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Wojtek: The 'Polish Soldier Bear' (World War II)

Quetzelcoatl

Gone But Not Forgotten
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this from a Czech chum

in the edinburgh zoo there is a statue of WOJTEK.

Wojtek was a bear that fought in the battle of Monte Carlo, in poland, in 1939, in WWII

the bear was shipped to edinburgh zoo after the war. it killed nazis, so honor its soul and take a picture of the statue and post it on the internet. I wrote a paper on Wojtek a year ago and have NEVER been able to find a picture of either the bear or the statue of the bear!


Google draws a blank and I never heard of this statue

anybody know anything?

or is my pal Czech crackers?
 
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ethelred: I decided to have a look and found this:

When the Soviet Union was attacked by Germany, in June 1941, Polish POWs were released from prison camps and set up an army headed by General Anders. Many civilians were taken under the protection of this army which was allowed to make its way to Persia (modern-day Iran) and then on to Egypt. This army, the Polish Second Corps, fought with distinction in Italy, their most notable victory being that at Monte Cassino, in May 1944, and which opened up the road to Rome for the Allies as a whole. One of the "heroes" of the Polish Second Corps was Wojtek, a brown bear adopted in Iran as their mascot; at Monte Cassino Wojtek actually helped in the fighting by carrying ammunition for the guns. He died, famous and well-loved, in Edinburgh Zoo in 1964, aged 22.

from:
209.157.64.200/focus/f-vetscor/973873/posts
Link is dead. The MIA webpage can be accessed via the Wayback Machine:
https://web.archive.org/web/20031003081834/http://209.157.64.200/focus/f-vetscor/973873/posts


which allows me to narrow things down to this Google search:

google.com/q=WOJTEK+Polish+Second+Corps
Link is obsolete. The current equivalent link is:
https://www.google.com/search?as_q=...ch=&as_occt=any&safe=images&as_filetype=&tbs=


Hope that helps.

Emps
 
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this from a Czech chum

in the edinburgh zoo there is a statue of WOJTEK.

Wojtek was a bear that fought in the battle of Monte Carlo, in poland, in 1939, in WWII

the bear was shipped to edinburgh zoo after the war. it killed nazis, so honor its soul and take a picture of the statue and post it on the internet. I wrote a paper on Wojtek a year ago and have NEVER been able to find a picture of either the bear or the statue of the bear!


Google draws a blank and I never heard of this statue

anybody know anything?

or is my pal Czech crackers?

Ah, the great Battle of Monte Carlo, fought by the mighty Czechs in Poland against a crack division of Fallschirmjäger who got lost on their way to an Italian monastery. It may have been almost five years since their motherland was occupied by the Nazis, but when the chips were down, those Czechs beat the odds and came away victors.

Alternatively, in another timeline:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wojtek_(bear)

Wojtek_the_bear.jpg
 
Thank you for moving my post, I couldn't find this thread -
Wojtek was actually with the Polish Second Corps, and became a Colonel! And he used to pick up artillery that would take 4 men to handle.
And he ended up in your Scotland.
 
For the sake of anyone using this thread as a jumping off point for further reading, the battle was, as @Ronnie Jersey mentioned, Monte Cassino, not Monte Carlo as mentioned earlier in the thread.

Ronnie, did your father know Wojtek?
 
For the sake of anyone using this thread as a jumping off point for further reading, the battle was, as @Ronnie Jersey mentioned, Monte Cassino, not Monte Carlo as mentioned earlier in the thread.

Ronnie, did your father know Wojtek?
I asked him, and he said he had seen General Wladyslaw Anders at Monte Cassino, who was very popular and was right there among the soldiers.
But he had only heard about Wojtek the Bear, had not come across him.
I know he was at Monte Cassino for quite some time, it was a huge struggle.
But they won after losing many thousands of men.
 
I'm going to suggest a title change for this thread.

Update: the title is now no longer the misleading "Wojtek: Nazi-Fighting Czech Bear?".
 
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Wojtek is the name of a Polish Deli in town, however i think very few people know the relevance. I heard the story when I visited Monte Cassino on a Battlefield tour many years ago.
 
Wojtek is the name of a Polish Deli in town, however i think very few people know the relevance. I heard the story when I visited Monte Cassino on a Battlefield tour many years ago.
Wojtek is a common nickname for the Polish name Wojciech, so it's not necessarily named for the bear. In fact, it's probably named after the owner.
 
'Wodge Tech' sounds like a name for a wallet manufacturer.
 
Mr Stupid here.

So to ask the daftest question I can remember myself asking in my life, did the bear actually fight in WW2? If so how? How did it know who the enemy were?

I can't believe I asked that.
 
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Mr Stupid here.
So the ask the daftest question I can remember myself asking in my life, did the bear actually fight in WW2? If so how? How did it know who the enemy were?
I can't believe I asked that.

Wojtek was formally enlisted in an artillery support unit. He contributed to the fighting by carrying heavy ammunition - single artillery shells and (allegedly) entire crates that normally required 4 men to move. That's why the unit's emblem and multiple statues of Wojtek show the bear holding an artillery shell.

340px-The_badge_of_the_22nd_Artillery_Support_Company_of_the_2nd_Polish_Corps.jpg
Wojtek was officially drafted into the Polish Army as a private and listed among the soldiers of the 22nd Artillery Supply Company. Henryk Zacharewicz and Dymitr Szawlugo were assigned as his caretakers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wojtek_(bear)
 
Wojtek was formally enlisted in an artillery support unit. He contributed to the fighting by carrying heavy ammunition - single artillery shells and (allegedly) entire crates that normally required 4 men to move. That's why the unit's emblem and multiple statues of Wojtek show the bear holding an artillery shell.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wojtek_(bear)
Thanks. So the bear didn't actually take part in the fighting. When it was stated the bear took part in the fighting, I wondered how? I had visions of a bear with a rifle. Phew.

How did they train the bear to be so obedient? Or did it do so of it's own accord?
 
The unit's personnel raised the bear, which had been purchased as a cub in Iran. The bear mimicked its new "family", and that's supposedly how it was amenable to, and trained for, ammunition bearing (no pun intended).
 
The 22nd Company, Polish Army Service Corps (Artillery) were supply troops, not front-line troops.
It was at this juncture that Wojtek achieved legendary status. His comrades were frantically unloading boxes of artillery shells for the Allied guns in the heat of battle. Wojtek joined them and with his paws outstretched, he indicated that he would help. Although he had never been trained to handle the unloading of 100-pound boxes of 25-pounder shells, shell fuses and other supplies, he simply observed what the men were doing and joined in, without any bidding. Standing upright, he held out his front paws into which men loaded the heavy boxes of shells. Effortlessly, he carried the munitions to their storage areas beside the artillery positions, and returned to the lorries to collect more. It was the company's proud boast that he never dropped a single shell.
Wojtek the Bear: Polish War Hero by Aileen Orr, page 46-47
 
Polish Embassy says:
There are a number of statues/sculptures to Wojtek the Bear in the UK, for example in Edinburgh: https://www.iwm.org.uk/memorials/item/memorial/73819. We will soon be publishing a post about them as part of the #PolishGemsUK campaign, so keep following our social media channels. Wojtek was a Syrian brown bear and an essential part of the Polish II Corps, who fought in the Battle of Monte Cassino and was both a moral and physical support for the soldiers. You can find out more here: https://culture.pl/en/article/one-photo-one-story-wojtek-the-soldier-bear.
 
Youtube channel Yarnhub did an episode on the "battle bear" which was great and had some little bits that I hadn't heard about before.

 
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