Smoky the 4 Pound Military Dog

An American soldier found a tiny but full-grown Yorkshire terrier in a foxhole in New Guinea during World War II. Combat photographer Corporal William A. Wynne took a picture of the dog sitting in a helmet to show how small she was. That photo made the dog famous, as it was printed in a military magazine and then in newspapers across the US.

The dog was named Smoky, and over the last two years of the war she accompanied Wynne on 12 combat missions and dozens of air raids, and entertained troops and the hospitalized wounded with tricks she learned during downtime. Those tricks served her well after the war too, used to entertain the world on tours and TV shows. Millions of people knew and loved Smoky the War Dog.

Smoky was so loved that the Cleveland Plain Dealer ran an obituary when she died in 1957, which led to solving the mystery of how a Yorkshire terrier came be in a foxhole in New Guinea. Read that story in a newspaper clipping at FishWrap. -via Strange Company