A Yorkie Doodle Dandy

A Hero Dog Story

This is my first story in a new regular series about a history of hero dogs that I intend to eventually compile in a book.

♫ I’m a Yorkie Doodle Dandy ♫

Her name was Smoky, but like every dog who is loved, she had more than one name. Yorkie Doodle Dandy was one such nickname, after the song “The Yankee Doodle Boy” from the 1904 Broadway musical Little Johnny Jones. The song and the musical are patriotic, but the tale is about a famed American horse racing jockey who traveled to Europe to compete. Smoky, conversely, traveled from New Guinea to the Philippines to Okinawa to fight in World War II.

A four-pound Yorkshire terrier as a war dog? Oh, yes. She was a hero who saved many lives with her canine courage.

She was found in an abandoned foxhole in the jungles of New Guinea in February of 1944 by an American soldier. She’d been trying to leap out but was too small. If a soldier had not seen her little golden head popping up, she’d have not survived. At first, they thought she’d been left behind by the Japanese, but she didn’t respond to any Japanese commands. Then they tried speaking to her in English and she again did that confused dog “Sorry pal I don’t know what the hell you’re saying can I have a treat?” face that dogs do.

The soldier who found her wasn’t much for wee dogs and needed money to get back into a poker game, so he sold her to 21-year-old Corporal Bill Wynne of Cleveland, Ohio, for a little under seven bucks U.S., which amounts to over $100 today. A considerable sum for a young man earning a soldier’s pay.

But Bill was willing to fork over the cash because he loved that little dog and taught her many tricks. The tricks played a role in her heroism. See, Smoky—the name that Wynne gave her—became recognized as the first ever therapy dog.

War is generally boring, except for the brief periods when it’s totally not. To relieve the tedium of waiting around for someone to shoot at you or try to blow you up, Wynne taught Smoky several tricks. Then he caught dengue fever and was sent to the hospital. A couple days into his convalescence his comrades brought Smoky for a visit. During the next few days Smoky slept with Wynne at night, but during the day the nurses took the wee dog on rounds to visit other patients, for whom she performed her tricks to boost their morale as they recovered from their wounds.

Wynne was discharged from the hospital and for the next two years Smoky was his constant companion in the jungles of the Pacific theatre, traveling in his backpack and sleeping in his tent with him. Wynne was an aerial reconnaissance photographer; Smoky joined him on a dozen air recon/rescue missions. The little dog also survived 150 air raids and was awarded eight battle stars. She eventually attained the rank of “Corporal” Smoky.

But Smoky was not an official war dog, so she didn’t get the veterinary treatment or balanced diet that other combat dogs did. Wynne fed her out of his own rations, and despite the oppressive nature of the jungle, she never got sick or seemed to suffer from the effects of the harsh environment as other dogs were prone to.

Wynne taught her additional tricks, including how to walk a tight rope, and while on furlough in Australia he took her to a few hospitals to provide a therapeutic diversion for the patients. “There's a complete change when we came into the room,” Wynne said. “They all smiled; they all loved her.” Smoky helped initiate the trend of using dogs for therapy to help patients in their mental recovery as they healed from their physical wounds.

It wasn’t just those in hospital who appreciated her presence, but soldiers in the field. A magazine called Yank Down Under named Smoky the “Champion mascot of the Southwest Pacific.” Being a morale booster is great, but Smoky did more than that. She displayed incredible courage to save men from having to complete a hazardous duty that would have certainly cost many lives.

Luzon is the largest of the Philippine Islands. The Allied airfield at Lingayen Gulf faced daily bombardment from Japanese aircraft, and it was hell on their communications, constantly blowing up telephone lines between the command center and three separate squadrons. The solution was for dozens of men to dig a trench by hand, which would have taken several days, while under the continual threat of enemy attack. But Smoky saved them from the perilous duty.

There was a 70-foot-long underground culvert that was only eight inches in diameter that would protect the phone lines. At the junctions of the pipe, every four feet, soil had seeped in so that it was a mere four inches wide. Wynne tied a kite string to the pup’s collar and ran to the other end of the pipe and called to the tiny terrier.

She went in a few feet and then said oh hell no and turned around and came back out. Wynne then called her in a sharp voice, “Come, Smoky,” and she did her duty. Her paws kicked up dust in the pipe so she couldn’t see, but Wynne continued to plead for her to come, and come she did. Squeezing her tiny body past narrow passages filled with soil, she whimpered in fear. Smoky finally saw her owner with 15 feet left and broke into a run. “We were so happy,” Wynne said. “We patted and praised her for a full five minutes.”

The kite string was used to pull the telephone lines through the pipe. What would have taken four dozen men days of work and cost an unknowable number of lives in the process, Smoky did in two minutes.

Corporal Bill Wynne, who fathered nine children and lived to be 99, took Smoky back to Ohio after the war. The dog became a national sensation, receiving much media coverage and performing her tricks in Hollywood and around the world. She also continued to tour hospitals as a therapy dog for recuperating soldiers, who appreciated the diversion she provided. “She was just an instrument of love,” Wynne said.

Smoky lived for another dozen years after the war, dying in 1957 at approximately 14 years of age. There are six official memorials to her in the U.S.

Want to read another free hero dog story? This one is about Pep, who was framed for a cat murder.