The Animals’ VC: For Gallantry and Devotion

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As well as its vital work treating the pets of people in need, PDSA has a long and proud tradition of recognising the bravery and devotion of animals in times of conflict. From pigeons flying behind enemy lines in World War II to Army dogs sniffing out explosive devices in Afghanistan, the charity has rightly drawn our attention to the life-saving deeds of our four-legged and feathered friends.

Commemorating the feats of ‘those who also serve’ is a valuable reminder that, no matter how sophisticated we become, there are some things that technology can never do as accurately and efficiently as these humble and noble creatures. It is fitting that we remember them in this way, and I hope this book, like the PDSA Dickin Medal itself, succeeds in raising the status of all animals in our society.

As People’s Dispensary for Sick Animals was established during the Great War to address one serious aspect of the growing problem of poverty in London’s East End it was perhaps inevitable that the initiative for the Allied Forces Mascot Club in the next war should have come from this same pioneering animal charity.

From its base in central London the club – unusual in that it had no human members – was created to recognise the increasingly important role being played by regimental and other service mascots. The membership as such included quite a motley collection of dogs, goats, birds, monkeys and at least one fox. Before long it expanded to accommodate many other service animals whose more specialised training saw them working alongside men and women on the home and battle fronts, out at sea and eventually even deep into enemy-held territory.

Having decided to acknowledge these animals’ valuable contribution in this way, in 1943 the club took the natural step of honouring them too. Most obviously this was done with the introduction of the PDSA Dickin Medal, the only award of its type instituted during World War II and one which was established with the authority of the War Office behind it and the full support of the Imperial War Museum.

It was named for the charity’s founder, the animal welfare pioneer Maria Elisabeth Dickin CBE (1870–1951). A formidable social reformer in her time and extremely well connected, Mrs Dickin recognised that such an award – besides being a real and significant morale booster in terrible times – would also serve to highlight the important work being done by the PDSA at home and abroad and thus help boost much-needed contributions from donors.

From the first the medal quickly became known around the world as the Animals’ VC, in part because even at the height of the war such awards were only rarely made, but also because the circumstances leading to an award being made were never anything less than truly exceptional. The Dickin Medal was also unique and remains so in that consideration can only be given to the presentation of the award following a nomination from a recognised authority – one of the three services, for example, the police or another law enforcement agency, or an accredited organisation such as the United Nations.

Again like the Victoria Cross the medal itself is deliberately sober in design, a simple but large and weighty garlanded bronze medallion bearing the simple legends ‘For Gallantry’ and ‘We Also Serve’. It is worn suspended from a tricolour ribbon, with the dark green, brown and blue symbolising the three services and the sea, land and air in which they fight. (Early Victoria Crosses similarly sported a red ribbon for army recipients and a blue one for navy until the latter was abolished following the formation of the Royal Air Force in 1918.)

From its inception every member of the AFMC was entitled to a membership badge – something akin to a campaign or service medal for combatants – but the Dickin Medal was conceived from the start as something very special indeed, to recognise only the most outstanding examples of gallantry and devotion. Because of this, and while it has been awarded to a variety of horses, dogs, one cat and British and Allied birds who have seen action or engaged with the enemy in many different countries around the globe, a mere 63 medals have been struck in nearly 70 years.

The very first awards made were to birds, three carrier pigeons involved in locating downed aircrew by providing important clues as to their likely positions. These birds must be counted among the many hundreds of thousands of such creatures which, volunteered by their owners, provided Allied forces with the sort of fast and secure communications that genuinely saved lives. More recently medals have been presented to trained specialist dogs engaged in hunting arms and explosives in the Gulf and Afghanistan, and to those aiding the massive rescue and recovery operation in central New York which followed the shattering attacks of 9/11.

Wherever the animals served, the citations for all 63 medal recipents stand first and foremost as an appropriate and solemn monument to the animals themselves. Looking back, their stories also provide us with unique and vivid snapshots of their respective actions and the background of war or terror against which these were played out, and of course as such they prove by turns engaging and uplifting and, as often, sad and deeply moving.

This has not prevented people debating at length the very concept of courage or bravery when applied to an animal, particularly when for example it could be argued that a carrier pigeon does what it does by instinct rather than by deliberation. What can not be doubted, however, is the often critically important contribution these and other animals have made and continue to make on the front line and closer to home.

