Chips

He was a mongrel of German shepherd, collie and husky from the Wren family of Pleasantville, New York, donated to the Army's Dogs for Defense programme in 1942 after biting a refuse collector. He was trained as a sentry, shipped to North Africa, and stood guard at the Casablanca Conference where Roosevelt and Churchill met. On 10 July 1943 his patrol landed at Blue Beach in Sicily and was pinned down by a machine gun firing from what had looked like a peasant hut. Chips broke his lead and went into the pillbox alone. There was a burst of fire and a good deal of noise, and then an Italian soldier came out with the dog at his throat, followed by three more with their hands up. He had powder burns and a scalp wound. That night he helped take ten more prisoners. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, the Silver Star and the Purple Heart, and all three were revoked within months when the War Department ruled that decorations for valour could not go to an animal. His unit gave him a theatre ribbon with an arrowhead for the assault landing instead, and he wore it. He was discharged in 1945, went home to Pleasantville, and died there the following year. The Dickin Medal reached him in 2018.

Loved by · John P. Rowell, The Wren family

Honours

• 1943Took a machine-gun pillbox alone at Blue Beach, Sicily; four crew surrendered
• 1943Helped capture ten more prisoners the same night, wounded
• 1943Distinguished Service Cross, Silver Star and Purple Heart — all revoked by War Department policy
• 1943Stood guard at the Casablanca Conference
• 2018Dickin Medal, seventy-two years after his death

Their kind

Standardised in 1899 from German herding stock for a working temperament rather than a look, and adopted by police and armies within a decade.

A life in seasons