Parachuting dog helped win World War II

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Parachuting dog helped win World War II
Skydiving canine aided development of tech key to Allied victory in the air



"Major," a St. Bernard resembling the one pictured, was tossed from a plane at 26,000 feet to test parachute straps at a high altitude. Wearing a custom-fit oxygen mask, he dog-paddled all the way down for a safe touchdown.
By Heather Whipps

The Allied airmen and women of World War II were certainly brave and skilled in battle, but even they couldn't win the war on their own.
Plagued in the early, low-tech years of the war by dangerous afflictions such as altitude and decompression sickness, pilots got some help behind the front lines from a team of American physiologists who studied the effects on the body of flying.
Their research, which involved at least one parachuting dog, and the technology it initiated was a key to the Allied victory in the air, says Jay B. Dean of the University of South Florida College of Medicine.
"[Pilots] had two enemies — they had the enemy shooting at them and they had the unseen enemy, which was the environment," he said. "The physiologists knew that they had to do something to learn to protect the health of the war fighter."
Dean presented his research at a recent Experimental Biology conference in San Diego and is working on a book about Allied advances in aviation physiology.
Early flight no cake walk
Aviation in the late 1930s and early 1940s, just under 40 years removed from the Wright brothers' feat at Kitty Hawk, was nothing like the high-tech industry it is today. When World War II began, planes weren't heated or even pressurized, even though pilots were forced to climb to very high altitudes to avoid the enemy.
"They were supposed to fly at about 25,000 feet; well, they were pushing them up to 30,000 and 35,000 feet to try to get above the enemy flak from the ground," Dean said. At that height, the airmen were exposed to temperatures of 40 below to 70 below zero Fahrenheit, as





Early fighter planes had no cabin pressurization. That means less oxyen for pilots, who could become dazed due to the lack of it. The Army Air Corps began using the Boeing P-26 Peashooter in 1933.

well as very low air pressure. "If there's less pressure, there's less oxygen," Dean said, "and you begin to lose your ability to think clearly. You can imagine trying to wage warfare and have a sharp mind if you're slowly becoming hypoxic," or losing oxygen content in the blood, he said.
Though the Allies had kept up with the Axis powers in aircraft technology, their knowledge about how the body reacted to high altitudes lagged well behind, according to historical accounts. The tests that began a few years after the War began became crucial to the military effort, Dean said.
"The air war had become a physiological war," Dean said in a recent interview, noting that the common perception "was that the first power to fly routinely at 40,000 feet would win."
Dogpaddling at 26,000 feet
Starting out with just one hypobaric chamber, which mimics the conditions of a high altitude environment, an Ohio laboratory set up by World War II physiologists quickly focused on finding solutions to the worst problems pilots faced, Dean said.
About one quarter of the men on bombing missions — which could last up to 10 hours —complained of decompression sickness, the painful blood affliction scuba divers commonly call "the bends." The physiologists discovered that the effects of the bends could be minimized by breathing pure oxygen before takeoff.
Weirdest science storiesBlood tests and lung capacity tests were also conducted to figure out the limits of the human lung. When the simulations weren't sufficient, the physiologists put their bodies on the line, Dean said.
One doctor made a high-altitude jump himself to experience the strain on the body, nearly killing himself, and was able to calculate exactly when an airman's parachute should be opened to limit the impact of the g-forces, said Dean. And "Major," a 145-pound St. Bernard dog, was also tossed from a plane at 26,000 feet to test parachute straps at a high altitude.
Sporting his own custom oxygen mask, Major dog-paddled all the way down and landed safely, witnesses said.
Relevant to the space program
The research conducted during the War was relevant long after 1945, Dean said.
"A lot of what we learned about pulmonary mechanics came from the war effort, when they were developing the oxygen-breathing equipment," he said.
And just like their WWII predecessors, astronauts performing space walks outside the pressurized safety of their shuttle today still breathe pure oxygen for 12 hours to reduce the risk of the decompression sickness.

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Bing, the dog of war who parachuted into France to become a D-Day hero

By Paul Harris for the Daily Mail

Published: 09:18 EST, 17 April 2012 | Updated: 21:12 EST, 17 April 2012

He must have looked a fearsome sight as he parachuted into the heart of occupied Europe.
His keen eyes scoured the battlefield for enemy troops and he was poised to hit the ground running.
It might not have been quite what the Germans were expecting from Britain's D-Day invasion force – but Bing the para-dog played a vital role in liberating France.


Gallantry: A demobbed Bing receives his PDSA Dickin Medal in 1946


Canine hero: Bing the parachuting dog was awarded the animal equivalent of the Victoria Cross


War service: The dog was parachuted behind enemy lines with his handler sniper Jack Walton. The pair are seen here in Wismar, Germany

He was one of the first dogs to be dropped behind enemy lines with British paratroopers.
From the moment the two-year-old Alsatian-collie cross put his paws on Normandy soil (albeit after a tangle with a tree) he was ready for action.
Anywhere there was trouble, even after he was wounded by mortar fire, he was there to sniff it out.

