A Dog To Remember

Among the articles I read this Memorial Day about heroes and generations past that accomplished great things without the benefit of cell phones, Google, or oat milk, was one concerning the discovery of the original letter announcing the award of the Dickin Medal to Judy of Sussex.  To the many who have never heard of the Dickin Medal, in Britain it is the equivalent of the Victory Cross, but for animals.  But who was Judy of Sussex, you ask?  Well, that’s a story.

Judy was an English pointer serving as a ship’s dog — or mascot — in the British Navy.  She served on two different Yangtze River Gunboats in China, the second of which — HMS Grasshopper — moved down to Singapore shortly after the start of WWII.  While still in China, she helped save her ship by barking to alert her sleeping crewmates of approaching Yangtze River pirates, but her real exploits would come later. (READ MORE from Brandon Crocker: History Is More Complex Than Ideology)

Singapore was supposed to be impregnable.  But on December 10th, 1941 the Japanese sank the battleship HMS Prince of Wales and cruiser HMS Repulse, and the Imperial Japanese Army was making its way relentlessly down the Malay Peninsula, pushing on towards Singapore whose large defensive guns where designed to repel attacks from the sea. On the evening of February 13, 1942, HMS Grasshopper and her sister ship, HMS Dragonfly, were the last significant vessels to leave Singapore before the British surrender on February 15th.  Dragonfly was filled largely with soldiers; Grasshopper was overflowing mostly with civilian evacuees — and Judy.

On the morning of February 14th, Dragonfly and Grasshopper where spotted by a Japanese sea plane, and a few hours later they were attacked by dozens of Japanese aircraft.  Dragonfly was hit and sunk.  Grasshopper was also hit but was able to beach itself about 100 yards from a small island.  The Japanese planes strafed the Grasshopper and the inflatable life boats making their way to the island, but many of the crew and passengers reached the island safely. Judy was not among them.

After the Japanese planes vanished, a detail of Royal Marines searched the island for a source of fresh water, but found nothing.  So a crew member, Lt. George White, swam the shark-infested waters back to the smoldering Grasshopper to try to retrieve supplies.  There he discovered Judy half submerged in the water, trapped under a row of fallen metal lockers.  White brought Judy, along with some supplies, back to the island, but they were still without fresh water — until Judy dug up a natural spring high on the beach. That kept the survivors alive for several days until a rescue boat picked them up (along with a few survivors from the Dragonfly).

Judy and some of the surviving crews of Grasshopper and Dragonfly eventually made their way on foot across the island of Sumatra (Judy surviving a crocodile attack on the way) only to end up in the hands of the Japanese. Judy was then interred with her human friends in a series of hellish POW camps where she proved her worth catching rats and snakes to supplement her own and the POWs’ meager rations. She would also meet an RAF radar man named Frank Williams, with whom she would form a close bond.  

The camp in which Judy and Williams met was run by a Colonel Banno. In order to provide some protection for Judy from the often cruel and sadistic guards, Williams convinced Banno to make Judy a POW, making her the only officially registered animal POW.  But Banno would soon leave and his successor did not care for dogs, or for the fact that Judy gave the men comfort, so when they were to move to a new camp via an old freighter, he commanded that Judy be left behind. Williams, however, devised a plan to smuggle Judy on board in a canvas sack.

Unfortunately, the unmarked freighter travelling in a convoy of other Japanese vessels was torpedoed by a British submarine. Williams was able to push Judy out of a porthole of the sinking ship and then tried to find an avenue for his own escape.  Les Searle, a member of the Dragonfly crew who made the trek across Sumatra with Judy, reported seeing her helping a drowning POW before she, herself, was pulled into a fishing boat.  

Colonel Banno just happened to be on the docks at Singapore and witnessed the bedraggled POWs disembarking, which proved fortuitous for Judy. Peter Hartley, who wrote an exceptional memoir of his experiences as a POW called Escape to Captivity (long out of print and hard to find) movingly described what then happened:

As soon as the wounded had been landed and lodged in the waiting lorries, the rest of the prisoners were ordered to disembark.  There followed an anxious moment when the guards attempted to throw Judy back into the sea, but the old colonel [Banno] stepped forward in the nick of time and ordered her reprieve.  As he bent down to pat her he atoned for many of his past cruelties in the eyes of those who were anxiously watching the drama enacted.

Judy and Williams would be reunited in Singapore but then were sent off to an even more brutal experience being forced to build a railway across Sumatra.  In defense of her fellow captives, she would be shot at, kicked at, and near the end, ordered to be exterminated.  But she survived.  And it was Judy’s barking that notified her campmates that the Japanese guards had fled and British paratroopers had arrived.

After the war, Williams would adopt Judy, and Judy would live her final days with Williams on a farm in Tanganyika (now Tanzania).

There have been a few books written about Judy. The best is No Better Friend by Robert Weintraub (2015).  There is also Damien Lewis’ Judy (2014).  Much of the material for both these books comes from The Judy Story (1973), compiled by Edwin Varley from the reminiscences of four Royal Navy veterans who shared many of Judy’s experiences.  A few years ago, I also wrote a screenplay treatment which, tragically, has not been produced.  I was able to use some of my research on that project, however, for my novel, Burma Road, (which is not about Judy, but does have a British soldier escaping from the fall of Singapore). (READ MORE: Globalism in Trade Is No Vice)

The bronze plaque that Frank Williams made for Judy’s final resting place in Tanzania has long since vanished.  But we can and should still remember her and the history of which she was a part.

Brandon Crocker is the author of the novel Burma Road (Moonshine Cove, 2024).

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