Gander

He was a Newfoundland called Pal, the pet of a family in Gander, who pulled children on a sled and was given to the Royal Rifles of Canada after he accidentally scratched a child's face and the alternative was having him put down. The regiment renamed him, made him a sergeant, and took him to Hong Kong in 1941. The Japanese assault on the island began on 18 December. At Lye Mun, in the dark, Gander twice charged advancing infantry — enough of a shock in a night action that some of the accounts written afterwards are from the men who watched him do it. Later that night a grenade landed among a group of wounded Canadians lying in the open. He picked it up in his mouth and carried it away from them. It killed him. The soldiers who survived went into three and a half years of captivity and told the story when they came home, and it stayed with the Hong Kong veterans for the rest of their lives. In 2000 the Dickin Medal was revived to award him — the first in half a century — and his name is inscribed with the men's on the Hong Kong Veterans Memorial Wall in Ottawa.

Loved by · Fred Kelly, The Royal Rifles of Canada

Honours

• 1941Twice charged advancing infantry at Lye Mun in a night action
• 1941Carried a live grenade away from wounded Canadians and was killed by the blast
• 2000Dickin Medal — the first awarded in fifty years, and the revival of the medal itself
• 2009Named with the men on the Hong Kong Veterans Memorial Wall, Ottawa

Their kind

Bred on the Grand Banks to haul nets and pull people out of cold water, with webbed feet, a double coat and the lung capacity to swim in a swell.

A life in seasons