I want to pay my respects to a hero of a true story I read a long time ago but I just recently remembered due to work. It is a story of a little Syrian Brown Bear whose mother had been shot and who was rescued by a group of Polish fighting men of WWII who had also lost everything. Together, the men and the bear would travel across the Middle East, and fight at Monte Cassino against Nazis. The men of the Polish II Corps named the little bear cub Wojtek (roughly meaning little warrior or happy warrior). Eventually the bear was formally enlisted into the British Army as a Private (was later promoted to a corporal). This ensured that when the Poles were deployed to Italy from North Africa the bear would go too. Serving with a transport company Wojtek travelled Allied supply lines, usually sitting upfront in the drivers cab. Mimicking his comrades, Wojtek would occasionally help load and unload trucks, and move supplies. The bears great strength meant that he could easily carry ammunition crates and artillery shells, which he did under fire during the last battle for Monte Cassino in the summer of 1944. Wojteks supply company adopted the image of a bear carrying an artillery shell as the unit insignia. Obviously, one can say that the men had no right to take Wojtek to war with them, but in a world torn by war, the only way the cub whose mother had been shot could survive was with help from humans. And looking at the photos and vidoes, it is easy to see how strongly the bear and the men bonded. May your pots ever be filled with honey at the Happy Hunting Grounds, Wojtek! https://youtube/watch?v=FZT62Gbb3iE
Posted on: Thu, 28 Aug 2014 10:02:57 +0000
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