Jack & Voytek

Born to British parents in Hong Kong on September 16^th, 1906, John Malcolm Thorpe Fleming “Jack” Churchill joined the newly formed Commandos upon the outbreak of the Second World War. He was not entirely sure what “Commando” meant, but signed up because it sounded like it would put him where the action was. He earned the Military Cross and Bar for his actions at Dunkirk, France, and Vågsøy, Norway, and the Distinguished Service Order leading an attack on Salerno, Italy. After the war, he qualified as a paratrooper, joined peacekeeping operations in Palestine, trained troops in Australia, learned to surf, built his own surfboards, served as an archery consultant in Hollywood, retired from the military in 1959, and died peacefully in 1996.

In early 1942, the Polish 22^nd Transport Artillery Supply Company was traveling through Iran, where they found an orphaned brown bear cub in the care of a local village boy. They adopted the cub, and brought it back to Europe when it was time for them link up with the British and join the fighting in Italy. They named the bear Voytek, which translates roughly to “smiling warrior.” His days as a small cub long behind him, he was trained to carry boxes of artillery shells to the front lines. He drank, smoked, and wrestled with the men, a part of the unit as much as any one of them. When the war ended, Voytek joined many of his fellows in Scotland, a popular destination for Polish ex-pats displaced by the USSR. He eventually was retired to the Edinburgh zoo, where he passed away in 1963.

 

*Really.