"Judy"

A World War II Bird Dog Endures the Unthinkable

 

By Casey Sill

The Japanese bomb hit the HMS Grasshopper shortly after midday on February 14, 1942.

The explosion rocked the stern, tearing through the rear mess deck before detonating. The Grasshopper didn't sink immediately, but fire racing toward her aft magazine threatened to obliterate the ship altogether. The captain aimed for a small island in the distance, and the ship ran aground in its shallows. As the dust settled and survivors made their way ashore, among the missing was a six-year-old liver and white pointer named Judy.

The Insect Class river gunboat HMS GNAT on the China Station.

Judy was born in Shanghai, China in the winter of 1936. Reared at a gun dog kennel meant to serve the hoity-toity British aristocrats living there at the time, she was named for the Mandarin word for "the peaceful one" — Shudi.

She was purchased by two officers from the HMS Gnat, a British "insect-class" gunboat, when she was six months old to serve as the ship's mascot. The crew quickly dubbed her "Judy of Sussex," envisioning hunts for king quail along the banks of the Yangtze River where the ship patrolled.

In his book about Judy, author Damien Lewis recalls First Lieutenant, R. Haines issuing a directive to the ship when he introduced Judy.

"From this moment onwards," Haines said, "no shooting party will be able to return to ship claiming to have shot 23 quail, but that only one could be found."

The HMS Grasshopper.

By the time she was a year old, Judy had already endured a night spent lost on the streets of downtown Shanghai and a fall into the fast-moving Yangtze, both of which should have proven fatal. Transferred along with much of the crew to the HMS Grasshopper in the spring of 1939, Judy quickly developed the reputation of being both brave and foolhardy.

As tensions rose across the Far East and the South Pacific, the Grasshopper let out of Shanghai for the relative safety of British-controlled Singapore. The ship was still stationed there on the morning of Dec. 7, 1941 (December 8 local time), when waves of Japanese bombers attacked Singapore with the same ferocity as Pearl Harbor, some 7,000 miles to the east.

In the chaos that followed, the Grasshopper fled, only to be caught by twin-engine bombers on Valentine's Day 1942. Visions of escape ended when the ship slammed into rocky shallows 50 yards off an unnamed Pacific island.

Judy sits up and listens to a sailor's commands on the deck of the HMS Grasshopper.

The next evening, Petty Officer George White returned to the ship to hunt for salvageable provisions. As he tore through the shattered hull, he heard a faint whimper from behind an overturned locker in a half-flooded room. When he lifted the locker away, there was Judy — alive and well.

The crew spent five days on "Shipwreck Island" before being picked up by a local Dutch trawler. Prior to their rescue, Judy found and dug up a freshwater source on the beach that undoubtedly saved the lives of some of the more frail and wounded castaways.

From there they steamed west for the Island of Sumatra, and then up the Indrairi River — where they continued on foot to the Allied city of Padang. Here Judy warded off poisonous snakes and hunted game for the crew before being attacked by a crocodile that left two deep gashes in her shoulder.

The men of the Grasshopper made it to Padang just as the Japanese were closing in on the city. After a grueling, five-week journey through the jungle, the entire group was captured by the Japanese Army in the spring of 1942.

The crew was transferred to the city of Belawan and eventually placed in POW Camp Gloegoer One. During the trip, Judy was hidden from the Japanese in a burlap rice sack, a trick that would save her life multiple times throughout the war.

Allied POWs suffered unspeakable brutality and torture at the hands of their Japanese captures during the war, and Gloegoer One was no exception. The fact Judy wasn't immediately shot as a simple act of cruelty is beyond remarkable. But somehow, she was allowed to remain with the crew.

A statue of Judy at the National Military Working Dogs Memorial UK headquarters in Brynford, England.

She was not, however, afforded a ration allotment — and what was given to the human prisoners was barely enough to keep starvation at bay. As they all withered away, Judy's protectors sacrificed a portion of what little they had to keep her alive.

Up to this point in her life, ownership of Judy was somewhat collective. She was looked after by a number of the crew, some of them having come and gone after the shipwreck, others having died at the hands of the Japanese. But a new arrival at Gloegoer One changed all that.

RAF Leading Aircraftman Frank Williams arrived at the camp shortly after Judy and was immediately drawn to the emaciated pointer. He took it upon himself to look after her, and she would remain by his side until the day she died.

One of Judy's pastimes at the camp was sneaking under the wire to scrounge for food, but her protectors eventually discovered that wasn't all she was up to. Some time into their stay at Gloegoer One, Judy gave birth to five healthy puppies.

Seizing an opportunity, Williams used the litter as a chance to protect Judy. It was well-known the Japanese commandant was a dog lover, and Williams bribed the Colonel with the gift of a puppy. In return Judy was officially registered as a POW and given a daily ration allotment.

Two years went by at the camp.

National Military Working Dogs Memorial UK.

The POWs endured daily slave labor, torture, and starvation. Through it all, Judy became a beacon of hope for the prisoners. A wet nose to the face or a wag of the tail helped keep them going. Judy was a constant moral boost to men who had almost nothing else.

