Bonzo's War (5 page)

The RSPCA provided a census of the imperial capital's non-human population. ‘Besides the 40,000 working horses in the metropolis there were also 18,000 pigs, 9,000 sheep, 6,000 head of cattle, 400,000 dogs, and approximately 1,500,000 cats,' announced Sir Robert Gower at a conference in May. ‘The public looks to the Society to see that this vast army of animals has adequate protection.'

Many of those working horses were employed by railway companies, breweries, dairies and borough councils, but many more were the animals of the poor,
living in tumbledown backyard stables in the sort of conditions that Maria Dickin had found so distressing, twenty years before. If cities were evacuated or bombed, how should they be looked after?

The Home Office discussions progressed through the spring. The National Veterinary Medical Association (NVMA) gave their views. The RSPCA was brought in, plus the chairman of the Dogs' Home, Battersea, Sir Charles Hardinge. Mr H. E. Bywater, chief veterinary officer of the County Borough of West Ham on the eastern edge of the metropolis, who was organizing an experimental local defence scheme, was co-opted.

It was agreed that some sort of official advice to the public should be drafted. The initial plan was for a regional network of vets to work with local authority ARP services, but when in March the ‘various animal welfare societies' were at last consulted after months of being ignored, they fell over each other to get aboard.

The man doing the consulting was Mr Christopher Pulling, barrister, chronicler of the English music hall, connoisseur of detective fiction and career civil-servant (he would be Senior Assistant Secretary at Scotland Yard for thirty-five years). The intervention of this exotic figure on behalf of pets would have unlooked-for consequences.

‘The RSPCA, People's Dispensary for Sick Animals, Our Dumb Friends' League, the Dogs' Home, Battersea and National Canine Defence League all have plentiful funds and are well situated with ample premises,' Mr Pulling noted in April. ‘One is well aware of the complications of the animal defence societies' internecine politics, but I am assured by the secretaries of most that they are anxious to offer their full resources with no charge on public funds,' so he informed the Commissioner. He thought a strong, independent chairman would be
necessary if they somehow agreed to co-operate.

Meanwhile he was developing a scheme of his own. To get away from danger, ‘people with cars might be able to take their pets with them,' he said, ‘but there are others who will not.' It was a statement of the obvious. Animal welfare societies should not only be responsible for the destruction of pets but also for the evacuation of animals in ‘good condition' to suitable rural refuges, he proposed.

Nevertheless a large number of strays was inevitable. Starving or injured cats and dogs should be straightaway put down by police. Where London strays in ‘good condition' came into police hands, they should be sent to the Dogs' Home, Battersea in the usual way (who would decide what was ‘good' or not?) with the statutory retention period under the Animals Act, 1911, before destruction – in case anyone turned up to claim them. But the period of grace would be reduced if necessary by an Emergency Defence Regulation from seven days to three.

The Home Office animals-at-war advice pamphlet was progressing. It was a well-meaning mix of technical information about the effects of high explosive and various gases – ‘that might be employed in a future war' – and the mechanics of despatching creatures who might be ‘incurably injured'.

Its basis was Colonel Stordy's memorandum of January, with a dash of Professor Richter's
Luftschutz
manual, with amendments made by interested parties – including this inserted at a meeting of the ‘drafting sub-committee' in April at the suggestion of Mr Pulling:
¹

Dogs and cats and other pets must be considered the personal responsibility of their owners. These animals will be prohibited from entering the shelters provided for public use. Owners should make up their minds whether they can take away their dog or cat themselves. If this is impossible, they should decide whether the animal is best destroyed or evacuated to the care of friends in the country.

The destruction imperative was repeated at the end – just before the appendix on how to use a captive-bolt pistol. It said:

When an owner has been unable to send his dog or cat to a safe area, he should consider the advisability of having it painlessly destroyed. During an emergency there might be large numbers of animals wounded, gassed or driven frantic with fear, and destruction would then have to be
enforced
[author's italics] by the responsible authority for the protection of the public.

