Dickin Medal
The Dickin Medal was instituted in 1943 by Maria Dickin to honour the work of animals in war. It has become recognised as "the animals' VC".
Maria Dickin was the founder of the PDSA (People's Dispensary for Sick Animals), a United Kingdom veterinary charity, and set up the Medal as an award for any animal displaying conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty whilst serving with British Commonwealth armed forces or civil emergency services. The original series of 54 awards was made between 1943 and 1949, after which it was officially replaced with the PDSA's non-military Silver Medal. A special "one-off" posthumous Dickin Medal award was made in 2000 to a Canadian dog for actions in 1941 which would have been honoured at the time, had the PDSA been informed.
In 2002 the medal was revived to honour dogs in relation to the September 11 attacks, and was subsequently awarded to two dogs serving with Commonwealth forces in the former Yugoslavia and Iraq respectively.
The animated film Valiant, released in 2005, is a tribute to the role of homing pigeons during World War II, and the fact that they won the most number of Dickin Medals during the war.
Notable winners - original series
- 1943: Ruhr Express - a messenger pigeon
- 1943: Winkie - first pigeon to be awarded the medal; flew 120 miles from a crashed bomber to deliver a SOS
- 1944: Commando - a messenger pigeon
- 1944: Paddy - messenger pigeon that made the fastest recorded crossing of the English Channel, delivering messages from Normandy for D-Day, travelling 230 miles in 4 hours 5 minutes.
- 1946: G.I. Joe - a messenger pigeon that saved many people's lives in World War II.
- 1946: Judy (ship's dog) - the only animal to have been officially registered as a Japanese prisoner of war.
- 1949: Simon - the ship's cat on HMS Amethyst during the Yangtze Incident, noted for surviving injuries from a cannon shell, raising morale and killing off a rat infestation during the incident. Rank raised to Able Seaman and awarded campaign medal
Modern award winners
- 2000: Gander - a Newfoundland dog serving with Canadian infantry in Hong Kong in 1941
- 2002: Salty and Roselle - guide dogs who separately led their owners to safely from the World Trade Center during the September 11 attacks [1]
- 2002: Appollo - a search and rescue dog with the New York Police Department, as a representative of all such dogs who worked at the World Trade Center site and The Pentagon in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks [2]
- 2003: Sam - a Royal Army Veterinary Corps dog serving with the Royal Canadian Regiment in Bosnia-Herzegovina, for separately disarming a gunman and later holding back a hostile crowd while guarding a refugee compound until reinforcements arrived
- 2003: Buster - a Royal Army Veterinary Corps arms and explosives search dog serving with the Duke of Wellington's Regiment in Iraq, for finding a extremist group's hidden arsenal of weapons and explosives
Disputed medal
Rob the SAS Dog was awarded the Dickin Medal in 1945 for taking part in more than 20 parachute drops and for his involvement in operations behind enemy lines in Italy and North Africa during the Second World War. There is evidence that his record is a hoax concocted by the training officer at 2nd SAS at the time so that the dog would remain with the regiment.[3]