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Smoky (dog)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Smoky


Smoky in a helmet
Other appellation(s) Yorkie Doodle Dandy
Species Dog
Breed Yorkshire Terrier
Sex Female
Born c. 1943
Died 21 February 1957 (14 years)
Resting place Cleveland Metroparks (Lakewood, Ohio)
Employer 5th Air Force, 26th Photo Recon Squadron
Known for War dog
First therapy dog
Owner William A. Wynne
Weight 4 pounds (1.8 kg)
Height 7 inches (180 mm)
Website
www.smokywardog.com

Smoky (c. 1943 – 21 February 1957), 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 beginning a renewal of interest in the once obscure Yorkshire Terrier breed.[1]

Biography
Arrival story

In February 1944, Smoky was found by an American soldier in an abandoned foxhole in the New Guinea jungle. She was already a young adult Yorkie (fully grown). The soldiers initially thought the small dog belonged to the Japanese, but after taking her to a nearby prisoner-of-war camp they realized she did not understand commands in Japanese or English. Another GI then sold Smoky to Corporal William A. Wynne of Cleveland, Ohio, for two Australian pounds (equal to $6.44 at that time)—the price paid to the seller so he could return to his poker game.[2][3]
Smoky's record in World War II

For the next two years, Smoky back-packed through the rest of the war and accompanied Wynne on combat flights in the Pacific. She faced adverse circumstances, living in the New Guinea jungle and Rock Islands, suffering the primitive conditions of tents in equatorial heat and humidity.[4] Throughout her service, Smoky slept in Wynne's tent on a blanket made from a green felt card table cover; she shared Wynne's C-rations and an occasional can of Spam. Unlike the "official" war dogs of World War II, Smoky had access to neither veterinary medicine nor a balanced diet formulated especially for dogs.[4] In spite of this, Smoky was never ill. She even ran on coral for four months without developing any of the paw ailments that plagued some war dogs.[4]

As described by Wynne, "Smoky Served in the South Pacific with the 5th Air Force, 26th Photo Recon 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 ward off enemy fighters. Smoky was credited with twelve combat missions and awarded eight battle stars. She survived 150 air raids on New Guinea and made it through a typhoon at Okinawa. Smoky even parachuted from 30 feet (9.1 m) in the air, out of a tree, using a parachute made just for her. Wynne credited Smoky with saving his life by warning him of incoming shells on an LST (transport ship), calling her an "angel from a foxhole." As the ship deck was booming and vibrating from anti-aircraft gunnery, Smoky guided Wynne to duck the fire that hit 8 men standing next to them.

In the down time, Smoky learned numerous tricks, which she performed for the entertainment of troops with Special Services and in hospitals from Australia to Korea. According to Wynne, Smoky taught him as much as he taught her, and she developed a repertoire beyond that of any dog of her day. In 1944, Yank Down Under magazine named Smoky the "Champion Mascot in the Southwest Pacific Area."

Smoky's tricks enabled her to become a hero in her own right by helping engineers to build an airbase at Lingayen Gulf, Luzon, a crucial airfield for Allied war planes. Early in the Luzon campaign, the Signal Corps needed to run a telegraph wire through a 70-foot-long (21 m) pipe that was 8 inches (200 mm) in diameter. Soil had sifted through the corrugated sections at the pipe joinings, filling as much as half of the pipe, giving Smoky only four inches of headway in some places. As Wynne himself told the story when he appeared on NBC-TV after World War II:

“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 prevented the need to have approximately 250 ground crewmen move around and keep operational, 40 United States fighters and reconnaissance planes, while a construction detail dug up the taxiway, placing the men and the planes in danger and possibly the peril of destruction by enemy bombings. What would have been a dangerous three-day digging task to place the wire was instead completed by this little dog in minutes.
After the War

At the end of their return, Wynne and Smoky were featured in a page one story with photographs, in the Cleveland Press on December 7, 1945. Smoky soon became a national sensation.[5] Over the next 10 years Smoky and Wynne traveled to Hollywood and all over the world to perform demonstrations of her remarkable skills, which included walking a tightrope while blindfolded.[3] She appeared with Wynne on some of the earliest TV shows in the Cleveland area, including a show of their own on Cleveland's WKYC Channel 3 called Castles in the Air, featuring some of Smoky’s unbelievable tricks.[8] Smoky performed in 42 live-television shows without ever repeating a trick.[3] Smoky and Wynne were also very popular entertainers at the veterans' hospitals. According to Wynne, “after the war Smoky entertained millions during late 1940s and early 1950s."[5]

On February 21, 1957, "Corporal" Smoky died unexpectedly at the approximate age of 14.

