For my final blog post of this semester, let’s keep it short and sweet because I have found the best boy there was in World War II. His name was Gunner. And he was a dog.
After an air raid on Darwin on February 19th, 1942, Percy Westcott found a black-and-white kelpie pup with a broken leg. He quickly became the owner of this little dog. He was named Gunner in the hospital, with patient number 0000. This caused him to officially enter the records of the RAAF. Only a week later, the personnel would see just how amazing this little dog was.
Gunner, while out on the daily routine at the airfield, began to become extremely upset, barking and jumping around. Shortly afterwards, the sound of the Japanese planes could be heard, and minutes later they were above. A few days later, the same pattern repeated: Gunner would get upset, then japanese airplanes would be heard, then there would be an air raid. The official system gave less of a warning than the dog did.
This discovery led Gunner to be taken very seriously. Gunner was able to warn RAAF personnel of incoming Japanese aircrafts up to twenty minutes before they arrived. Gunner’s owner Percy Westcott was even given a personal air raid siren that he was allowed to activate if Gunner was giving warning signs about incoming planes. His hearing was so acute that he was even able to differentiate enemy and friendly planes.
Gunner lived in Darwin for the rest of his life and was very close with the RAAF, sleeping in their bunks, watching movies with them, and even going on planes for practice take-offs and landings. Eventually Westcott was assigned to go to melbourne, leaving Gunner behind with the RAAF. Gunner’s fate it unknown, but his assistance to the RAAF and in the war effort shall not be forgotten.
Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunner_(dog)
http://www.territorystories.nt.gov.au/bitstream/handle/10070/232267/ntn21apr11716x.pdf?sequence=64
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/127064960?searchTerm=A%20man%27s%20very%20best%20friend%20in%20a%20nasty%20situation&searchLimits=
I think that this is a very sweet post. I also wonder did you find out anything else on why he was able to detect the Japanese aircrafts or was it just in general that he was able to tell when any aircraft where near?
ReplyDeleteI fully agree in that Gunner was the best thing I've learned about WW2. One question I did have was how were other animals used in the war effort? Was this just a special case, or were a majority of dogs used to detect planes and air raids because of their sharp hearing?
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