Smoky, the Dog That Saved My Life
Smoky
© Smoky War Dog LLC
PROLOGUE
SOLDIER BILL WYNNE entered the darkened tent in the 5212th Photographic Wing during World War II. He squinted, adjusting his eyes to the low light. A little dog tied to a truck tire jumped up and down. She bounced off his leg. “Her head was the size of a baseball, her ears resembled miniature windmill blades, and her weight was almost nothing at all,” he later recalled. “I was looking into a grinning, fuzzy face. Almond eyes laughed at me above a jet-black button nose, and a friendly pink tongue licked my hand.”1
Bill asked a nearby soldier about the little dog. He was told that she was found trying to scratch her way out of a foxhole in the jungles of New Guinea. Bill loved dogs, all types of dogs, and he had never seen one like this. She was tiny, smaller than his army boot. That night, Bill slept fitfully thinking of the scruffy dog. What was she doing in a war zone? Was she a breed native to New Guinea or some type of Japanese dog? He pondered ways that he could make this dog his own. But what would I feed her? How could I fight a war with a little dog in tow? Should I bond with an animal only to watch it die?
1
SURVIVING THE GREAT DEPRESSION
Growing up in an orphanage was a great experience. I wasn’t a pure orphan. They had pure orphans there.
—Bill Wynne1
“IT’S JUST FOR a short time,” Beatrice Wynne said, choking back tears.2
Six-year-old Billy clung to his mother, wishing the family could all be together in their home in Cleveland, Ohio. But everything had changed. On March 7, 1924, Billy’s baby brother, Jimmy, was born with spina bifida, an incurable birth defect in which his spinal cord did not develop properly. Then came the strike of 1925 at “The Big Four” railroad. Billy’s dad, Martin Wynne, lost his job. Soon after, his dad was hospitalized for emotional stress, and upon his release, Martin left not only the hospital, but also his young family.
Billy’s mom, Beatrice, no stranger to hard times, had dropped out of school at age fourteen to care for her siblings when her father had died. Now at age thirty-three, she found herself alone and responsible for three young children. In August 1928, after years of struggling with money problems and unreliable babysitters, Beatrice sent her eight-year-old daughter, Mary, to live with her mom, Grandma Caffrey, in Scranton, Pennsylvania. The boys went to the Parmadale orphanage.
Jimmy, Mary, and Billy pose in a field in Cleveland in 1926, soon after their dad left the family. From left to right, they are ages one, five, and four.
© William A. Wynne
Once the boys were dropped off at the orphanage in Parma, Ohio, they never got to see one another. Four-year-old Jimmy went to live in the baby cottage, and Billy resided in Cottage 13 with thirty-nine other boys, under the supervision of Sister Lucy, a Catholic nun. That night, Billy looked around the room of forty beds, twenty lined up on each side. Through tear-filled eyes, he wondered how he could feel so all alone in a room full of people.
Although four hundred boys lived at the orphanage in the care of the Sisters of Charity of Saint Augustine, Billy bonded with Rags, the wire-haired Airedale owned by Father Gallagher. Billy trusted the dog. He depended on Rags. After all, he had learned at a young age that people let you down; dogs didn’t. The boy and the dog formed an instant bond. They ran around the grounds together. “Rags started me out,” Bill said. “He gave me a lifelong love of dogs.”3
Beatrice Wynne sits with Billy and holds Jimmy on her lap at a family picnic in 1926.
© William A. Wynne
Billy lived with thirty-nine other boys in Cottage 13 of the Parmadale orphanage from 1928 to 1930.
Photo by Nancy Roe Pimm
On a typical day at the orphanage, the boys explored the woods behind the cabins. They collected animals of all sorts. Snakes were kept in a concrete tub intended for muddy boots, while the turtles and raccoons ran free in the basement. One day, a couple of boys spotted two owls sitting on a branch. One boy leapt at the unsuspecting owls, captured the pair in his sweater, and added them to the ever-growing menagerie. The owls hooted all through the night. The following day, Sister Lucy made it clear that the owls needed to go back to their home in the wild. Nobody argued with Sister Lucy.
One evening, mystical sounds filled the air. A constant drumbeat, along with the sounds of accordions and violins, lured Billy out of the cottage. Deep in the woods, a group of people clad in long-sleeved white shirts danced around a bonfire. While Billy stared at the mysterious sight, an older boy came to his side and whispered, “Those are gypsies. Watch out because they steal little boys.”4 Billy had never encountered these traveling families, now called Romani. That night, Billy slept fitfully, awakening to visions of strangers whisking him away in the dark of night.
Somehow, Billy survived the loneliness of the cold, dark winter. In 1929, in the warmer days of spring, the boys handpicked two baseball teams from their cottage. One of the teams consisted of not only best friends, but also the best athletes. When Billy didn’t make this team, he lumbered away, dejected—a castaway once more. But when his team of misfits practiced together, they bonded over their rejection. The boys felt they had something to prove. By summer’s end, through hard work and camaraderie, the team most expected to lose, won it all. They were crowned Parmadale baseball champions!
The older boys of the Parmadale orphanage competed for bragging rights on a yearly basis in a competition called field days. About one year after he arrived at his new home, seven-year-old Billy watched those boys compete in everything from foot races to kite flying. Six soldiers dressed in blue uniforms with big brass buttons on their overcoats stood by the bandstand and watched the kids compete. White hair poked from beneath the blue hats of the Union soldiers. Bill stared up at the long white beards of the Civil War veterans and the officers stared down at him. Little did he know that someday he, too, would be in uniform, fighting in a war.
On the occasional Sunday afternoon, Billy’s mom visited the orphanage. She came with candies and small gifts about once a month. Billy looked forward to the treats, but mostly he loved spending time with his mom. He missed his little brother, too. Every time his mother came, Billy asked the same question, “When can I come home?” His mom would look away and say, “Soon, Billy. I’ll get you home soon.”5
In the fall of 1929, the world outside Parmadale turned upside down. The Great Depression hit, and it hit hard. Everyone suffered. Banks and businesses closed. People lost their jobs and their homes. Orphanages filled to capacity. Parmadale was no exception. As more children poured through the doors, the Sisters of Charity supplied every one of them with two sets of shoes and four outfits, two for winter and two for summer. Little things brought great joy to the lonely boys. A pancake breakfast highlighted some mornings, not only because the kids loved the fluffy flapjacks, but also because of the potential prize inside. The chef had added boiled pennies to the pancake batter, and a penny could buy ten clay marbles, called brownies, at the orphanage store.