They do this not just by exercising the skills peculiar to their species but also by providing solace, genuine companionship and a morale-boosting presence which, when facing the very extremes of danger, men and women, both military and civilian, recognise and depend upon.

Thirty-two birds, twenty-seven dogs, three Metropolitan Police horses and Simon the ship’s cat – the stories of all 63 recipients provide a fascinating insight into an aspect of war, one which has begun to be told only quite recently. Some may find the notion of the medal a touch eccentric, but these animals and their achievements are an important part of history and as such this book is a roll-call of names which need to be heard and remembered.

To their friends and supporters there was never any doubt that as individuals the animals deserved the recognition that the award of a Dickin Medal brought them. Consider too that each animal in this book is representative of scores, hundreds or even thousands of others: animal heroes whose service to humanity should never go unnoticed, and upon whom lives have depended and, on occasion, history itself can genuinely be said to have hinged.

1943: The Dickin Medal, much like the Victoria Cross, is deliberately simple and sombre yet instantly recognisable. Created by The People’s Dispensary for Sick Animals, explicitly to acknowledge the invaluable contribution that animals have made to the lives of men and women in times of war, it is named after the charity’s founder, Mrs Maria Dickin CBE.

(This picture and next) The PDSA cemetery at Ilford on London’s Essex fringe is the final resting place of a dozen Dickin Medal recipients. Established in the 1920s, in recent years the PDSA cemetery has been beautifully restored by supporters and volunteers with the help of funding from the People’s Millions and the National Lottery. Designed as a place of quiet contemplation for animal lovers, the garden reflects the colours of the PDSA Dickin Medal ribbon – green, brown and pale blue to symbolise the sea, land and air forces – and is home to a number of moving memorials to these silent heroes. Many of the animals’ graves were restored with new headstones where needed, and a special Garden of Remembrance was designed for the site by Bob Flowerdew of BBC Radio 4’s Gardeners’ Question Time.

1945: A popular mascot of one of the wartime PDSA Rescue Squads, Beauty was an early pioneer in the field of urban search and rescue. Unprompted, the wire-haired terrier took it upon herself to provide a vital service seeking out scores of trapped and injured victims of the London Blitz (see here).

1946: Judy the English pointer, who became the only official canine POW of World War II (see here). Facing death on numerous occasions, and coming close to starvation, her magnificent courage and endurance in a number of different Japanese prison camps helped to maintain morale among her fellow prisoners. Judy is also credited with saving many lives through her intelligence, watchfulness and determination.

1947: Volunteered for service in 1944, Ricky was engaged in clearing the verges of the canal bank at Nederweert in Holland (see here). He found all the mines but during the operation one of them exploded, wounding the dog in the head. Ricky nevertheless remained calm and kept working, providing invaluable aid to the rest of his section working nearby.

1947: Honouring the Metropolitan Police Mounted Branch, three horses – from left, Olga, Regal and Upstart – were recognised for their sterling service whilst assisting officers dealing with the death and destruction caused by the London Blitz (from here).

1949: ‘Able Seaman Simon’ (see here), hero of the post-war Yangtse Incident which saw a Royal Navy warship caught up in the Chinese civil war. Though badly injured by shellfire, the plucky stray kept the food stores free of rats and worked hard to boost morale among the sick and wounded in the ship’s company.

(This picture and next) 1949: Having made the seemingly effortless but still quite unique transition from unofficial squadron mascot via illegal stowaway to a powerful symbol of courage for Allied airmen fighting far from their defeated homeland, the story of Antis and Czech airman Václav Robert Bozdech would make a thrilling if at times scarcely believable film. It is one of the most enigmatic in Dickin Medal history. Adopted by Bozdech during World War II, Antis flew with him in both RAF and French Air Force machines from North Africa and the United Kingdom. Returning to Czechoslovakia after Germany’s defeat, the dog then assisted his master’s escape when he had to flee from the Communists (see here).

1952: Lucky saw service with a Royal Air Force Police anti-terrorist tracker dog team during the Malaya Emergency from 1949–52 (see here). Sadly, three of the dogs lost their lives during the violent jungle campaign leaving Lucky the sole survivor at the end of the conflict. Her award was made posthumously at London’s Imperial War Museum in 2007.

