Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You should know, a production of five
Speaker 1: Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Josh Clark, There's Charles w. Chub Bryan over there,
Speaker 1: there's Jerry and uh. The stuff's right. Amazing animal that's right.
Speaker 1: That well partially delight you, and if you're an animal
Speaker 1: over should partially horrify you at times. If you don't
Speaker 1: like animals, and you're probably gonna listen, I don't know,
Speaker 1: you could be like, yeah, you probably wouldn't listen Amazing
Speaker 1: Animal stories skip, but who would do that? One star? Yeah,
Speaker 1: So we're talking animals today, and like we said, not
Speaker 1: just animals, amazing animals because animals are great to talk about.
Speaker 1: We've talked about um octopie and duck billed platypie and elephant.
Speaker 1: I that we did the platypus I believe we have okay,
Speaker 1: almost positive, If not, it's do this is so the
Speaker 1: animals are funny to talk about. It's even more fun
Speaker 1: to talk about animals that are accomplished. That's right. Okay.
Speaker 1: You know I was at the playground the other day
Speaker 1: and my daughter was playing with another little girl, which
Speaker 1: is kind of one of the fun things about kids.
Speaker 1: They just immediately bond with another kid and the girl
Speaker 1: turned out to be a bar cup. I wish no.
Speaker 1: This girl smashed a ladybug and said yeah, and the
Speaker 1: parents went around. I was there and I was horrified,
Speaker 1: and my daughter said, that wasn't nice. You shouldn't kill animals.
Speaker 1: Good for you. And then this girl stomped an anthill
Speaker 1: girl's kind of issues. Yeah, and I and you know what,
Speaker 1: she found another ladybug and I said, don't touch that ladybug.
Speaker 1: She said why not? I said, because you the last one? Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I like felt fine, like admonishing this child that
Speaker 1: was not mine. Did you wait until she turned around
Speaker 1: and clapped by her ear to really startled her or
Speaker 1: drive it home? No, but she did trip later on,
Speaker 1: and under my breath I went, Karma, really, Yeah, she
Speaker 1: was fine, And then above your breath you went, that's
Speaker 1: right above my breath. Yeah. By the way, With Mike
Speaker 1: the headless Chicken, which we're gonna start out with, I
Speaker 1: couldn't remember how this existed in the annals of stuff.
Speaker 1: You should know, because I knew it did, and I
Speaker 1: thought it might have been one of our dumb videos.
Speaker 1: But it turns out it was one of our great videos.
Speaker 1: Which one it was? You did it? Dumb? Don't be
Speaker 1: dumb on this. But surely we've talked about Mike before.
Speaker 1: I thought we might have, but don't be dumb. Was
Speaker 1: only it came up and it was great, weird. Oh,
Speaker 1: thank you very much. We've done some cool videos together. Though.
Speaker 1: Remember this day in history where like we yeered off
Speaker 1: into like conjuring Satan for a little while, and like
Speaker 1: we ended up in a different dimension. And I thought
Speaker 1: those were great. So silly anyway, Um, okay, So, like
Speaker 1: you said, we're talking about Mike the Headless Chicken. First,
Speaker 1: that's right, which September n If you were in Colorado
Speaker 1: and you happen to live near the Olsens, Lloyd and
Speaker 1: Clara and Freud to Colorado, Yeah, Fruda, do you know
Speaker 1: where that is? It's by Grand Junction, which I think
Speaker 1: is you know where that is? I feel like I've
Speaker 1: been West Colorado, like on the way to like all
Speaker 1: those amazing national parks. Colorado is very varied. You think
Speaker 1: of Colorado is just being this amazing mountain estate, which
Speaker 1: it is in parts, but they're also like planes and
Speaker 1: all sorts of stuff. That's where there's an ocean right
Speaker 1: in the middle of it. Right, that's where Canyon National
Speaker 1: Park or Canyon Land and Candy Land. That's where the
Speaker 1: guy cut off his own arm in a d twenty
Speaker 1: seven hours. James Franco. Sure. Yeah, So the Olsens were
Speaker 1: farmers and they were killing birds. Lloyd would cut the
Speaker 1: heads off of these chickens and his wife would clean
Speaker 1: them up, because, after all, it was that's kind of
Speaker 1: how the division of labor went back then. And he
Speaker 1: would go in and sell these chickens at the market,
Speaker 1: and they he went to gather up all the chickens,
Speaker 1: and he got to one with no head that was
Speaker 1: still alive, and he went, what into our nation. That's right,
Speaker 1: that's a direct you should be dead. I saw that
Speaker 1: for this one in particular, he he aimed to preserve
Speaker 1: the neck as much as possible, so he just took
Speaker 1: off the head. Right. He did a good job, I guess,
Speaker 1: because I think his mother in law was coming over
Speaker 1: for dinner and she liked fried chicken necks, so he
Speaker 1: was trying to give her a fried chicken neck, just
Speaker 1: taking the head off. The thing is this one was
Speaker 1: still alive, and that's still live in the way that
Speaker 1: a chicken will run around with its head cut off,
Speaker 1: like everybody knows. Yeah, he was just being a chicken. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so he did that. He ran around like a chicken
Speaker 1: with his head cut off. But then he's stopped and
Speaker 1: he started like pecking at the ground with his stump.
