Page 8 - Animals Go to War: From Dogs to Dolphins

near starvation. Judy lived on scraps the prisoners gave her and the
occasional lizard or rat that she caught in the jungle.
As time went on, the men got hungrier, thinner, and sicker.
One day after Judy had lost her best human friend to malaria, she
approached Williams in a desperate search for food. Judy sat in front of
him, almost at attention, as well-trained dogs will do. Williams tousled
her ears and shared his meager rice ration with her. She looked into
his eyes, gobbled the rice, and lay down at his feet. They became best
friends for life.
In 1943 Williams convinced a slightly drunk prison commander
to make Judy an official prisoner of war. Judy became Prisoner of War
# 81A, the only animal ever named as a Japanese POW. The human
prisoners labored hard every day in treacherous conditions to build
bridges, lay railroad track, and to tear down abandoned buildings
in Sumatra. There was never enough food. The men and Judy grew
thinner and ever weaker. POWs died of malaria and starvation. The
Japanese soldiers guarding the camp tried their best to kill Judy. How
could a prisoner have a dog, especially a dog that growled at its captors?
(A Japanese man had kicked Judy across the street when she was a
puppy in Shanghai, and she never forgot it.) Often Williams would
take a beating when the soldiers couldn’t find Judy. She lived like a
ghost, learning to hide in the camp or to scramble under the fence and
flee into the jungle when Williams whistled to warn her away from
the guards.

DEVOTED COMPANIONS
When orders came to move the prisoners by ship to yet another camp,
Williams taught Judy to hang upside down without moving inside a
burlap bag slung over his shoulder. He stood in the boiling sun for
nearly two hours waiting to board the Harukiku Maru. Judy sensed the
danger they were in and didn’t even twitch. The Japanese stuffed the
POWs (and, unknowingly, Judy) into dark, stinking holds, crammed

10 Animals Go to War