10/02/2023
Smoky, a Yorkshire Terrier, was a famous war dog who served in World War II. She weighed only 4 pounds (1.8 kg) and stood 7 inches (180 mm) tall. Smoky is credited with reigniting interest in the once-obscure Yorkshire Terrier breed.
𝐃𝐢𝐬𝐜𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐩𝐮𝐫𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐬𝐞
Smoky was discovered in an abandoned foxhole in the New Guinea jungle by an American soldier in February 1944. She was already a fully grown young adult Yorkie. The soldiers initially assumed the small dog belonged to the Japanese, but after transporting her to a nearby prisoner-of-war camp, they discovered she couldn't understand commands in either Japanese or English. Smoky was then sold by another soldier to Corporal William A. Wynne of Cleveland, Ohio, for two Australian pounds the price paid to the seller so he could return to his poker game.
𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐥𝐝 𝐖𝐚𝐫 𝐈𝐈
Smoky backpacked through the rest of the war and accompanied Wynne on combat flights in the Pacific for the next two years. She faced adversity while living in the New Guinea jungle and Rock Islands, where she endured primitive tent conditions in equatorial heat and humidity. Smoky slept in Wynne's tent on a blanket made from a green felt card table cover for the duration of her service, sharing Wynne's C-rations and the occasional can of Spam. Unlike the "official" war dogs of WWII, Smoky had no access to veterinary medicine or a balanced diet designed specifically for dogs. Despite this, Smoky never got sick. She even ran for four months on coral without developing any of the paw problems that plagued some war dogs.
In the words of Wynne, "Smoky Served in the South Pacific with the 5th Air Force, 26th Photo Reconnaissance Squadron and flew 12 air/sea rescue and photo reconnaissance missions." On those flights, Smoky spent long hours dangling in a soldier's pack near machine guns used to repel enemy fighters. Smoky was credited with twelve combat missions and eight battle stars. She survived 150 air raids on New Guinea and an Okinawan typhoon. Smoky even parachuted from 30 feet (9.1 m) in the air out of a tree using a parachute custom-made for her. Wynne credited Smoky with saving his life by warning him of incoming shells on an LST (transport ship), referring to her as an "'angel' from a foxhole." As the ship deck shook from anti-aircraft gunnery, Smoky directed Wynne to avoid the fire that hit eight men standing nearby.
Smoky spent her spare time learning new tricks to entertain troops with Special Services and patients in hospitals from Australia to Korea. Smoky, according to Wynne, taught him as much as he taught her, and she developed a repertoire unlike any other dog of her time. In 1944, the magazine Yank Down Under named Smoky the "Champion Mascot in the Southwest Pacific Area."
Smoky's deception enabled her to become a hero in her own right by assisting engineers in the construction of an airbase at Lingayen Gulf, Luzon, a vital airfield for Allied warplanes. The Signal Corps needed to run a telegraph wire through a 70-foot-long (21-meter) pipe that was 8 inches (200 mm) in diameter early in the Luzon campaign. The soil had sifted through the corrugated sections at the pipe joinings, filling up to half of the pipe and limiting Smoky's movement to four inches in some places.
When Wynne appeared on NBC-TV after WWII, he told the story as follows:
“I tied a string (tied to the wire) to Smoky's collar and ran to the other end of the culvert . . . (Smoky) made a few steps in and then ran back. `Come, Smoky,' I said sharply, and she started through again. When she was about 10 feet in, the string caught up and she looked over her shoulder as much as to say `What's holding us up there?' The string loosened from the snag and she came on again. By now the dust was rising from the shuffle of her paws as she crawled through the dirt and mold and I could no longer see her. I called and pleaded, not knowing for certain whether she was coming or not. At last, about 20 feet away, I saw two little amber eyes and heard a faint whimpering sound . . . at 15 feet away, she broke into a run. We were so happy at Smoky's success that we patted and praised her for a full five minutes.”
Smoky's work saved approximately 250 ground crewmen from having to move around and keep 40 United States fighters and reconnaissance planes operational while a construction detail dug up the taxiway, putting the men and the planes in danger of enemy bombing. What would have been a dangerous three-day digging task to lay the wire took only minutes.
𝐀𝐟𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐰𝐚𝐫
Wynne and Smoky were featured on the front page of the Cleveland Press on December 7, 1945, when they returned from the war. Smoky quickly rose to national prominence. Over the next ten years, Smoky and Wynne travelled to Hollywood and around the world to demonstrate her extraordinary abilities, which included walking a tightrope while blindfolded. She appeared with Wynne on some of the earliest TV shows in the Cleveland area, including their own Castles in the Air show on Cleveland's WKYC Channel 3 that featured some of Smoky's incredible tricks. Smoky performed 42 times on live television without ever repeating a trick. Smoky and Wynne were also popular performers at veterans' hospitals.
Wynne claims that "after the war, Smoky entertained millions during the late 1940s and early 1950s."
Corporal" Smoky died unexpectedly on February 21, 1957, at the age of 14. Smoky was buried in World War II .30 calibre ammo box in the Cleveland Metroparks' Rocky River Reservation in Lakewood, Ohio, by Wynne and his family.
On Veterans Day, November 11, 2005, a bronze life-size sculpture of Smoky sitting in a GI helmet atop a two-ton blue granite base by Susan Bahary was unveiled there. It is located directly above the spot where Smoky was laid to rest. This memorial is dedicated to “Smoky, the Yorkie Doodle Dandy, and the Dogs of All Wars".
(𝐈𝐦𝐚𝐠𝐞: 𝐁𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐖𝐲𝐧𝐧𝐞 & 𝐒𝐦𝐨𝐤𝐞𝐲)
(𝐒𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐜𝐞: 𝐖𝐢𝐤𝐢𝐩𝐞𝐝𝐢𝐚 & 𝐘𝐨𝐫𝐤𝐢𝐞 𝐃𝐨𝐨𝐝𝐥𝐞 𝐃𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐲 𝐛𝐲 𝐖𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐚𝐦 𝐀. 𝐖𝐲𝐧𝐧𝐞 𝐘𝐨𝐫𝐤𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐫𝐞 𝐓𝐞𝐫𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐫 𝐖𝐚𝐫 𝐃𝐨𝐠 𝐇𝐞𝐫𝐨)