Speaker 1: He started preening himself, basically acting like he still had
Speaker 1: a head and like he wasn't planning on dying anytime soon.
Speaker 1: That's right. So Lloyd said, let me put you in
Speaker 1: this about this apple box overnight and just I assume
Speaker 1: we'll get up in the morning and you'll be dead.
Speaker 1: Then God will take his vengeance over the night I
Speaker 1: want any more like you consider it a coffin, basically, right,
Speaker 1: And he woke up in the morning and this chicken
Speaker 1: was still alive, a rooster technically, So he said, what's
Speaker 1: for breakfast? So he took this thing to that meat
Speaker 1: market just to show everyone, like, you gotta see, this
Speaker 1: is what anyone would have done, I think. And then
Speaker 1: the word starts to spread. Everyone was amazed at this
Speaker 1: headless chicken. Word starts to spread around fruit to Why
Speaker 1: do I have a bad feeling we're pronouncing that wrong?
Speaker 1: Is there any other way. You could pronounce that fru wide. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that could be. I mean in Georgia they called Cairo
Speaker 1: ki row, that's true, and Voyanna for Vienna. That's right. So, uh,
Speaker 1: did you just wolf? So he takes this rooster. Everyone
Speaker 1: is quite impressed, of course, uh, this headless chicken, and
Speaker 1: words spread around about what was going on there, and
Speaker 1: that eventually attracts the attention, of course to a side
Speaker 1: show promoter who said, this chicken is dynamite. I don't
Speaker 1: think you know what you have on your hands here.
Speaker 1: Yeah you you rube, you hay seed. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: let's go into business together, is what he said. Totally
Speaker 1: So um. This guy, his name was Hope Wade. I
Speaker 1: kept waiting for him to turn into like a an underhanded,
Speaker 1: devious kind of guy because he was the nineteen forties
Speaker 1: side show promoter. He seemed to have been fine past
Speaker 1: all the great tests, exploiting all the right to humans
Speaker 1: and animals. He he was just in it for the
Speaker 1: love of the game from what I could talk. So
Speaker 1: he gets together, Hope Wade, the circus uh sideshow promoter
Speaker 1: gets together with Lloyd and Clara and they start touring
Speaker 1: the country with Mike the chicken. But first, I don't
Speaker 1: understand why they did this, Maybe just to make the
Speaker 1: whole thing even more bona fide. I'm not sure. They
Speaker 1: went to Salt Lake City, and we should note that
Speaker 1: Hope Wade traveled from Salt Salt Lake City to through Wada.
Speaker 1: I think that's where we're gonna go with okay Um,
Speaker 1: which was like three miles in the forties, the nine
Speaker 1: that's not an easy distance to travel back then. And
Speaker 1: because he heard about a headless chicken. But think about
Speaker 1: like what he was putting on the line with that.
Speaker 1: Let's say it took him four days to get there.
Speaker 1: He could have been doing any number of things those
Speaker 1: four days. The chicken could have died while he was
Speaker 1: on the way there, and it didn't. And he made
Speaker 1: it there, and he became a business partner with the Olsen's.
Speaker 1: He had a hunch and he went with his gut
Speaker 1: and it paid off. So the first thing he did, sorry,
Speaker 1: was to take them back to sol City and introduced
Speaker 1: him to some scientists there. That's right. So the scientists
Speaker 1: did a lot of tests. Um they apparently we don't
Speaker 1: know this for sure. I tried to do this surgically
Speaker 1: to some other chickens just to see if it worked,
Speaker 1: I guess, and Mike was like, stop, stop, what are
Speaker 1: you doing. Life Magazine showed up and ran a story
Speaker 1: in nine called Beheaded Chicken Lives normally after freak decapitation
Speaker 1: by acts. That wasn't freak decapitation. It was very purposeful. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I think they were saying, like it was freaking
Speaker 1: that he survived having his head chopped off. Maybe it's
Speaker 1: just said freaky decapitation. But that's when Mike got he huge,
Speaker 1: that's right, of course, Life Magazine is huge. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: was huge. I think Time eventually did one on him,
Speaker 1: and like it's really hard to overstate how big of
Speaker 1: a deal. Mike the Headless Wonder Chicken, I think is
Speaker 1: what they ultimately finally dubbed him. Became in the United
Speaker 1: States like he was. People would come from far and
Speaker 1: wide you go see him whenever he came to own.
