Sergeant Stubby, Hero Pup of World War I Page 4

  “To the victor goes the spoils,” one of the guys said. He unpinned the German’s medal and handed it to Bob.

  “Here you go, Stubby,” Bob said. “I’ll pin it in a place of honor.”

  And then he pinned it right over my backside. Everybody had a good laugh over that.

  “That’ll show the Kaiser what we think of him,” someone said.

  The Kaiser, if you don’t know, was the leader of Germany. He’s one of the guys who started this whole big mess and made us all go to war.

  The little medal ceremony was the end of our fun. That same day we got the order to attack, and attack we did. Everyone said we’d win this battle quickly and force Germany to surrender, but it dragged on and on. We lost too many men to shells and machine-gun fire. The replacements were young and scared and didn’t have enough training. Sadly, many of them died the minute they reached the front.

  You never knew when a German sniper was going to appear out of nowhere and take out a few of our guys before he disappeared again.

  The offensive waged on, day after day. We all lost track of time. Bob didn’t even look like himself anymore. I couldn’t remember the last time he was able to take a shower, or shave, or put on a clean uniform. He didn’t even have time to eat. I guess I looked just as ragged.

  Some of our guys started to fall apart. I’d find them slumped somewhere, so tired and so frightened that they couldn’t move. The rain hadn’t stopped for days. The temperature was dropping. And we never knew when we were going to get a meal, let alone a hot one.

  I did what I could to cheer the men up. I knew how to focus on what was important: being with Bob, having enough food to eat to keep me alive (although not as much as I wanted), and being able to sleep when I could. If the men would follow my example, they’d get through this war. I knew they would.

  After a couple of weeks, we earned a short break. We passed through the town of Verdun, where we got hot showers, hot food, clean clothes, and even beds to sleep in. That cheered up the men to no end.

  But we all knew we would have to head into battle again. The Germans were at their breaking point. They just needed a little more persuading before they surrendered. The Allies planned another assault, and the Yankee Division would be part of it no matter what.

  Our mission for this new offensive was similar to the last one. The Yankee Division’s job was to distract the Germans on their flank and keep them from sending reinforcements to the midsection of the front line—where the Allies planned their main attack.

  Flank or midsection, we knew the Germans would do their best to hold their ground. Their ground was known as the Hindenburg Line—three long bands of trenches that stretched as far as twelve miles behind No Man’s Land. The Germans had held this position since 1914, so they were dug in deep.

  We were getting ready for the big push when we got more bad news. Major General “Daddy” Edwards, who had been with the Yankee Division since we shipped out for France, was going home. Daddy always made the men believe they could take on every new challenge, that they could fight with dignity and go home at the end of the war, victorious. When the men learned he was ordered back to the States, they felt like they had been slapped in face by the top brass.

  Now we were heading into our biggest fight yet without the leader the men trusted most. No one was happy.

  Beginning on October 16, 1918, the men were back on active duty and getting ready for an assault on the German’s flank. Between the mud, the rain, the high casualties, and the loss of Daddy, the men faltered. Spirits dipped lower and lower.

  I did what I could, but honestly, I was getting tired of the war, too. I made it my main job now to keep Bob safe as he moved around the battlefield collecting intelligence.

  We needed to fortify ourselves for whatever came next, and the army gave us a little time to do that. We had a short rest and a chance to get clean and eat regular meals while the Allies thought about the best strategy.

  On November 1, the Allies resumed their main assault on the Hindenburg Line. We were in a better position now, and we began to gain ground. The news we got at headquarters was good—slowly at first and with too many casualties, the Allies took the first line, and then, suddenly, they were pushing on with such force that they advanced by a mile.

  While that was happening, the Yankee Division continued its fight on the outer flank, called the Neptune sector. We gained ground and lost it and then gained it again. We didn’t have enough men, and the ones we did have were hungry, tired, and in low spirits, but we pushed on inch by inch.

  The Germans constantly sent their gas shells in our direction. Some of the chemicals made it hard to breathe, others caused temporary blindness, and still more made the men break out in painful blisters. Gas masks didn’t always protect us.

  On November 2, 1918, both Bob and I were caught off guard. The shell came so fast and furious that I had barely barked a warning when it hit. We got our masks on, but not in time. Both Bob and I struggled to breathe and had to be taken to a field hospital.

  It took me a few days to fully recover. It took Bob longer. While he was still in bed trying to get his strength back, I traveled around the ward, visiting men and cheering them up. I even made friends with a Red Cross nurse, and when she visited Bob’s bedside with me, she realized she knew him from back home. They had a good, long talk about Connecticut and people they both knew.

  Bob needed that taste of home just then, and I was really happy to be able to give it to him. It helped him to get well. Unfortunately, that also meant we were ready to head back to the battle’s front lines.

  We knew the war was about to end. People had been saying for a long time that Germany and the other Central powers were about to surrender, and finally they said they would. We even knew the day and time the guns would stop firing—November 11 at eleven o’clock in the morning.

  That seemed silly to me. Once you decided to end a war, shouldn’t you just end it? But that’s not what the armies did. They kept fighting right up until the very last minute.

