Board dog
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A board dog is a house dog who lives together with the ship's crew on a boat or ship and accompanies them on their journeys . On-board dogs are used in civil maritime and inland shipping as well as in the navy , although the life of animals on warships is better documented.
History of the animals on board
Live animals have always accompanied seafarers and marines . Already the Vikings used them as a form of "living provisions ". In Fernando Magellan's equipment list for the circumnavigation of the world there are three pigs and seven cows that were supposed to provide the seafarers with fresh meat and milk on the way.
House cats were often taken on board against the plague of rats on sailing ships . In some seafaring nations, no ship was allowed to sail without a cat. Admiral Nelson personally took care of his ship's cat . In World War II was "Oscar of the Unsinkable" famous; he survived the sinking of the Bismarck , the Cossack and the Ark Royal . To date, Simon is the only cat to have received the Dickin Medal for its services in combating a rat plague .
In addition to the useful on-board cats, exotic animals were also carried on ships: the battle cruiser HMS New Zealand had an on-board monkey and Werner von Langsdorff reports on "Fips", a monkey that was rescued from a torpedoed ship during the First World War and spent one year on the SM U 35 went along. "Joshua the Flammable" jumped into the rigging of the enemy lead ship as a burning monkey . The cheeky parrot "Nelson" fell victim to his greed.
dogs
Domestic dogs, which are generally considered to be loyal companions of humans, were seldom used as service dogs on board the ships, but rather viewed by the crew as mascots , cared for accordingly and also for variety and entertainment.
In the Royal Navy , ship dogs are a tradition. "Judy" (1937–1950) rescued men from the sinking Grasshopper in 1941 and was the only dog that was registered as a prisoner of war . Sentenced to death, she survived in the jungles of Sumatra . Back in England , she was honored with the Dickin Medal .
"Bamse" was a St. Bernard dog that saved the lives of two sailors as a ship on a minesweeper of the Norwegian Navy during World War II and became a symbol of the Norwegian resistance. "Jill the Wonderful", ship's dog on the corvette HMS Diamond , kept an overboard sailor afloat until help came.
On-board dogs were also carried on US ships. The best-known representative is "Sindbad", who lived on one of the coast guard's patrol boats from 1938 to 1949.
Probably the first dog on board a warship of the German Navy was the dachshund "Poldi" on the Gneisenau . Many dogs came on board as strays or puppies . Often they lived with the "stokers". Some escaped seasickness by finding the quietest spot on the ship, amidships by the magnetic compass . As a parcel they had a sailor collar with the rank insignia of the crews . Quite a few were buried at sea . In the Federal Navy there were on-board dogs until the 1980s.
"Whiskey", a terrier dog on the Gorch Fock, was famous . She drove under the first two commanders Erhardt and Lohmeyer . When she in New York City not in time from the shore came and the ship ran out without them, it was by a speed boat the Coast Guard brought "home". Her successor "Gogo" was by Hans v. Stackelberg taken over. “Seppl” was trained as a “diver and lifeguard” on the fast minesweeper Wega .
Books
- Jürgen Rath: Rusks, salted meat and bunks . 1st edition. Köhler Verlag, Hamburg 2004, ISBN 3-7822-0892-7 .
Web links
- Whiskey and Gogo , European Sailing Information System
- On-board dogs of the German Navy 1958–1980 , private website on the subject of on-board dogs
- Bundeswehr mascot - Peter and Petersilie , Der Spiegel, August 11, 1969
- The Animal's War , exhibition of the Imperial War Museum (2006–2007)
- The real dogs of war (MailOnline, December 31, 2012)
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Animals on board: Living provisions and companions - Radio Bremen Ansgar Langhorst in conversation with Heino Brockhage ( Memento of the original from November 18, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ With five decrepit ships to paradise - scinexx
- ↑ Cats and humans: a changeful relationship - [email protected]
- ↑ a b c DER SPIEGEL, 1/1991
- ↑ Gerald Sammet: The Unsinkable Cat. Nine cat lives . TRANSIT Buchverlag, Berlin 2012. ISBN 978-3-88747-281-8
- ↑ Werner von Langsdorff: U-Boats on the Enemy (1937)
- ↑ Creature Comforts Photo Album (Naval & Military Museum) ( Memento of the original from July 30, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Seemann mit Bordaffe auf Alert (1898–1902) ( Memento of the original from January 25, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Courageous WWII sea dog honored - BBC-Nwes
- ↑ Sindbad, USCG (Ret.), K9C (Chief Petty Officer, Dog) - US Coast Guard - History
- ↑ Poldi
- ↑ Blacky
- ↑ Laila's burial at sea
- ↑ whiskey
- ↑ Seppl