Speaker 1: I mean, once it hit the internet, it was like wildfire.
Speaker 1: Well that's what Life Magazine was basically back then. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's true. So they all went to California in Arizona
Speaker 1: then Hope, you know, they had to go back to
Speaker 1: the farm at some point. Lloyd and Clara did so
Speaker 1: hope towards the Southeast, which I bet it was just
Speaker 1: like Gangbusters in the Southeast. You know, I looked up
Speaker 1: Um when he came to Atlantic because surely he came
Speaker 1: to Atlanta, and I couldn't find anything about it. Oh
Speaker 1: that's because he went to Terminus, right, it was pre Atlanta. Uh.
Speaker 1: They started getting letters, they started getting fan mail and
Speaker 1: hate mail. Yeah that some people compared them to Nazis,
Speaker 1: which I don't get that at all. I think experimentation maybe, okay,
Speaker 1: kind of mangola esque, Mangela esque, I can bind ish
Speaker 1: and asked together. That's a nice trend. Completely messed it up.
Speaker 1: There's another way to put it. I think we should
Speaker 1: start using that from now on. Yeah, why not? Okay,
Speaker 1: I like it alright. Uh. They got a letter from
Speaker 1: Alaska saying, um, can you swap out Mike's drumstick and
Speaker 1: put in a wooden leg and just keep this party
Speaker 1: going only in Alaska. Very funny people there, Um, and
Speaker 1: they were so they became so well known, especially around Fruita.
Speaker 1: I hope that's it, um, because if so were the
Speaker 1: only outsiders that ever pronouncing correct, You're welcome, UM, thank
Speaker 1: you no, not um so fruita. They became so well
Speaker 1: known there that people would write letters to the owners
Speaker 1: of the headless Chicken, and that was it on the
Speaker 1: outside of the envelope and it would show up at
Speaker 1: the Olsen's door in their mailbox. Yeah, the good old days.
Speaker 1: So everything's going quite swimmingly for him. They made a
Speaker 1: lot of money off of Mike. He actually lived for
Speaker 1: eighteen months without a head. Yeah, and like there's pictures
Speaker 1: of him standing there, standing up without a head and
Speaker 1: his little heads down by his feet. Yeah, you can
Speaker 1: see the stuff. Yeah, it's on the internet. Go check
Speaker 1: it out. It's on the Current Life magazine, the internet,
Speaker 1: the Worldwide Life. Yeah. I did some uh you know,
Speaker 1: of course, the calculation, the inflation calculation. They were pulling
Speaker 1: in in modern day money about sixty four thousand dollars
Speaker 1: a month back then it was. And they said you
Speaker 1: that Mike was valued and modern money at a hundred
Speaker 1: and forty two dollars or tin tin grand back then.
Speaker 1: So they upgraded their farm equipment. Yeah, they bought a
Speaker 1: new pickup truck. That thing is sweet. Did you look
Speaker 1: up forty six Chevy pick up? No, I'm pretty sure
Speaker 1: I know what it looks like, man, they're nice. Um,
Speaker 1: And yeah, they made a lot. They went from like
Speaker 1: being poor Colorado farmers too, pretty well off Colorado farmers.
Speaker 1: They've been using like a mule in a wagon before
Speaker 1: to go to town. Now they were driving in their
Speaker 1: brand new Chevy pickup truck. So that like it was
Speaker 1: really good for them that Mike managed to live after
Speaker 1: they cut his head off. Um, but while he was alive,
Speaker 1: they managed to study him and figure out exactly what happened. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so it's to be fair, it's a little more accurate
Speaker 1: to say Mike the faceless chicken, although when you look
Speaker 1: at a picture, it looks like the head is completely gone.
Speaker 1: But what happened was he cut off the he he accident.
Speaker 1: You know this is all by accident. Of course. Remember
Speaker 1: he's trying to preserve as much of the neck as possible. Yeah,
Speaker 1: which he did because he left the back of the
Speaker 1: head on there. And apparently these chickens, most of the
Speaker 1: brain function in the brain itself is a little further back,
Speaker 1: tucked back into the neck. Yeah, so he the brain lived.
Speaker 1: That's why this chicken was able to walk around and
Speaker 1: be a chicken. And he definitely took a slice off
Speaker 1: of the brain. But I think this one guy in
Speaker 1: this one BBC article by Crystal old Walker, um the
Speaker 1: chicken that lived for eighteen months without a head, there's
Speaker 1: really no wrong headline you can have when you're writing
Speaker 1: about Mike the headless chicken. Um, he's he's. He basically says,
Speaker 1: probably about eight of the brain was left over. You know,
Speaker 1: everything they controlled, breathing, heartbeat, um, digestion, all that stuff. Um,
Speaker 1: and so all they were left with was figuring out
Speaker 1: how to keep Mike alive. He still needed food, even
Speaker 1: though he didn't have a head or a face or anymore.