2003: Sam too was honoured posthumously, having died of natural causes at the age of 10 (see here). Five years previously he had successfully brought down an armed man threatening the lives of civilians and Service personnel in Bosnia- Herzegovina, and a few days later, whilst guarding a compound harbouring Serbian refugees, his determined approach succeeded in holding off rioters until reinforcements arrived. Like the Victoria Cross, the reverse of Sam’s Dickin Medal is typically reticent, identifying only the recipient and the time and place of the action being recognised by the award. With only 63 medals awarded in nearly 70 years, the Dickin Medal retains its pre-eminence and prestige.

2003: Buster, seen here after receiving his award from HRH Princess Alexandra, Patron of the PDSA since 1972. The award was made for Buster’s oustanding gallantry in March 2003 while he was assigned to the Duke of Wellington’s Regiment in Safawan, Southern Iraq. The highly trained arms and explosives search dog located an arsenal of weapons and explosives hidden behind a false wall in a property linked with an extremist group. Following the find, all attacks on British military personnel ceased, enabling peacekeeping troops to replace their steel helmets with berets (see here).

2004: Unveiled by HRH The Princess Royal, the Animals In War Memorial in Park Lane, Mayfair marked the successful conclusion of a £2 million appeal. Sculptor David Backhouse created four life-size bronze animals located either side of a sweeping 60-foot wall. On one side of this is a carved bas-relief showing images of the many different animals which have served alongside British servicemen and women and their allies; on the reverse, a line of shadowy silhouettes represents the millions that gave their lives.

2007: Explosives dog Sadie’s award was made for outstanding gallantry and devotion to duty while she and Lance Corporal Karen Yardley were assigned to the Royal Gloucestershire, Berkshire and Wiltshire Light Infantry during the conflict in Afghanistan in 2005 (see here). Having ‘undoubtedly saved the lives of many civilians and soldiers’ the dog has since retired from active service to live with her handler’s family in Scotland.

2010: Treo, one of the hardworking hero dogs of Afghanistan’s Helmand Province (see here). Two years earlier, the dog had been deployed to the front line to search for weapons and munitions concealed by the Taliban. Acting as part of the forward protection for members of the Royal Irish Regiment, Treo on several occasions located improvised explosive devices on a roadside where soldiers were passing. ‘Without doubt,’ said the official citation accompanying the award, ‘Treo’s actions and his devotion to his duties, while in the throes of conflict, saved many lives.’

RECRUITED IN CONSIDERABLE numbers from dogs’ homes during the war years – also from pet owners keen to contribute in some way to the war effort (and as often as not from those unable properly to feed their pets due to food rationing) – many thousands of animals were assigned by their new military masters to perform particular duties but in the heat of battle went on to play a far more valuable role.

Some, for example, were professionally schooled and trained for often very specific military tasks, such as minehunting, search and rescue or guard duties at sensitive military sites. Others were taken on as ships’ mousers or as ceremonial regimental mascots. But while animals may have performed such important tasks very well and to the best of their abilities, many of the most heroic and most fondly remembered are today recalled more for the companionship that was forged in the long emergency of the war – that is, as genuine friends – than for any individual skills or duties.

That said, by the 1940s and the inception of the PDSA Dickin Medal, there was already nothing particularly new about soldiers keeping pets. For example in the Great War a pig rescued during the sinking of the German cruiser Dresden in March 1915 became something of a celebrity. Renamed Tirpitz, he was adopted as the mascot of HMS Glasgow for a year before being retired to Portsmouth’s Whale Island Gunnery School and then eventually auctioned off (for pork, sadly) to raise money for the Red Cross. Tommies serving in the trenches on the Western Front and elsewhere similarly took on stray cats and dogs all the time, and indeed one of the latter – Thélus – was even fitted with a home-made wooden prosthetic by a brigade medical officer after losing his paw.

Elsewhere on the Western Front many rather more exotic creatures popped up in what was otherwise a most unpromising environment for animals. Places otherwise denuded of all traces of wildlife bar scavenging rats and the inevitable lice, the trenches were at different times enlived by several monkeys and at least one goat with a penchant for tobacco, who given the chance would snatch cigarettes from any Tommy unwise enough to come within range.

