12 Animals Who Have Won Bravery Medals Throughout History

Think of an award for military valor or bravery, and chances are you’ll think of the Medal of Honor, or the UK’s famous Victoria Cross. But such are the events of wartime that it’s often not just the human war effort that plays a part in securing victory. Since the World Wars, a number of prizes have recognized the bravery of animals whose work during times of conflict has been truly extraordinary. TYKE, WHITE VISION, WINKIE, 1943BEACH COMBER, GUSTAV, PADDY, 1944ROB, 1945 THORN, 1945 GI JOE, 1946 SIMON, 1949 STAFF SERGEANT RECKLESS, 2019CHIPS, 2018 and 2019 TYKE, WHITE VISION, WINKIE, 1943Reg Speller/GettyImagesEstablished in 1917, the PDSA, or People’s Dispensary for Sick Animals, is a major British veterinary organization and charity. Named after its founder, Maria Dickin, in 1943, the PDSA introduced the Dickin Medal to recognize the acts of bravery of animals in wartime. The prize’s first honorees were three homing pigeons—Tyke, White Vision, and Winkie—who were awarded the medal on December 2, 1943, for delivering messages that had led to the successful rescue of three separate ditched British aircrew. White Vision in particular was forced to fly through extraordinarily rough conditions after the flying boat on which she had been housed was forced to ditch in the North Atlantic, off the coast of Scotland’s Hebrides islands. Despite conditions being so poor that no rescue aircraft could be safely launched to rescue the crew, White Vision flew for nine hours back to her pigeon loft, delivering the ditched crew’s precise location and leading to the safe return of all eleven crewmen just 18 hours later. BEACH COMBER, GUSTAV, PADDY, 1944Carrier Pigeons Away | PhotoQuest/GettyImagesThree more pigeons who received some of the first Dickin medals were named Beach Comber, Gustav, and Paddy, who were given their prizes on September 1, 1944. Beach Comber, a Canadian homing pigeon, was the first pigeon to bring news of the Dieppe landings in 1942; Gustav brought the first message home from the Normandy beaches on D-Day in 1944; and Paddy set the fastest recorded time for a message sent home on D-Day, flying the 230 miles home to England across the English Channel from Normandy in just 4 hours and 50 minutes. ROB, 1945 Captain Albert Ball, World War I Ace | Hulton Deutsch/GettyImagesAn English crossbreed collie dog named Rob served with the 2nd Special Air Service Regiment during World War II, and earned the nickname “Para Dog” for taking part in no less than 20 parachute drops into enemy territory, chiefly in North Africa. He was awarded the Dickin Medal for bravery on January 22, 1945. THORN, 1945 German Shepherd | FPG/GettyImagesA number of British dogs were awarded the Dickin Medal in the 1940s for their efforts in sniffing out and locating casualties trapped beneath the rubble of bombed buildings during the Blitz, but an Alsatian named Thorn’s story is perhaps the most extraordinary. In 1945, he was awarded the dog for having run into a burning building, and successfully located someone trapped inside despite the flames and thick smoke. GI JOE, 1946 Bettmann/GettyImagesAccording to the official citation, a pigeon named GI Joe “is credited with making the most outstanding flight by a U.S. Army pigeon in World War II.” Incredibly, Joe flew 20 miles in just 20 minutes, delivering a message that arrived just in time to save the lives of more than 100 Allied soldiers from being bombed.SIMON, 1949 Getty ImagesThe only cat ever awarded the Dickin Medal was HMS Amethyst’s ship’s cat, Simon, in 1949. The award recognized his “disposing of many rats, though wounded by shell blast,” on board the ship during the so-called Yangtze Incident, during the Chinese Civil War in the late 1940s. STAFF SERGEANT RECKLESS, 2019Bettmann/GettyImagesIn 2019, the United States introduced its own version of the Dickin Medal, named the Animals in War & Peace Medal of Bravery. It has since been awarded more than 20 times, but among its first honorees were a number of posthumous recipients, including a war horse named Staff Sergeant Reckless that served with the Recoilless Rifle Platoon during the Korean War. CHIPS, 2018 and 2019 Carl Iwasaki/GettyImagesHusky crossbreed Chips was posthumously awarded both the Dickin Medal in 2018 and the US Animals in War & Peace Medal of Bravery in 2019, in recognition of his service during World War II. Among an extraordinarily storied military career in North Africa and Sicily, Chips even found time to meet with Prime Minister Winston Churchill and US President Franklin D Roosevelt at the wartime Casablanca Conference in 1943. Read More: