Скачать или смотреть Gander: The Hero Dog of the Battle of Hong Kong

With today being Remembrance Day, I thought it would be a good idea to focus on something from Canada’s wartime past.
We are going to look back at the Battle of Hong Kong, which raged from Dec. 8 to 25, 1941, and was one of the first battles of the Pacific War during the Second World War. In this battle, Canadian soldiers defended the British crown colony from Japanese attackers. The Canadian troops faced overwhelming odds and 290 soldiers were killed, along with another 264 who died as POWs. Another 500 Canadians were wounded. One Canadian soldier, John Robert Osborn, was awarded the Victoria Cross for saving his men when he jumped on a grenade during the battle.
This episode is not about Osborn though, it is about Gander, a Newfoundland dog that became a hero of the battle.
Originally named Pal, Gander was a family pet that accidently scratched a child’s face with his paw. The family was worried that this would result in Pal being put down, so they gave him to the Royal Rifles of Canada, which was a regiment of the Canadian army that was stationed in Gander, Newfoundland. With his name changed to Gander, the dog was given the rank of sergeant and when the unit was shipped out to Hong Kong, Gander went with everyone else.
When the battle first began on Dec. 8, 1941, Gander and the rest of the unit were overwhelmed by Japanese invaders who attacked on three occasions over the next several days. In each occasion, Gander helped to fight off the Japanese, and protect injured men. According to Reginald Law, a rifleman from the battle, Gander would growl and run at the enemy soldiers when they approached, biting at their heels. Gander was so ferocious in his defending of the members of his unit, the Japanese would interrogate POWs after the battle and ask about the “Black Beast” that they fought with, and they asked if the Allies were training ferocious animals to fight in the war.
The third attack, which happened on Dec. 19, involved a grenade being thrown at the unit. Gander quickly picked up the grenade in his mouth, and promptly ran right back towards the Japanese with it. Sadly, the deed would take Gander’s life but it would help save the lives of the seven wounded soldiers he was protecting.
After the war was over, survivors of the battle insisted that Gander’s name be included among the names of the 1,975 soldiers on the Hong Kong Veterans Memorial Wall in Ottawa.
For his heroic efforts to save the men in his platoon, Gander was awarded the Dickin Medal in 2000, the first time it had been awarded since 1949. The medal is often referred to as the animal equivalent of the Victoria Cross.
On July 23, 2015, a statue of Gander and his handler was unveiled at the Gander Heritage Memorial Park in Gander, Newfoundland.