The men lifted the limping dog and gently removed the mask, pulling a tube from around his neck to read the message inside: "For God's sake, hold on. He started to run again, this time on three legs, his lame limb hanging useless as he ran until, finally, he reached the safety of the French trenches. But, having heard his handler's voice again, Satan mustered the strength to lift himself off the ground. Seeing his dog go down, Duval climbed out of the trench, exposing himself to enemy fire so that he could call once more to Satan. Then another caught him in the leg, breaking it, and he faltered again, this time hitting the ground. But Satan continued on, maneuvering in the crisscross pattern he'd been trained to follow, even as bullets snapped the air around him and exploding shells threw up shrapnel and chunks of smoking earth.Ī bullet clipped the dog and he stumbled. The Germans unloaded their arsenal in an all-out attempt to stop this one dog. Leaping over the cratered earth, Satan raced toward the sound of his handler's voice so fast that some of the men later swore he was flying. Duval called out to the dog, urging him on. Then one of the soldiers, a handler named Duval, recognized the animal as his own-a messenger dog named Satan. It was wearing a monstrous gas mask, and something was stretched across its shoulders that extended almost like wings. From a distance it was difficult to tell exactly what the charging four-legged creature was. A large, black animal was bounding in their direction. The French troops cautiously peered over the top of their trenches. With food and ammunition depleted and the men's hopes waning, the Germans unleashed a fresh onslaught of artillery and gunfire. And although one dog had managed to successfully deliver seven messages, he too had been killed. The scorched and cratered terrain beyond their trenches was too exposed for any human to cross-seven men had already been cut down trying to deliver messages to command. Telephone and telegraph lines were down, and no homing pigeons remained to send word. For days they had managed to hold off the Germans, but no one had come to relieve them. They had been told by the French command to hold their position until reinforcements could be sent. (Read "The Dogs of War" in the June issue of National Geographic magazine.)Įrnest Harold Baynes, a reporter who documented the use of animals during World War I, wrote, "The fame of the war dogs may well rest on the splendid work they actually did it needs no support from the stories of what some of the sentimentalists would like to believe they did."ĭuring World War I, at the 1916 Battle of Verdun, a small contingent of French soldiers found themselves boxed in by German forces. In the coming days, we take a look back at a handful (of the many thousands) of war dogs whose stories are powerful testaments to the important roles they played in saving lives-and lifting spirits. Started in World War II and continuing through Korea and Vietnam, today the Military Working Dog Program deploys dogs to Iraq and Afghanistan. War Department, emulating successful war dog programs in Europe, finally set into motion the military dog program that would evolve (and lapse and evolve again) over the next several decades. It wasn't until the onset of World War II that the U.S. Unauthorized use is prohibited.īeginning with the Revolutionary War and through World War I, dogs had a mostly unofficial presence alongside American soldiers, coming to combat either as a beloved pet of a general, as a mascot, or as the stray-made-companion of an obliging soldier.
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