In the spring of 1944, a new commandant arrived at the camp and announced the prisoners would be transferred back to Singapore, now under Japanese occupation.

The men were ordered to leave Judy behind.

Williams immediately hatched a plan to smuggle Judy aboard their transport ship. He trained her to jump into a burlap sack at the sound of a whistle and sit perfectly still.

When the day of their transfer came, he tied Judy to a pole with a slipknot, and waited until after the guards had checked his sack for contraband. With a soft whistle, she tore loose from the rope and hopped in the bag, right under the nose of the guards. She somehow went undetected through two more inspections and settled on the ship safe and sound with her master.

Judy pictured with Frank Williams in May 1946, after she was awarded the Dickin Medal.

On June 26, 1944, the ship headed east across the Pacific with 700 POWs packed like sardines in its sweltering hull. Judy was lying across Williams' legs fast asleep when an explosion rocked the ship. A moment later, a second torpedo ripped into the hull. As the water rushed in, Williams pushed Judy out of a porthole before escaping himself. The ship sank in 12 minutes.

Williams was rescued two hours later, but Judy was nowhere to be found.

When he staggered into their new camp in Singapore two days later, he was immediately knocked to the ground by a blow to the back. Rolling over, there was Judy — standing over him and licking his face, still stained and stinking from the oily seas she was pulled from.

Judy had not only survived but had pulled a half dozen or more men to safety before being rescued. This had taken an incredible toll on her body, which was already on the verge of collapse from two years in a POW camp. Slowly, Williams and the rest of Judy's family nursed her back to health. She had now survived the sinking of two ships, which had claimed the lives of over 200 men in total.

She recovered just as the war ground into its final year. But there was no light at the end of the tunnel for Judy or her compatriots as the noose tightened on the Japanese Empire.

By August 1944 the crew was back in Sumatra as forced laborers on what became known as the "Pekanbaru Death Railway." Here the POWs treatment went from inhumane to unfathomable. They worked endlessly, and rations were reduced as Japanese supply lines were cut by the Allies. Judy's rations were cut completely, as even the guards began to starve.

The Dickin Medal. Commonly referred to as "the animal's Victoria Cross," it is Britain's highest military honor for animals.

The men developed ulcers, beriberi, malaria, dysentery, and a myriad of other sickness and disease. As their rations were reduced further and further, they resorted to picking maggots out of their latrines, which they rinsed and ate.

By fall, 10 men died daily — 20 lives per kilometer of track. Local forced laborers died by the hundreds.

On January 10, 1945, a B-29 Superfortress flew overhead — the first sign of the Allied advance. The sight sent the Japanese guards into a rage.

As Japanese moral deteriorated, their treatment of the POWs worsened considerably.

That spring, Judy cornered a guard who had savagely beaten a prisoner. Teeth bared, she took off into the jungle just as the guard leveled his rifle and fired. She reappeared hours later, limping with blood running down her side — the bullet had grazed her back but missed her vitals.

By July 1945, B-29s appeared overhead daily. Yet the work continued.

In August the commandant ordered Judy shot, likely so the guards would have something to eat. But as she had time and time again throughout the war, Judy slipped through the guard's fingers and was nowhere to be found each time they searched for her.

The last spike on the Pekanbaru Death Railway was driven the morning of August 15, 1945 — the day the war in the Pacific ended. Two weeks later, on September 4, British soldiers liberated the Pekanbaru camp.

Judy with Frank Williams.

After three years and six months at the hand of the Japanese, Judy, Williams and the remaining crew of the Grasshopper were going home.

After six months in quarantine back in England, Judy was awarded the Dickin Medal, the animal version of Britain's highest military honor. She remains the only dog to ever be officially registered as a prisoner of war.

Judy and Williams lived together in Portsmouth, England until 1948, when Williams accepted a job in Tanzania. Naturally Judy tagged along.

She spent her final years chasing wild game in East Africa, until one afternoon she lit off into the bush and didn't return.

She was found four days later by local villagers, who passed the word along to Williams. He arrived at the village expecting the worst, and there was Judy — still alive yet again

But this time, the exhaustion from her adventure was too much. Judy of Sussex died in Tanzania on February 17, 1950 — she was 14 years old.

She was buried not far from Williams' home.

Judy's grave in Tanzania, Africa.

A plaque on her grave reads:

In memory of Judy DM Canine VC

  • Breed English Pointer
  • Born Shanghai February 1936, died February 1950
  • Wounded 14 February 1942
  • Bombed and sunk HMS Grasshopperv
  • Lingga Archipelago 14 February 1942
  • Torpedoed SS Van Waerwijck
  • Malacca Straits 26 June 1944
  • Japanese Prisoner of War March 1942-August 1945
  • China - Ceylon - Java - England - Egypt - Burma
  • Singapore - Malaya - Sumatra - E Africa



 

This story originally appeared in the Fall 2025 issue of Quail Forever Journal. Special thanks to the National Military Working Dogs Memorial UK, who provided the photos of Judy for this story. A statue of Judy can be found at their headquarters in Brynford, England.

Casey Sill is the senior public relations specialist at Quail Forever. He can be reached at csill@pheasantsforever.org.