The best of these animals did far more than entertain the troops with their antics, however, most obviously by boosting morale in times of almost inconceivable stress and immense personal danger. Time and again, in researching the role of animals in war, one reads of animals who would ordinarily baulk or bolt from loud noises remaining calm during attacks; of horses, dogs and even cats, traditionally so aloof and detached, who remained by their handlers’ sides in the midst of battle, showing real loyalty and courage as well as offering comfort and support to their comrades in arms.

Not infrequently this was done at great personal cost or when the animal in question was itself seriously wounded. In the heat of battle, behind enemy lines, on the home front and even in captivity their stories are rarely if ever less remarkable than those of the men and women who knew them – and they can be just as moving.

For magnificent courage and endurance in Japanese prison camps which helped to maintain morale among her fellow prisoners, and also for saving many lives through her intelligence and watchfulness.

The only canine ever officially listed as an Allied prisoner of war, this handsome liver and white pointer also enjoyed the distinction of being ‘interviewed’ as part of a special Victory Day BBC broadcast on 8 June 1946, when her barks were heard by many thousands of listeners around the country.

Born in Shanghai in 1937, Judy had served in the Royal Navy as ship’s dog aboard two vessels, HMS Gnat and HMS Grasshopper. The last named took part in a number of actions during the Malay–Singapore campaign, and with Judy included in the ship’s company Grasshopper headed for Java after the fall of Singapore. Attacked by Japanese fighter-bombers in February 1942, the ship was eventually forced to beach and subsequently blew up.

Judy, together with 75 crew, 50 passengers and sailors from a companion vessel HMS Dragonfly, found themselves marooned on Singkep, an inhospitable and apparently uninhabited island to the east of Sumatra, surrounded by oily, burning seawater with little in the way of food and no obvious source of drinking water. Despite repeated searches for a source which was safe to drink, no spring could be found until – after some determined digging at the shoreline – a bedraggled and oil-covered Judy was observed drinking from what turned out to be a safe, non-saline source. Able to refresh themselves from the same spring, the crews of the two ships were then fortunate enough to commandeer a passing Chinese junk and set sale for the north-east coast of Sumatra.

On 10 March, however, after a gruelling 200-mile overland trek towards Padang and less than three miles from safety, they found themselves surrounded while taking refuge in what turned out to be a Japanese-held village. Now prisoners of war, they were taken by open truck – with Judy hidden in the back beneath a stack of empty rice sacks – to the Gloergoer POW camp at Medan. It was here that she met Leading Aircraftman Frank Williams (1919–2006), remembered now as a tall gentle sort with a kind face beneath his dark wavy hair, who unhesitatingly shared with her his meagre ration of maggoty rice. Thus began what a fellow prisoner was later to describe as ‘three to four years of the most horrific labour, torture, starvation and every degradation the Japanese could inflict on us’.

Over that period of captivity the two were clearly devoted to each other, Williams enjoying the companionship enormously but also valuing Judy’s uncanny instinct and ability to alert him and his comrades to the presence of dangerous snakes and scorpions as well as aircraft. ‘I remember thinking,’ he noted many years later, ‘what on earth is a beautiful English pointer like this doing here, with no one to care for her. I realised that even though she was thin, she was a survivor.’ She also worked hard to keep the men’s spirits high, with several being heard ruefully to observe that if the ‘old bitch’ could hang on for release, then so could they.

When the guards were administering punishment to the prisoners, Judy would repeatedly attempt to distract them by growling and barking, and on a number of occasions the worst of them threatened to shoot the dog dead if she did not back off. With such incidents becoming more heated, Williams was eventually able to secure her safety by holding out the promise of a puppy to the Japanese camp commandant. In exchange the commandant, frequently in his cups after too much saki, agreed to help by giving her official status – ‘Prisoner No.81A Gloergoer, Medan’ – thus providing her with a measure of security. (He got his puppy in the end too, with another one from Judy’s litter of nine being smuggled into the adjacent internment camp occupied by Dutch women. Hidden in a basket of bananas and given a whiff of chloroform to keep it quiet, the puppy reportedly went on to fulfil a similar morale-raising role to its mother.)