Wynne and his family buried Smoky in a World War II .30 Caliber Ammo Box in the Cleveland Metroparks, Rocky River Reservation in Lakewood, Ohio.

Nearly 50 years later, 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, was unveiled there. It is placed above the very spot that Smoky was laid at her final resting place.

This very special monument is dedicated to “Smoky, the Yorkie Doodle Dandy, and the Dogs of All Wars".

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The Dogs of the Navy SEALs
April 4, 2013 robodog-620x350
NavySEALs.com


When U.S. President Barack Obama went to Fort Campbell, Kentucky earlier for a highly publicized, but very private meeting with the commando team that killed Osama bin Laden, only one of the 81 members of the super-secret SEAL DevGru unit was identified by name: Cairo, the war dog. Cairo, like most canine members of the elite U.S. Navy SEALs, is a Belgian Malinois. The Malinois breed is similar to German shepherds but smaller and more compact, with an adult male weighing in the 30-kilo range.



Belgian Malinois Navy SEAL Dog

German shepherds are still used as war dogs by the American military but the lighter, stubbier Malinois is considered better for the tandem parachute jumping and rappelling operations often undertaken by SEAL teams. Labrador retrievers are also favoured by various military organizations around the world.

Like their human counterparts, the dog SEALs are highly trained, highly skilled, highly motivated special ops experts, able to perform extraordinary military missions by Sea, Air and Land (thus the acronym). The dogs carry out a wide range of specialized duties for the military teams to which they are attached: With a sense of smell 40 times greater than a human’s, the dogs are trained to detect and identify both explosive material and hostile or hiding humans. The dogs are twice as fast as a fit human, so anyone trying to escape is not likely to outrun Cairo or his buddies.



Airborne Dog!

The dogs, equipped with video cameras, also enter certain danger zones first, allowing their handlers to see what’s ahead before humans follow. As I mentioned before, SEAL dogs are even trained parachutists, jumping either in tandem with their handlers or solo, if the jump is into water. Last year canine parachute instructor Mike Forsythe and his dog Cara set the world record for highest man-dog parachute deployment, jumping from more than 30,100 feet up – the altitude transoceanic passenger jets fly at. Both Forsythe and Cara were wearing oxygen masks and skin protectors for the jump. Here’s a photo from that jump, taken by Andy Anderson for K9 Storm Inc. (more about those folks shortly).

As well, the dogs are faithful, fearless and ferocious – incredibly frightening and efficient attackers. When the SEAL DevGru team (usually known by its old designation, Team 6) hit bin Laden’s Pakistan compound on May 2, Cairo ‘s feet would have been four of the first on the ground. And like the human SEALs, Cairo was wearing super-strong, flexible body Armour and outfitted with high-tech equipment that included “doggles” – specially designed and fitted dog goggles with night-vision and infrared capability that would even allow Cairo to see human heat forms through concrete walls.

Now where on earth would anyone get that kind of incredibly niche hi-tech doggie gear? From Winnipeg, of all places. Jim and Glori Slater’s Manitoba hi-tech mom-and-pop business, K9 Storm Inc., has a deserved worldwide reputation for designing and manufacturing probably the best body Armour available for police and military dogs. Working dogs in 15 countries around the world are currently protected by their K9 Storm body Armour.



Highest Man-Dog Parachute Deployment

Jim Slater was a canine handler on the Winnipeg Police Force when he crafted a Kevlar protective jacket for his own dog, Olaf, in the mid-1990s. Soon Slater was making body Armour for other cop dogs, then the Canadian military and soon the world. The standard K9 Storm vest also has a load-bearing harness system that makes it ideal for tandem rappelling and parachuting.



Airborne Dog Enjoying a Tandem Jump

And then there are the special hi-tech add-ons that made the K9 Storm especially appealing to the U.S. Navy SEALs, who bought four of K9 Storm Inc.’s top-end Intruder “canine tactical assault suits” last year for $86,000. You can be sure Cairo was wearing one of those four suits when he jumped into bin Laden’s lair.

Here’s an explanation of all the K9 Storm Intruder special features:



K9 Storm Body Armour

Just as the Navy SEALS and other elite special forces are the sharp point of the American military machine, so too are their dogs at the top of a canine military hierarchy. In all, the U.S. military currently has about 2,800 active-duty dogs deployed around the world, with roughly 600 now in Afghanistan and Iraq. Several of the photos I have included here are from Foreign Policy, as you will see. Other photos are from K9 Storm Inc.



Air Assault Dogs

As for the ethics of sending dogs to war, that’s pretty much a moot point, don’t you think? If it’s ethical to send humans into combat, then why not dogs? The U.S. now treats its war dogs as full members of the military.