Museum honours dogs – and ferrets – of war

Sunday, July 16th, 2006 at 6:05 am

Well I’m extremely happy to see that ferrets have been honored at the opening of the Imperial War Museum in London.

And how about a ferret being a mascot for the 1st Battalion Yorkshire? I approve wholeheartedly :-0)

Maev Kennedy
Thursday July 13, 2006
Guardian Unlimited

A ferret at the opening of the Imperial War Museum’s exhibition

The Animals’ WarBeastly conflict … A ferret at the opening of the Imperial War Museum’s exhibition The Animals’ War. Photograph: Graeme Robertson

It’s just as well Buster, Jake, Endal, Imphal and Quebec, Cruachan III and Shenkin II weren’t allowed into the Imperial War Museum: the ultimate fate of Tirpitz might have troubled them.

The animals were invited to mark the opening of a major exhibiton, The Animals’ War.

Buster won a medal for uncovering an explosives cache in Iraq; Endal has learned to operate a cash machine for his owner, a former naval officer seriously injured in the first Gulf war; Jake, a few months out of training, was the first with PC Bob Crawford onto the reeking aftermath of the Tavistock Place bus bomb in London last July, checking for secondary devices before any rescue teams could come on board – “a lot of new experiences for him in one day,” Pc Crawford said drily.

The ferrets might easily have been whippets: they began as a joke about Yorkshiremen and their animals. They were officially adopted when Quebec and Imphal were presented by amused locals, when the 1st Battalion Yorkshire was on duty in Northern Ireland. “He won’t bite,” Sergeant Richard Fisher assured some nervous schoolchildren yesterday, “he’ll only have a little nibble and maybe taste you a little”.