In June 1944 the men in the camp were told they were being moved to a camp in Singapore, travelling aboard the SS Van Warwyck. Dogs were not permitted on board, but Williams refused to leave Judy behind and carried her up the gangway in a rice sack thrown over his shoulder, having previously trained her to lie still, upside down and without making any noise. With the Korean guards on the lookout for canine stowaways, Judy managed, incredibly, to lie still for three hours before Williams was able to stow her away out of sight in the ship’s hold.

The conditions were horrendous, with more than 700 POWs squeezed into every available space, and on 26 June the ship was torpedoed and began to sink. There seemed to be no escape for the men in Williams’s section, but he was able to push the dog through a porthole located 15 feet above the waterline. He did so in the hope that she would be able to swim to safety but had to face the possibility that he might himself drown.

In pitch dark and pinned down by wreckage, the men awaited their fate, but a second explosion blew a hole in the side of the ship enabling them to drop into the water. Unfortunately Judy by then had disappeared, Williams later recalling the expression on her face before she fell into the water which seemed to say, ‘What is all this in aid of?’

After a couple of hours in the water Williams and his shipmates were recaptured and sent to a new camp, but news soon reached him that, after leaping from the porthole, Judy had paddled around in the water retrieving pieces of debris to help other men keep afloat and had allowed others to hold on to her as she swam. It was to be another three days, however, before the two were united in a scene an officer described in a letter home as both joyous and touching. Decades later Williams recounted the moment himself to a reporter from the Daily Mail: ‘I couldn’t believe my eyes. As I entered the camp, a scraggy dog hit me square between the shoulders and knocked me over! I’d never been so glad to see the old girl. And I think she felt the same.’

The two were far from safe, however, as Williams was forced to face an even greater challenge, spending a year in the jungle laying railway tracks while subsisting on daily rations comprising of no more than a handful of rotten tapioca and some foul water. But here too Judy played a vital role, Williams insisting that her presence saved his and many other lives ‘in so many ways. The greatest way … was giving me a reason to live. All I had to do was look at her and into those weary, bloodshot eyes and I would ask myself: What would happen to her if I died? I had to keep going. Even if it meant waiting for a miracle.’

There were joyful moments too, of course, with memories of Judy chasing monkeys, barking at flying foxes, burying a much-prized elephant bone and spooking the superstitious guards by running around the camp with an ancient Malay skull clamped in her jaws. Over this same period she survived a number of alligator bites, attacks from wild dogs and the feared Sumatran tiger, and many severe beatings from the guards, who came to loathe her. Perhaps fearing a prisoner rebellion, however, they never carried out their threats to shoot her dead and cook her. That said, a permanent scar beneath one eye bore witness to one of Judy’s many close shaves during this time, and efforts were made to keep her hidden from the worst of the Japanese.

Despite her sterling service and official status, when the war against Japan was won, Judy still had to be smuggled aboard another ship – this time a troopship bound for Liverpool and the spiritual home she had never seen. Fortunately the troops were able to sneak her past the dock police, and once aboard they entrusted her to the care of the ship’s cook so that she was relatively well fed during the voyage across the Mediterranean.

An unavoidable six months of quarantine followed, at Hackbridge in Surrey, and then in May 1946 in London’s Cadogan Square, Judy – by now something of a heroine – was invited to London and enrolled as a member of the Returned British Prisoners of War Association, the only dog so honoured. Chairman of the association Major the Viscount Tarbut MC pinned a hard-won and well-deserved Dickin Medal on her collar, with PDSA at the same time honouring Frank Williams with the White Cross of St Giles for his strength, his fortitude and, it has to be said, his cunning in bringing this splendid animal through her ordeals and back with him to England.

For a year the pair spent much of their time visiting the relatives of those prisoners who had not survived the war, Williams believing that Judy’s presence was frequently a genuine comfort to the bereaved. In May 1948 he accepted a post with a government-funded food scheme in east Africa, and Judy naturally went with him. Very sadly, just two years later, she was found to have a tumour, and at the age of 13 she was put to sleep and buried beneath a large granite and marble memorial. This was built by Frank Williams himself, greatly saddened by the loss, and tells of their adventures together, Judy’s outstanding courage and devotion and their quite remarkable relationship.

After Frank’s death in 2006 the Dickin Medal and collar were presented to the Imperial War Museum in London to go on permament display. Hoping that Judy’s courage and devotion would be remembered by generations to come, Frank’s widow Doris noted, ‘although I never knew Judy in life, she always felt like a member of our family who undoubtedly and repeatedly saved my husband’s life and that of his fellow prisoners during the war’.

