December 27, 2011
The Dogs of War
A U.S. Army soldier with the 10th Special Forces Group and his military working dog jump off the ramp of a CH-47 Chinook helicopter during water training over the Gulf of Mexico, March 2011. Photo by Tech. Sgt. Manuel J. Martinez, U.S. Air Force/DoD.
Susan Orlean writes in her book Rin Tin Tin that at the outset of World War II, the movie-star dog reported with his owner Lee Duncan to Camp Haan, “where he was tattooed with his army serial number and rank (sergeant), and put through the same six-week training as the other dogs.
“As in World War I, the dogs were trained as sentries, messengers, scouts, mine detectors, airplane spotters, and cadaver dogs. The U.S. Army Air Corps also began experimenting with dropping the dogs by parachute behind enemy lines. (One accounting of the program states that a purebred boxer named Jeff ‘made thirteen jumps, twelve successfully.’)”
Wait…airplane spotters?
Yep, that’s right; according to author Orlean and Ron Aiello, who maintains the United States War Dogs Association Web site, the information is taken from an Army pamphlet describing what types of jobs Dogs for Defense might undertake for the war effort—not necessarily tasks they actually did. (We’re still not sure how the airplane spotting was supposed to work. Possibly the dogs would have been trained to tell one airplane engine from another by sound?)
Courtesy Simon & Schuster.
In 1958, Anna M. Waller wrote a study called “Dogs and National Defense” for the Department of the Army. In her history she notes that of the more than 10,000 dogs trained during World War II, their tasks were broken down as follows: sentry (9,295), scout (571), sled and pack (263), messenger (151), mine detection (140).
Today, there are about 650 dogs—helping to detect explosives—currently being used by the American military in Afghanistan and Iraq. As the New York Times reported on December 1, when American soldiers leave Iraq, their bomb-sniffing dogs will remain behind.
This is sad news for animal lovers, but we bring you a story of a bomb-sniffing dog with a happy ending: Sergeant Rex, by Mike Dowling and Damien Lewis, just published this month by Simon & Schuster. Read an excerpt on Amazon.
That’s an amazing picture. It’s staggering to think you convince a dog to jump off a ramp like that, let alone do it again!
Cheers
Comment by Nigel Blackwell — December 29, 2011 @ 8:17 pm
Bummer. I thought this was going to be an entertaining article, but it instead turned out to be a brief advertisement for a book. Lame.
Comment by Ratava99 — January 2, 2012 @ 4:30 pm
To Nigel Blackwell — The dog didn’t jump. The soldier held the dog in his arms and tossed it as he was jumping himself. You don’t want your dog to jump prematurely!
Comment by Ratava99 — January 2, 2012 @ 4:33 pm
I have one of the best breed K9s you can get. Jack is 140lbs and physicaly the strongest fitest dog I have ever seen. Let me tell you until you have had a working K9b sheppard you can not imagine what these dogs are like. They are the most loyal, smartest and protective dogs ( and wepon grade leathal ) in the world. If I jumped off that ramp Jack would be right with me on command. He will not leave my side and I don’t have to lock my doors. Yeh I was a liitle disapointed in the article.
Comment by Glenn — January 3, 2012 @ 10:58 am