Smoky often went on photo recce and air-sea rescues with Bill. ‘One thing was for sure on Biak Island: If Smoky started yelping her signature bark…it was time to run hell for leather for the shelters’ (117). Smoky did not have this training but she coped well, often sensing the alarm before it became obvious to the men. With the group Smoky travels from one air base to the next, from Nadzab to Biak Island, ‘a war blasted chunk of white coral that roasted under the remorseless tropical sun’ (114) and on to the Philippines, sometimes travelling by air and at other times by boat.īefore being sent to the front line, professional war dogs of the Second World War underwent intense training to accustom them to the noise of explosions and gunfire. The bravery and morale-boosting qualities of this small canine, combined with the essential, very dangerous work done by the squadron who adopted her, form the basis of this story. How she came to be found in an abandoned foxhole in the steamy jungle of New Guinea remained a mystery. This scraggy, undernourished, tiny canine was revealed later to be a Yorkshire Terrier, a breed little known outside of the UK. This information was only discovered well after she had endeared herself to all, and become the mascot for the group. Of course the book is also about the specific role played by a little dog, the breed of which the Americans had never seen before. The story follows these men as the allies manage to rout the Japanese and drive them back to Japan. The storyline for Smoky the Brave, The World’s Smallest Dog, The World’s Biggest Heart, involves the US, 5 th Air Force’s 26th Photo Reconnaissance Squadron and specifically twenty-one year old Corporal William ‘Bill’ Wynne, whose unit was based in Papua New Guinea during 1944. He has also branched out into writing thrillers as well as creating a computer game. His war victim memoirs, Slave and Tears of the Desert, have won many awards and were top international sellers. Since then he has written many military books and man-and-dog at war true stories based on what he has researched and seen over the years.
He became an author largely by accident when a British publisher asked him if he’d be willing to turn a TV documentary he was working on into a book. He has produced about twenty films and more than fifteen books which are now read worldwide. The book Smoky the Brave is another biography about war dogs, by Damien Lewis a British author and film maker who spent over twenty years reporting from conflict zones throughout the world.
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