For loyalty, courage and devotion to duty under hazardous conditions of war, 1941 to 1945, while serving with the 1st King’s Rifle Corps in North Africa and Italy.

Shown alongside the citations and artefacts of the regiment’s 24 Victoria Cross recipients, the Dickin Medal on display at the regimental museum of the Royal Green Jackets (The Rifles) in Winchester was awarded to a black Egyptian mongrel called Tich. Nicknamed the Desert Rat, Tich was adopted by 1st Battalion, King’s Royal Rifle Corps early on in the North Africa campaign, saw the victory at El Alamein and remained with them until the end of the war, serving with a carrier platoon all the way up through Italy.

By the early 1940s many service dogs at home and abroad were listed as members of PDSA’s official Allied Forces Mascots Club, which recognised and promoted their roles as companions and working dogs. Many of these were well-disciplined animals professionally trained for specific tasks after being donated in response to official appeals for recuits. Many others, however, were the sort of scruffy unloved strays which servicemen occasionally adopt when on tour, or which tag along when troops are in town in the hope of a free meal, companionship and shelter.

Mostly terrier but it is thought with a bit of dachshund thrown in, Tich very definitely fell into the latter category: a good honest ‘bitsa’, with a friendly nature and strong character, but also something of a ruffian. Her good fortune after being adopted in 1941 was to catch the eye of Rifleman Thomas Walker a couple of years later, after which the two were rarely apart. While he and his comrades fought their way through Algeria and across the Mediterranean to take part in the invasion of southern Italy, Tich was routinely to be seen in the front line atop one of the platoon’s caterpillar-tracked Bren universal carriers or on the bonnet of Walker’s stretcher-bearing jeep.

Clearly she allowed herself some time off, however, and after being smuggled aboard a troopship for the crossing to Italy was found to be carrying a litter. In all Tich produced a total of 15 puppies, but was more often to be seen riding into battle, her presence on the Bren UC and a habit of what the battalion chaplain called ‘howling like a wolf’ being repeatedly referred to as a real morale booster by many of her two-legged comrades.

Unfortunately, sticking by her handler in this way – Walker was an exceptionally courageous soldier who was subsequently awarded the Military Medal for rescuing and treating injured soldiers while under heavy fire – meant Tich frequently found herself in danger. On a number of occasions she took hits, once being wounded seriously, when it was thought that the injuries to her head would finish her off. This occurred at Faenza, during the push up through Italy, when Tich sustained a badly broken nose and multiple shrapnel wounds while taking part in Operation Olive against the Germans’ Gothic Line. By no means as well known as the D-Day landings, the operation was nevertheless a mammoth undertaking – essentially the invasion from the southern flank of enemy-controlled Europe – and was by far the largest engagement on the Italian peninsula during the whole of the war.

With up to 1.2 million Allied soldiers launching themselves against Field Marshal Kesselring’s last major line of defence, and the commander of Britain’s Eighth Army comparing the scale and ferocity of the fighting to El Alamein and Monte Cassino, Rifleman Walker’s duties meant that he and Tich repeatedly found themselves in an open vehicle in areas that were being heavily shelled and mortared. In particular they were involved in the rescue and evacuation of wounded members of the 43rd Indian (Ghurka) Lorried Infantry Brigade. In the absence of a medical officer Walker was detailed to man a regimental first aid post at one end of the front on the River Marzeno. Tich’s indomitable spirit – undimmed even when she was injured – combined with Walker’s calm efficiency to boost the spirits of the seriously wounded in what was clearly a perilous situation.

Throughout the heavy fighting Tich never left her post or ran for cover, and when news of the engagement reached England newspaper reports described her as the brave dog of ‘an oustandingly brave man’. This assessment was subsequently echoed by Walker’s commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel. E. A. W. Williams, who described the dog’s courage and devotion to duty as being of ‘very real and considerable value. Her courageous example materially helped many men to keep their heads and sense of proportion in times of extreme danger.’ The sight of her, he said, ‘put heart in the men as she habitually rode on her master’s jeep and refused to leave her post even when bringing in wounded under heavy fire’.

