OPINION:
SMOKY THE BRAVE: HOW A FEISTY YORKSHIRE TERRIER BECAME A MASCOT AND A COMRADE IN ARMS DURING WORLD WAR II
By Damien Lewis
DaCapo Press, $28, 320 pages
Permit an admission of bias at the outset. I am a devoted — yea, fanatical — dog lover. Labradors Lacey and Helen were, in turn, constant retirement friends, keeping watch as I read an uncountable number of books and watched Nationals games on TV.
Thus, I immediately understood the feelings that surged through airman Edward Downey when he saw a “shapeless mass of angled dirty hair” in a hole in a New Guinea jungle in 1944.
Then, dark eyes “gazed up at him, imploringly.” Downey retrieved what turned out to be a bedraggled Yorkshire terrier weighing perhaps four pounds — hand-licking friendly despite her emaciated condition.
How had the dog come to be on an air strip only recently abandoned by Japanese troops? Perhaps it had been owned by an enemy soldier? No matter. Downey and pal William Wynne welcomed “Smoky,” named for her smoky grey-blue coloring.
Being a dog, Smoky happily made new friends. “As her tiny tongue lolled out, panting in the heat, Smokums repeatedly tried to jump up at her newest visitor, desperate to demonstrate how happy she was that someone, anyone, was paying her a little attention.”
Author Damien Lewis became interested in wartime dog stories after he adopted a one-time “comfort dog” that had served in a veterans’ hospital. Smoky proved an ideal subject.
The base where she emerged was home to a photo reconnaissance squadron, flying behind Japanese lines to scout targets. The goals were denying enemy access to petroleum reserves in the South Pacific, and protecting allied bases. The importance of the base made it a frequent target of Japanese bombers.
And herewith an important role for Smoky. At the first sound of an air raid siren, she would “start barking in alarm and keep up the refrain during the mad dash” for shelter.
Then the airmen noted that at times “she seemed almost to start barking before the air-raid sirens had raised the alarm. The knack she appeared to have for sensing things — threats especially — before they became obvious to humans was uncanny — and very valuable to her human friends.”
As Mr. Lewis writes, “If Smoky started yelping her signature bark, her fine head tilted out towards Bird of Paradise Bay, it was time to run for the shelters.” Her warnings were credited with saving lives.
Smoky’s alerts displayed a trait of which much dog owners soon become aware — the ability of their pet to hear a “far greater range of frequencies than humans [and] over far longer distances.” A dog’s hearing is generally estimated as being at least 10 times more sensitive than that of a human.
Smoky displayed another canine attribute as well. Wynne became ill and was hospitalized, and Smoky was allowed to sleep in his bed. As Mr. Lewis correctly observes, “the very presence of a dog can transform the heavy, oppressive atmosphere of a hospital.
“Using a dog to bolster the spirits of the injured — both in body and mind — was unprecedented. It was one of the many firsts that Smoky and Wynne were to achieve together.”
Wynne also amused himself — and friends — by teaching Smoky tricks, a favorite being “drop dead.” He would hold out his finger and thumb like a pistol taking a shot. Bang! Smoky would “fall on her back, legs in the air and paws curled over, unmoving.”
Then came Smoky’s most serious challenge. The base received a newly-developed electronic typewriter that enabled messages to be transmitted by phone lines or radio. The system provided the squadron with a much quicker means of forwarding aerial photos of targets to bombing units.
But the radio equipment and the photo center were on opposite sides of a runway, and a telephone line was necessary to connect them. Cutting a hole in the runway could shut down operations for days.
A possible solution was a drainage culvert beneath the runway — far too narrow for passage by a human. But could a dog — i.e,, Smoky — make it through the tight opening?
An end of the telephone line was attached to Smoky’s collar, and she was placed at the entrance to the culvert, “an empty circle of black shadow as high as her head.”
Wynne crouched at the other end and called, “Come, Smoky, come!” again and again. Several times Smoky faltered, the line caught on an obstacle. Then her head appeared, “her forepaws scrabbling at the floor of the pipe as she struggled to drag her dust-enshrouded form through. ” And she made it.
The transmitted photos were exactly what ground troops needed to find and destroy enemy positions. A commendation thanked the reconnaissance squadron for contributing “much to the success of the Philippines Campaign.”
The citation did not name Smoky. But her uniformed friends rewarded her with the title “Smoky The Brave” — a well-deserved honor.
• Joseph C. Goulden writes frequently on intelligence and military matters.
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