brett was a Royal Engineer officer in the 1930's. As such he was trained to ride horses.

In 1939 he was issued with a small car and a driver, and was sent to Kineton in Warwickshire to oversee the construction of the huge ordnance depot that was built there.

Many years later when he told me the tale, he said that during the following winter the whole place became such a mud bath in the intractable Warwickshire clay, that he had to request that his car was taken away, and replaced by a horse, as it was the only way he could get around the site.

Regards

Nick Balmer

In my copy of "Defense Against Chemical Attack" (FM 21-40) dated September 7, 1942 there is an entire chapter devoted to protecting military animals from gas attack. They mention use of Horse Gas Masks M4 and M5 as well as a gas proof cover for the Pigeon Carrier complete with a bellows to refresh the air "twice every hour". Interesting stuff.

CHIMO! Derek

Picture of Bat bomb
 

Richard, here's a picture of the "Bat Bomb"

CHIMO! Derek