Eventually these words formed part of the official recommendation for a new Dickin Medal to be struck, and on 3 September 1949 – ten years after Britain entered the war against Germany – it was duly presented to Tich by Major Peter Earle MC on behalf of the colonel commandant of the 1st King’s Royal Rifle Corps. The presentation formed part of the Animals’ Rally organised by the Star newspaper at Wembley Stadium, when more than 8,000 members of the public turned out to see Tich and to hear the regimental chaplain describe a dog who would ‘never eat or drink until ordered to do so’.

For the next ten years Tich enjoyed a happy retirement in Newcastle, she and ex-Rifleman Walker still inseparable and the two of them making frequent appearances in order to raise funds to continue the work of PDSA. When she died in 1959 Tich was laid to rest at the Ilford PDSA Animal Cemetery in east London. Her grave was still receiving visits from comrades of Rifleman Walker until a year or two ago, and in 2007 a bugler from Tich’s old regiment sounded the last post following the restoration of the cemetery.

Served on HMS Amethyst during the Yangtze Incident, disposing of many rats though wounded by shell blast. Throughout the incident his behaviour was of the highest order, although the blast was capable of making a hole over a foot in diameter in a steel plate.

A raggedy and undernourished black and white tom picked for a ship’s cat from the docks of Hong Kong’s Stonecutter Island, Simon joined HMS Amethyst in 1948 when it passed through the Crown colony en route from Malaya. The stray was smuggled aboard the frigate by Ordinary Seaman George Hickinbottom, a 17-year-old crew member fortunate enough to have a cat lover for a captain who recognised the threat rats posed on a ship when it came to food and other supplies.

At this time more commonly known as Blackie, Simon was quick to make himself useful below decks and, barely more than a year old, like most young moggies took great pride in laying out his victims. Occasionally these gory trophies would be left in the seamen’s bunks, and when he could get away with it Simon would sleep curled up in the captain’s cap or risk pinching ice cubes out of the drinking water in the wardroom.

In the spring of 1949, now under the command of Lieutenant Commander Bernard M. Skinner, Amethyst was ordered up the Yangtze River to Nanking. Its mission was to replace the duty ship there, HMS Consort, which was serving as a guard ship for the British embassy during the civil war being fought between China’s communist People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and the Kuomintang Chinese Nationalists.

About a hundred miles upriver, on the morning of 20 April in what became known as the Yangtze Incident, the vessel came under sudden and very heavy fire from a PLA battery. This was the first time a Royal Navy crew had been ordered to action stations, with tin helmets on, since the war ended in 1945. The first shells fortunately passed harmlessly over Amethyst’s superstructure, but a subsequent volley tore through the bridge, fatally wounding the captain. Further shelling resulted in major damage to the port-side engine room and the sickbay. A badly injured officer was able to send one last, incomplete transmission – ‘Under heavy fire. Am aground in approx position 31.10’ North 119.50’ East. Large number of casualties’ – but immediately afterwards the generator was hit, leaving the stricken ship a helpless and immobile target.

Within the hour, and with 12 members of the ship’s company dead, the remaining crew were ordered to abandon ship. Around 60 made it to safety on the opposite bank but several more were cut down in the water by PLA snipers. A further 52 remained on board, 12 of them seriously wounded, and all quickly found themselves unable to move around for fear of being picked off by communist riflemen on the bank.

In total the ship had taken more than 50 direct hits, and while efforts were being made to plug a number of holes below the waterline using bedding and anything else that came to hand, Consort was spotted bearing down on them. Steaming at full speed, and with her 4.5-inch guns blazing, she succeeded in taking out another enemy position but at a cost of another nine dead and three more injured.

Amethyst was eventually taken in tow and pulled beyond the range of the deadly shore battery, but further progress proved impossible. In the stalemate that followed, the stricken ship was unable to move for the next ten weeks. Braving fire from the ground, a Royal Air Force Sunderland flying boat was able to drop off a replacement medical officer – the ship’s own MO was among the dead – but under the vigilant eye of the PLA and with no chance of replenishing its stores, the crew was immediately put on the tightest possible rations, their position clearly extremely hazardous

With 17 crew dead or dying, Simon too was among the casualties and was found passed out in the wreckage with severe shrapnel wounds to his legs and back and burns to his face. He is assumed to have been kipping in the captain’s cabin when a shell ripped a 15-foot hole through the adjacent bulkhead, and was caked in blood with his eyebrows and whiskers singed off.

