Medal for British PoW dog goes on display

LONDON: A medal awarded to the only dog to be officially registered as a prisoner of war in World War II went on public display for the first time on Tuesday.   

Judy, a mascot on board a torpedoed Royal Navy vessel in southeast Asia, helped dozens of men survive a Japanese PoW camp in Sumatra after she was captured alongside marooned members of the ship's crew in 1942.   

Frank Williams, a British airman at the camp, befriended the pedigree pointer -- and later successfully persuaded Japanese officers to register her as a PoW.   

She went on to survive gunshot wounds and alligator bites -- as well as helping her fellow PoWs to distract camp guards -- until the end of the war, when Williams smuggled her onto a ship back to England.   

In 1946 Judy was presented with the Dickin Medal by the People's Dispensary for Sick Animals, a veterinary charity -- and it was this medal, plus her collar, that went on display at the Imperial War Museum in south London.   

"Although I never knew Judy in life, she always felt like a member of our family who undoubtedly and repeatedly saved my husband's life and that of his fellow prisoners' during the war," said Williams' widow Doris Williams.   

"It was Frank's wish for Judy's PDSA Dickin Medal and collar to return to PDSA before being presented to the Imperial War Museum, where her courage and devotion to duty will be remembered by generations to come."   

Judy died in 1950.