This was the primary fear that would now drive policy, the prospect of frenzied hordes of gas-contaminated cats and dogs swarming through burning cities. And what about those school pets? Instead of being cosily tended by caretakers such as Mr Stordy proposed, all those guinea-pigs, rabbits, etc. were not to be ‘destroyed unless they can be evacuated in advance,' stated the manual published in early July as
ARP Handbook No. 12
– ‘Air Raid Precautions for Animals', available from His Majesty's Stationery Office, price 3
d
.

Meanwhile, a grand conference of what were described as ‘the first class animal societies' was held in London on 22 June (the exclusion of the ‘lesser' ones caused outrage) under Sir
John Anderson's political patronage. Would ‘an extension of their peace time activities' be enough to cope with pets in war? Could they ‘pool their resources' under some new organization? A highly revealing discussion resulted, reported to the Commissioner by Christopher Pulling.

The West Ham vet, H. E. Bywater, suggested ‘evacuation would only be the fringe of the problem'. In his borough alone there were '20,000 dogs and 60,000 cats'.

‘The main problem would be the disposal of these pets,' he said, ‘by industrial concerns [which] should make use of all by-products possible.'

Mr Edward Bridges Webb, secretary of the PDSA, agreed with this starkly utilitarian approach, suggesting that ‘carcasses, once collected, be turned to profitable use', adding that his remarks referred to ‘small animals only', as the minutes of the meeting recorded.

Meanwhile Mrs Beauchamp Tufnell of Our Dumb Friends' League ‘thought the outbreak of war would be so sudden, evacuation would not be possible'.

There was general agreement that the outbreak of war would mean the mass killing of pets, even if not yet by Government compulsion. Were the means adequate? Both Our Dumb Friends' League and the Dogs' Home, Battersea were contractors to the Metropolitan Police in the matter of stray dogs, it was noted, with humane destruction as their main task. Indeed Battersea did so on an industrial scale.

The League used electricity, as did Battersea, which was capable of killing 100 dogs an hour with their very modern ‘electrothanaters' on two sites (the second was in Bow, in the East End). Their vans could carry twenty dogs each. Each Canine Defence League clinic could deal with fifty dogs and thirty cats an hour by electrocution, chloroform or hydrocyanic acid injection. The RSPCA had fifty-two ‘cat and dog lethalling centres' in London alone and more in
provincial cities. The PDSA were proposing an evacuation and registration scheme with ‘two kinds of [identity] disc, one to say the animal may be destroyed. They disposed of fifty ‘Temple Cox Captive Bolt Humane Killers' with 150 staff trained to use them, the ministry was told.

The death chambers and captive-bolt pistols were ready. Mr Arthur Moss of the RPSCA gloomily pronounced that the ‘primary task' for them all would be the destruction of animals and proposed that his inspectors be granted three months' exemption from call-up so that ‘they could train persons in the use of the humane killer'. Lorries and lifting gear would be needed for the collection of carcasses and ‘four-pronged forks for small animals'.

To dispose of the corpses, the firm of Harrison, Barber & Co., slaughterers and fat renderers of Sugar House Lane, Stratford E15, was ready to do its bit. Already there had been preliminary discussions with the company chairman, Captain E. Upton. A schedule was drafted of economically useful by-products – soap, fats, glues, fertilizer, fur. It was noted that the ‘voluntary societies carried out [destruction] work without charge, the profit lying in the disposal of the carcass'.

It was looking grim for pets.

Thus it was by early August 1939 the Home Office contingency animals committee had become transmuted into part of the nation's defences. It would have a grand title, the ‘National Air Raid Precautions Animals Committee' (NARPAC) and bring together, it was to be hoped, the veterinary profession, the animal welfare charities and the Government in working harmony.

Its chairman would be a retired Ministry of Agriculture undersecretary, Mr E. H. Dale. The existing committee was disbanded, its only transferee being H. E. Bywater, who would serve as honorary treasurer. The chief
executive officer (appointed on 19 July) would be Colonel Robert Stordy himself.
²

The National Veterinary Medical Association's liaison officer would be its own newly appointed president, the flamboyant, monocle-wearing (he had lost an eye as a young vet when a horse kicked him) Henry Steele-Bodger. Also on the committee was Keith Robinson of Our Dumb Friends' League and the thrusting Edward Bridges Webb of the PDSA, both of them enthusiastic populists, eager to reach out to the public through whatever means. Both agreed (the other charities did not) that they were already well-funded enough not to need a Government grant although ‘an appeal to the public should be made'. After all, that is what they were good at.