Clearly patching up a cat was on no one’s list of priorities, although with stores running desperately low – and the rats breeding fast in the hot humid atmosphere and being brave enough actually to bite the crew – Simon’s hunting skills were needed more now than ever. Despite the severity of his injuries he rose magnificently to the challenge, and after taking very little time to recover – during which four pieces of shrapnel were pulled from his body, the healing process assisted by his determined licking – he was soon exceeding his normal peacetime tally of kills although it was noted that his whiskers had grown back bent.

After dispatching one large and particularly voracious specimen – nicknamed Mao Tse-tung following its repeated and costly raids on the ship’s stores – Simon was promoted to able seaman in recognition of his tireless and invaluable service. At the same time he worked hard keeping up the crew’s spirits. Joining the MO on ward rounds, Simon’s friendly, purring demeanour proved to be a tonic for a number of traumatised and badly injured sailors.

On 30 July, with rations and fuel now at rock bottom and negotations with the Chinese deadlocked, it was decided to make a break for it at high water. Under cover of darkness the shell-scarred Amethyst slipped her moorings and limped down-river, taking hits much of the way. She was finally met toward the mouth of the river by HMS Concord and escorted back to Hong Kong at the end of an ordeal which had lasted 101 days.

After responding to an order from George VI in London for the crew to splice the mainbrace, Able Seaman Simon was awarded the Amethyst campaign ribbon at the China Fleet Club. The following citation was read out:

Able Seaman Simon, for distinguished and meritorious service on HMS Amethyst, you are hereby awarded the Distinguished Amethyst Campaign Ribbon.

Be it known that on April 26, 1949, though recovering from wounds, when HMS Amethyst was standing by off Rose Bay, you did single-handedly and unarmed stalk down and destroy ‘Mao Tse Tung’, a rat guilty of raiding food supplies which were critically short.

Be it further known that from April 22 to August 4 you did rid HMS Amethyst of pestilence and vermin, with unrelenting faithfulness.

With the crew’s homecoming broadcast around the English-speaking world by the likes of Pathé news and Movietone, Simon and the sailors were greeted as heroes at each port of call from Singapore and Penang through the Suez Canal to Malta and Gibraltar. The ship’s chances of escape had never been rated above 50:50, and the stoicism and courage shown by the crew clearly struck a note of optimism with a population still struggling to rebuild homes and lives after the war against Germany and Japan.

As for the ship’s cat, no less stoical, he even made it into the American magazine Time, an edition of what has long been the biggest-selling weekly magazine, reporting how ‘Simon got his white whiskers singed by a Communist shell, his face and legs scratched by shrapnel’ but throughout the Amethyst’s cruise carried on in his billet and caught at least one mouse every day.

While the ship itself remained in Hong Kong undergoing repairs, a committee of the Armed Forces Mascot Club met to consider a suggestion that this very special cat be recognised with the award of a Dickin Medal. Shortly afterwards the decision was taken unanimously to dispatch a collar ribbon to the crew of the Amethyst, the intention being to present the medal itself to Simon when the vessel returned home to Britain.

When the crew finally made it back they were met by Prime Minister Clement Attlee, and the date for Simon’s presentation was set for 11 December 1949 in the presence of both Maria Dickin and the Lord Mayor of London. But sadly it was never to be. Required like any ordinary cat to spend several months in quarantine, Simon became listless a couple of weeks ahead of the ceremony and, sickening with a temperature and severe enteritis, he died quietly on the night of 27 November. He was still only a young cat but his injuries had left him unable to fight off a virus; it has been suggested that away from his ship and his friends Simon’s spirit may simply have preferred to slip away to the sea.

When the news of his death broke, the quarantine centre in Surrey was inundated with letters, cards and flowers, and the distress of the crew was plain to see. Just as Life and other pictorials had reported Simon’s homecoming so Time now noted his sad passing, and after being laid in a specially made casket draped in the Union flag, Simon – even now the only cat to win the Dickin Medal – was buried with full Naval honours in Plot 281 at the charity’s animal cemetery at Ilford.

Presented posthumously shortly afterwards, Simon’s Dickin Medal remained on HMS AmethystNelsonthe