  On November 10, we were ordered to continue our assault. No one wanted to die on the last day of the war. Some soldiers straggled behind, leaving those in front even more vulnerable.

  It seemed like the big guns didn’t stop firing for even one second as both the Allies and the Central powers tried to use up all their shells. The noise was deafening, throughout the day and night. And then suddenly, it stopped.

  At eleven o’clock in the morning on November 11, 1918, the guns were silenced.

  The silence was deafening, too, for a moment.

  And then the silence was replaced by normal sounds—raindrops falling from tree leaves, a horse neighing, even the tweet, tweet, tweet of one brave bird who flew over No Man’s Land to see what was happening.

  The doughboys tried to cheer, but they were too exhausted to make a lot of noise. Some stumbled off, searching for food or a bed.

  Bob dropped to his knees and pulled me into a hug. He had tears in his eyes. “It’s over, Stubby,” he said. “It’s over.”

  A lot of the other guys gathered around us. They thought of me as a good luck charm. Now that the war was finally over, they wanted to clap eyes on me again to make sure I was okay, and to say thanks.

  I didn’t do anything for you that you didn’t do for me, I thought. But I sure do appreciate the thanks—now where’s the chow?

  After the news of the armistice sunk in, the celebrations really began. Without worrying about sniper fire or shells exploding, the men were able to build bonfires to warm themselves up and to dry out their wet clothes. Some doughboys even made their way into No Man’s Land to trade military souvenirs with their German counterparts.

  I made a trip into No Man’s Land myself, followed by the medics. We were searching for wounded soldiers we might still be able to help. Unfortunately, all we found were bodies to bury.

  That night, while colorful signal flares arced across the sky, the men had lots of unanswered ques
tions. The biggest and most often asked was, “When will we get to go home?”

  But for now, we mostly just celebrated the peace.

  It wasn’t until later that we learned that our last battle—the Meuse-Argonne Offensive—was one of the deadliest battles in American history. It lasted forty-seven days: from September 26 to November 11, 1918. More than ninety-five thousand men were wounded and more than twenty-six thousand died.

  John Curtin, the sergeant I woke up to make him put his gas mask on, was one of the Yankee Division’s survivors. I’m proud to say he wrote a poem about me called “Our Regimental Mascot”:

  Listen to me and I will tell,

  Of a dog who went all through hell,

  With the 102nd infantry, U.S.A.

  Stubby was with us, night and day.

  He was smuggled across the sea,

  And, certainly was full of glee,

  When he landed at St. Nazaire,

  He and Bob were a happy pair.

  Near Neufchateau he stayed a while,

  And in hiking, covered many a mile,

  Then in February we left for the front,

  And Stubby was ready to do his stunt.

  A month and a half on Chemin des Dames,

  Stubby behaved just like a lamb,

  Then he went to Beaumont in Toul,

  And Stubby showed he was no fool.

  He always knew when to duck the shells,

  And buried his nose at the first gas smells,

  But once a small fragment stuck in his breast,

  Slightly wounded in action, was Stubby blessed.

  He went all through Chateau Thierry drive,

  And came out of it very much alive,

  Then to St. Mihiel Stubby came,

  And helped those Germans from the plain.

  North of Verdun were our hardest battles,

  And many brave men gave death rattles,

  But Stubby came through hell O.K.

  And is ready to go back to the U.S.A.

  He is a fighting bulldog of the old Y.D.,

  And is the pride and joy of our company,

  When we take him back to the U.S.A.,

  Stubby will hold the stage night and day.

  His owner Bob will take him home,

  And nevermore will Stubby roam,

  He’ll enjoy a much earned rest,

  In the place we all love best.

  He stood up to read it at a victory celebration and the men whistled and cheered and clapped. Then they sang, “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow” to me!

  Happy to help, guys! I barked. Happy to help!

  Bob couldn’t wait to go home. I didn’t remember much about Connecticut, but I was ready to go anywhere he went.

  “You’re coming home with me, Stubby,” Bob said. “If I have to, I’ll sneak you on a ship like I did before.”

  I go where you go, I told him. I’m yours, and you’re mine.

  But we couldn’t go home yet. We were needed to stay in place to keep the peace. The men hadn’t slept in days; they hadn’t showered in weeks. Their uniforms were caked with mud. Six hundred men at a time traveled to Verdun for twelve-hour leaves that included showers, hot food, and fresh clothes.

  Finally, on November 14, we were relieved of our peacekeeping duty and could leave the trenches behind forever.

  Au revoir, rats! I hope I never see any of you again.

  We marched for eight days—more than a hundred miles—to a relief camp in Montigny-le-Roi, where we had to wait out the peace negotiations and make sure the cease-fire stayed in place.

  By the time it was all over, we had served 193 days on the front lines and participated in seventeen battles.

  We were assigned to civilian houses, and the French people were happy to let us stay with them. We had been at war for a year and a half, but they had been under German fire for over four years.

  For the first time since our visit to Paris, Bob got a real bed to sleep in—which meant I did, too. Clean, dry sheets beat the mud in the trenches, that’s for sure.

  While we waited for orders to go stateside, men we hadn’t seen in a long time started to arrive to rejoin the unit—Yankee Division guys who had been wounded and ended up fighting with other divisions when they got out of the hospital. Even men who had been taken prisoner by the Germans started to come back. They all had stories to tell.

  I had stories of my own. One of the best happened on Christmas Day, 1918. President Woodrow Wilson paid a visit to the Yankee Division. The 102nd Infantry greeted the president and the first lady at the train station. Then there was a review of the troops on a parade ground and a Christmas dinner with the officers.

  Finally, when the president was on his way back to the train station, he stopped to talk to some of the doughboys—including Bob. And that’s when he met me!

  Bob saluted, and then I did. And all those people with the president clapped for me.

  Then the president reached his hand out, and I shook it. I shook paws with the president of the United States!

  If a stray dog from the back alleys of New Haven, Connecticut, can help win a world war and shake hands with the president, then anything is possible.

  While the men waited for news about when they would be shipped home, they began to collect medals. There were US victory medals, French medals for bravery, and medals and ribbons for individual battles. Bob pinned most of his to my jacket. Plus, we each had a wound stripe and three gold chevrons—one for each six-month period we spent in France.

  All of that hardware, plus my pawshake with the president, made me the most famous dog in France. Wherever we went, doughboys and French people wanted to say hello and get to know me.

  Then newspaper reporters started nosing around and writing stories about me for the folks back home. Soon I was the most famous dog in America, too. I wondered what that would mean when we got back home, but for now, I was happy for clean beds, lots of food, and a place by Bob’s side.

  In January, we got the order to leave Montigny-le-Roi and head to a camp near Le Mans. It took three days by train. We hoped we’d get the order to go home from there, but I guess the countries were still negotiating the peace. To keep boredom at bay and the men in fighting shape, we had to do drills again like we had in Connecticut. Only these were more fun—we had gas mask races and tent-pitching contests, and our five-mile hikes weren’t done at the quick step.

  Even better, six hundred men at a time got to go on furlough. Bob and I set off for Paris on March 13, 1919. We were going to go on a two-week tour of France, but then Bob got sick with the flu.

  The flu was bad—very bad. People all over the world were dying from it. Bob had a high fever and could barely stand. He knew he needed to check in to a Red Cross hospital, but he was worried about who would take care of me while he was there.

  I can’t lose you now, I told him. You go to the hospital and get well. I’ll take care of myself until you’re better. Don’t worry.

  “Let’s go together, Stubby,” Bob said. “You’ve charmed generals and presidents. What are a few Red Cross nurses and doctors?”

  It turned out that there were way too many flu victims to fit in the hospital. Only the very sickest were admitted. The rest were taken care of in tents nearby.

  A pale, sweaty, and weak Bob approached the doctors and told them about me. He pointed to the medals on my coat so they could see how important I was.

  I was at my most charming. I smiled up at them and then I sat down and saluted. Let me stay with my doughboy, I told them. We helped win the war.

  The doctors walked a few feet away to talk things over. And this is where my far superior dog’s hearing came in handy. They were trying to come up with a plan to keep Bob and me together. Then someone made a suggestion they all agreed with.

  “Stubby can bunk alongside your cot in one of the hospital tents,” a doctor said, coming back over to us.

  “Thanks, Doc,” Bob said, giving me a scratch behind the ears. “Stubby and
I appreciate it.”

  But the doctor wasn’t finished. “If your condition worsens and you need to be moved inside, then the dog won’t be able to come with you.”

  I eyed Bob. Don’t get any worse, I told him. Or these doctors are going to have a lot of trouble on their hands.

  Bob didn’t get worse. A cot, lots of soup, and nurses fussing around him was all he needed to get better. And, not surprisingly, I became a favorite of the staff and the patients. They wanted us to stick around until Bob had to go back to his unit, but we wanted to see more of France. So as soon as he was able, with six days left in our leave, we headed south to see the Mediterranean Sea. It looked the same as the Atlantic Ocean to me, but Bob seemed to like it.

  My favorite part was the trains. We didn’t travel in boxcars the way we did to the battlefields and back. We traveled in the style befitting a couple of war heroes. We sat in velvet seats and ate in the dining car.

  And then we got the best news of all when we rejoined the Yankee Division. We were going home!

  In late March 1919, we boarded the Agamemnon. There was no sneaking on board and hiding in a coal bin this time. I marched up the gangway with my head held high, and we set sail for Boston, Massachusetts.

  Au revoir, France. We’re going home!

  The ship approached Boston Harbor on the afternoon of April 7, 1919. There was a dense fog—something the doughboys had hoped to leave behind in France. When the ship sailed out of the mist and we could see the docks, boy were we surprised. Thousands of people waited to welcome the soldiers home—friends, family members, strangers, and even a few governors.

  The person the Yankee Division was most excited to see was Major General Clarence “Daddy” Edwards. He may have been shipped stateside before the war was over, but most of the men gave him the credit for keeping them alive.

  “Daddy! Daddy!” the men cheered.

  When it was our turn to finally leave the ship, I marched down the gangplank at Bob’s side, wearing all my medals. People had already heard of me from newspaper articles, and the cheers for me were almost as loud as those for Daddy.