But should this organization be swift to save or eager to destroy? Mr Robinson suggested in early August that voluntary ‘Animal ARP Wardens', as he called them, should register animals in their area. And he told the Ministry this:

There must be no suggestion of the immediate destruction of small animals. If the public has learned that the Wardens are there and should war break out, their animals will be immediately looked after, there will be no need for wholesale destruction at every crisis.

Mr Bridges Webb designed a striking badge to be used on armbands and posters – and immediately copyrighted it in his own name.

Who was going to pay for all this? Vets were expected not to charge fees but what about their expenses? Who should pay the rent and for the establishment of an air raid shelter in the basement of Gordon Square? What about protective clothing, helmets, gas decontamination equipment, vehicles? Would local authorities provide them? Colonel Stordy's expenses were considered. It was agreed he could charge the services of his existing chauffeur, a certain Mr Badger, and be granted a petrol allowance of 4
d
. per mile. From what fund had yet to be agreed.

With the war crisis deepening, it seemed better just to plunge on with ‘a short term scheme' and worry about the details later. On 14 August NARPAC's headquarters were established alongside the existing NVMA's headquarters at No. 36 Gordon Square in leafy Bloomsbury, where everything was beaming goodwill, for the first few days at least.

Meanwhile those Home County kennels were back, cheerfully offering ‘safe accommodation for refugee dogs' – but hurry, only a few places left. A lady in Headington, Oxford, advertised: ‘Gas proof kennels for dogs. Cats extremely happy in special cottage.'

I feel sure they were. A Worcestershire aviary offered sanctuary for parrots too.

Some enterprising pet owners decided to create their own domestic shelters. Gas was still the biggest fear for humans and animals alike but most of the advice to pet owners in the event of chemical attack seemed absurd. ‘The contaminated hair on cats should be cut out and carefully destroyed,' recommended
ARP News
, while ‘goldfish mildly off colour may revive after a raid of a pinch or two of Epsom salts dropped in new water. Liver is a good pick me up for dogs gone off their meals.'

The PDSA's advice for bird-keepers was simple enough: ‘Hang caged birds off the floor in a gas-proof room below the level of any gas light-jets. If no gas-proof room is available, completely wrap the cage in a wet blanket. (This method should only be used as a last resource.)'

Gas masks for dogs were considered.
The Veterinary Record
pointed out the difficulties: ‘In the first place, to get the animal to tolerate the mask. Secondly, there are the various shapes and sizes of dogs' heads which would necessitate a large number of different sized masks, e.g., Pekingese, Terrier, Chow and Mastiff.'

‘It is obviously impossible to fit a gas mask to a cat or dog,' it was noted. ‘For if a dog is fitted with a mask he loses his sense of smell and with it his sense of direction and as a dog perspires through the mouth he cannot perspire freely. Even if a satisfactory mask could be devised the animal's body and feet would still be vulnerable.'

But humans must carry gas masks. This too brought pet-based dilemmas.
The Veterinary Record
again:

As a last general hint, owners should not only practise wearing their gas masks themselves for their own sakes, but by so doing they will accustom their pets to their changed appearance and muffled voice.

A striking example of the necessity for this precaution is afforded by the unfortunate experience of a lady – the possessor of a terrier – who put on her mask and went down on all fours to play with her pet. The dog promptly bolted and has not been seen since.

To protect small animals from gas, it had to be some sort of container. Mr C. H. Gaunt of the PDSA devised a ‘gas-proof safety kennel' with a hinged and sprung floor so that
‘every movement of the animal works a bellows that passes filtered air'. It was totally impractical.

Mr Frank Heaton, a Midlands inventor, advertised his patent gas-proof small animal shelter, its air refreshed by a bicycle pump – twenty to thirty strokes per hour. If you died so too presumably would your pet. It appeared in
The Tatler
magazine and in July 1939 attracted this letter of appreciation: