Corporal Wojtek (pr. Voy-check)

This is Corporal Wojtek (pr. Voy-check). He was an orphaned Syrian brown bear that was adopted by a Polish artillery unit in WW2. The rank is not a nickname, he was actually sworn in and received pay in the form of extra rations as well as beer and cigarettes. He loved to box and wrestle with the men and was a huge morale boost but he was much more than just a mascot or pet. He taught himself how to carry artillery shells and supplies and was said to do the work of 4 men (although he ate as much as 10.) It was even said that he would drag wounded men off the battlefield as long as they weren't speaking in German. 

After the war he retired to a boring but comfortable life in the Edinburgh zoo. He always got excited when ever he heard visitors speaking Polish. His former comrades would often visit him and toss cigarettes over the fence for old times sake. 

He died in 1963 at age 21. To this day his former unit still wears his likeness on their insignia.












Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Woolly mammoth

Image
***Farmer finds woolly mammoth bones in Michigan field, stashed by Ancient Natives*** Though buried for thousands of years, the partial skeleton of a woolly mammoth found in Lima Township indicates that the animal actually ended up on the dinner plate of a Native American. “It’s too early to tell how it died but the skeleton showed signs of butchering,” said Professor Dan Fisher of the Museum of Paleontology at the University of Michigan. The remains were found by James Bristle, on the soy bean farm that was owned by him. When he first encountered the remains, he thought it was an old fence post, but it turned out to be about 20 percent of a woolly mammoth, including the skull, jaw, vertebrae and ribs, that died between 11,000 and 15,000 years ago. The site holds “excellent evidence of human activity,” Fisher said. “We think that humans were here and may have butchered and stashed the meat so that they could come back later for it.” Mammoths and mastodons — another extinct elephant-lik
Read more

The first case of shell-shock

Image
"It was while I was in this Field Hospital that I saw the first case of shell-shock. The enemy opened fire about dinner time, as usual, with his big guns. As soon as the first shell came over, the shell-shock case nearly went mad. He screamed and raved, and it took eight men to hold him down on the stretcher. With every shell he would go into a fit of screaming and fight to get away. A much larger number of soldiers with these symptoms were classified as 'malingerers' and sent back to the front-line. In some cases men committed suicide. Others broke down under the pressure and refused to obey the orders of their officers. Some responded to the pressures of shell-shock by deserting. Sometimes soldiers who disobeyed orders got shot on the spot. In some cases, soldiers were court-martialled. It is heartbreaking to watch a shell-shock case. The terror is indescribable. The flesh on their faces shakes in fear, and their teeth continually chatter. Shell-shock was brought about i
Read more

Polish war hero Witold Pilecki was executed

Image
Polish war hero Witold Pilecki was executed  On May 25, 1948, Witold Pilecki was executed by communist authorities, in the Rakowiecka detention center after a show trial.  During World War II, Pilecki volunteered for a Polish resistance operation that involved being imprisoned in the Auschwitz concentration camp in order to gather intelligence. At Auschwitz, he organized a resistance movement within the camp which eventually numbered in the hundreds, and secretly sent messages to the Western Allies detailing Nazi atrocities at the camp. He escaped in April 1943 after nearly 2½ years of imprisonment. Pilecki later fought in the Warsaw Uprising from August to October 1944. He remained loyal to the London-based Polish government in-exile after the communist takeover of Poland. In 1947, he was arrested by the secret police on charges of working for "foreign imperialism" (referring to his work for British intelligence). Pilecki was executed after a show trial in 1948. The story of
Read more