Judy

She was born in the Shanghai Dog Kennels in 1936 and taken as ship's dog aboard the gunboat HMS Gnat, where she learned to hear approaching aircraft before the lookouts did. She transferred to HMS Grasshopper, and in February 1942 the Grasshopper was bombed and sunk off Singapore. The survivors reached an uninhabited island with no fresh water; Judy, who had been trapped below and pulled out through a porthole, dug at the sand where the tide had gone out and opened a freshwater spring. They walked and sailed to Sumatra and were captured. In the camp at Gloergoer, near Medan, she met Leading Aircraftman Frank Williams, who shared his rice with her, and he got the camp commandant drunk enough to register her as prisoner of war 81A — the only dog ever formally recorded as one. She placed herself between guards and prisoners often enough to be beaten and shot at, and the men hid her in rice sacks when the camp moved. When their ship, the SS Van Waerwijck, was torpedoed in 1944, Williams pushed her out of a porthole and she swam among the wreckage helping men reach debris. They survived two more camps and came home in 1945. She was awarded the Dickin Medal the following year and Williams the White Cross of St Giles, and they went out to East Africa together on a groundnut scheme. She died there in February 1950, and Williams spent two months building her a memorial of marble and stone.

Loved by · Frank Williams

Honours

• 1942Dug a freshwater spring from the sand of an island where the survivors had none
• 1942Registered as prisoner of war 81A at Medan — the only dog ever formally so recorded
• 1944Kept men afloat among the wreckage after the SS Van Waerwijck was torpedoed
• 1946Dickin Medal, for magnificent courage and endurance in Japanese prison camps
• 1946Frank Williams awarded the PDSA White Cross of St Giles for saving her life

Their kind

A gundog bred to find birds and freeze, holding the point for as long as it takes. The stillness is the whole of the work.

A life in seasons