| NAME: | Stubby |
| SPECIES: | Pit bull |
| DATE: | 1917 to 1926 |
| LOCATION: | France |
| SITUATION: | World War I |
| WHO WAS SAVED: | American soldiers |
| LEGACY: | “Grandfather of American War Dogs,” most-honored canine in US military history |
The “Grandfather of American War Dogs” was an untrained stray who was smuggled to the battlefront solely to boost morale. While Stubby became a true life-saver, his origins were telling. Today, working military dogs are intensely trained for a range of very specific jobs (like bomb detection, see page 166), and yet, invariably, handlers and soldiers say they would treasure these dogs for their companionship alone.
This experience seems to be universal. Dogs don’t just humanize war, they humanize the warrior. And the gratitude military personnel express for the presence of dogs (for instance, see page 76) is probably one reason why war dog stories often feel, and sometimes are, exaggerated. A dog’s individual efforts often do directly save soldiers’ lives, but a dog’s unflagging companionship always provides soldiers with relief from the trauma of battle.
LEARNING TO SALUTE
America officially entered World War I in the spring of 1917. One day that summer—as the 102nd Infantry of the 26th Yankee Division was training at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut—a stray, short-tailed pit bull puppy wandered onto the parade grounds, fascinated by the soldiers. Private J. Robert Conroy adopted him, named him Stubby, and taught him the drills, the bugle calls, and even how to salute, so that on command Stubby placed his right paw over his right eye.
Though dogs were forbidden in camp, Stubby was allowed to stay because the soldiers enjoyed him so much. In October, when the division shipped out to join the war in France, Conroy smuggled Stubby aboard the SS Minnesota, hiding him in a coal bin.
Not long after disembarking in France, Conroy’s commanding officer discovered this unauthorized member of their unit. As legend has it, the disapproving CO was won over when Stubby performed his crisp salute, and he immediately approved the dog as their official mascot.
GAS ATTACKS AND GERMAN SPIES
In February 1918, the 102nd Infantry was sent to the front lines in northern France. Within days, Stubby acclimated himself to the violence of battle, but a poison gas attack nearly killed him. Stubby was sent to a hospital to recover, but soon returned to his unit, now with a new skill: an extreme sensitivity to gas.
In WWI, Red Cross “mercy dogs” performed a service that was specific to that conflict’s warfare: They were trained to scour the deadly no man’s land between the opposing, unmoving trenches to find and tend to wounded soldiers.
Every European nation used mercy dogs, which the Germans called “sanitary dogs”; only America did not, since they arrived late to the war and had no dog program in place. Some estimate that as many as ten thousand mercy dogs were used in all, and they saved uncounted thousands of lives, though this represented only a tiny fraction of that war’s millions of casualties.
Mercy dogs typically wore a saddlebag containing medical supplies and small canteens of water and liquor. Working mostly at night, and trained not to bark, they would sniff their way across the pitted, smoking land, ignoring the corpses.
Once a mercy dog found a wounded man, the soldier could, if he was conscious and mobile, tend to his own wounds and then follow the dog back to the trenches. If the man was immobile or unconscious, the dog would take some article, like a helmet or piece of clothing, return with it to the trench as a signal, and then lead paramedics back to the wounded man.
In addition, large dogs transported wounded soldiers from the front lines to rear medical stations by pulling two-wheeled carts. Dogs were uniquely suited for this role, much more so than ambulances or horses: dogs could travel independently, presented small targets, and were cheap to maintain. Plus, they required no spare parts.
Occasionally, individual mercy dogs achieved recognition for their extraordinary feats. A French dog named Captain once located thirty wounded men in a single day, while a French dog named Prusco was credited with finding a hundred men during the course of a single battle.
Afterward, Stubby became the division’s early warning system, alerting soldiers to the presence of poison chemicals and giving them time to don their gas masks—while soldiers also fit Stubby with his own. One time, during a predawn gas attack, Stubby alone saved the sleeping troops by running along the trench, barking and nipping and waking everyone in time.
Stubby frequently left the trenches as well. He proved adept at finding wounded soldiers while on patrol in the no man’s land between the opposing sides. Apparently, upon recognizing the sound of spoken English, he would go to the soldier, then either bark to guide paramedics to the location or help the soldier find his way back to the trenches.
On one such patrol, Stubby came across a German spy mapping the Allied positions. Identifying the enemy, Stubby barked furiously and attacked, biting him in the leg (or in some versions, the butt) and not letting go. Attracted by the ruckus, American troops arrived and captured the spy, and afterward the commanding officer of the 102nd promoted Stubby to the rank of “sergeant”—making Stubby the first dog to achieve any rank in the US Army.
A BLANKETFUL OF MEDALS
In April 1918, Stubby accompanied the 102nd Infantry during a raid on the German-held town of Schieprey. This time, as Stubby jumped out of the trenches to join the fight, a grenade exploded nearby, peppering his chest and legs with shrapnel.
Stubby survived, but required several surgeries, and as he recovered, he visited other wounded soldiers, bringing them the unique salve of canine comfort. Then, once healed, he returned to the 102nd Infantry and continued to support his unit in combat.
After helping recapture Chateau-Thierry, Stubby was presented with a fitted blanket made by the town’s grateful women. From then on, the blanket was used to hold his growing number of medals, badges, and mementos—such as the confiscated Iron Cross from the captured German spy.
By war’s end, “Sergeant Stubby” had participated in seventeen battles over the course of eighteen months, and he returned home a bona fide war hero. US newspapers, which had already excitedly publicized his exploits, now fueled a postwar fame that no dog had ever known and which no dog may ever experience again.
Stubby was showered with medals for heroism, including one presented by General John Pershing, the commanding general of the US forces during WWI. Stubby visited the White House twice and met three presidents: Woodrow Wilson, Warren G. Harding, and Calvin Coolidge. He was also made a lifetime member of the American Legion, the Red Cross, and the YMCA. Hardly a military parade was held without Stubby leading the troops wearing his blanketful of medals.
After the hoopla died down, Robert Conroy went to Georgetown University to study law, and Stubby went with him, becoming the mascot of the school’s football team. One story claims that Stubby’s on-field antics during each halftime became the inspiration for modern football’s halftime show.
Stubby died in 1926, but he remains a national treasure. His preserved body, wearing his famous blanket, is now a permanent part of the Smithsonian’s WWI collection in the National Museum of American History.