Speaker 1: He still needed food. So the Olstan's would actually feed
Speaker 1: him with an eye dropper of milk and water combination.
Speaker 1: They would give him little grounds of corn right into
Speaker 1: the esophagus, right yep, right into the esophagus um. When
Speaker 1: he got flammy, or if a little bit of corn
Speaker 1: got backed up or stuck in there, they would use
Speaker 1: a syringe to pull it out. And Mike lived this
Speaker 1: way for eight teen months. He actually went from two
Speaker 1: and a half pounds to eight pounds without a head.
Speaker 1: Mike thrived. The big question was, like, which I had
Speaker 1: the whole time was why didn't this thing just bleed out,
Speaker 1: because you know, it had his head cut off, and
Speaker 1: the science thinks, you know, it just a quick blood
Speaker 1: clot just kind of took care of it. Yeah, science
Speaker 1: went God, Yeah, sure, So there's a kind of a
Speaker 1: sad ending. Of course, Mike is eventually gonna die. You
Speaker 1: would hope that Mike just died of old age. But
Speaker 1: when they were in Arizona, they woke up to the
Speaker 1: sound of chicken choking and Clara said, even Jerry is
Speaker 1: that you and her husband was like, it's not me
Speaker 1: this time, it's it's Mike. And sadly Mike was had
Speaker 1: expired because they left the syringe behind that would clear
Speaker 1: that esophagus. Yeah, the last side fatal, fatal mistake it was,
Speaker 1: which is really sad for Mike. He choked to death
Speaker 1: on a piece of corn. God, but they also watched
Speaker 1: the their main source of incredible income, just choked to
Speaker 1: death on a piece of corn because they left the
Speaker 1: syringe back at the fairground. A crazy story. So so
Speaker 1: in this BBC article, Troy Waters, who was the great
Speaker 1: grandson of Lloyd and Clara Olsen Uh he said that
Speaker 1: his great grandfather told him this whole story, and for years,
Speaker 1: basically for decades, would never fess up to Mike dying
Speaker 1: on him. He said, he sold him off to a
Speaker 1: sideshow promoter, and he finally fessed up before his death
Speaker 1: that Mike had choked on a piece of corn and
Speaker 1: that that was that. What an amazing story, an amazing
Speaker 1: animal story. All right, Well, we're gonna take a break
Speaker 1: and come back with another right after this. Okay, we're back, everybody,
Speaker 1: Amazing Animal Story number two. And this, uh, this one
Speaker 1: is the one that is pretty horrifying in some ways
Speaker 1: but also cute but also horrifying. I honestly don't know.
Speaker 1: It's horrifying. All right, well, i'll point it out when
Speaker 1: we get to it. Oh, I know it's This is
Speaker 1: the story of Voytech the Bear. And I believe you've
Speaker 1: got a lot of this stuff from Time magazine and
Speaker 1: Atlas Obscura and what else another Atlas Obscura. Okay, Wow,
Speaker 1: they doubled up on this one. They did for good reason,
Speaker 1: because it's a pretty amazing story. And there's two different
Speaker 1: memorials you can visit. That's true. So Voytech the Bear.
Speaker 1: Voytech is a Polish name which is odd for a
Speaker 1: serial brown bear found motherlessen Iran, Persia at the time,
Speaker 1: I don't think it was Iran then, yeah yeah, um yeah,
Speaker 1: World Wars you changed a lot of geography and boundaries
Speaker 1: and country names while you're telling me. So, um a
Speaker 1: Polish name for Syrian brown bear is a little odd
Speaker 1: until you know the background. But behind this whole thing.
Speaker 1: So before we get to the bear, we have to
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about why there were Polish soldiers
Speaker 1: in Persia in the nineteen forties. Well, because of the war, Okay,
Speaker 1: So now we talk about the brown Bear. Yes, specifically
Speaker 1: the twenty second Transport Company Artillery Division in the Polish
Speaker 1: Second Core. UH. They were fighting UH in World War
Speaker 1: two and an a on April eighth, they find this
Speaker 1: little cub in the mountains of Iran. Well, there's a
Speaker 1: boy who had found it, and they traded him for it.
Speaker 1: What they trade They traded some coins, some chocolate, a
Speaker 1: Swiss army knife, and a can of beef. They not bad, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, I mean it depends on how the beef
Speaker 1: is prepared. You know. I bet it was some kind
Speaker 1: of a jerky Okay, you know that travels well. So,
Speaker 1: by the way, I finally gotten over my beef jerky
Speaker 1: uh reticence, because I don't know. Years ago, when I
Speaker 1: lived in Los Angeles, I ate moldy beef jerky one
Speaker 1: night when I was up late. Well I didn't mean to,
Speaker 1: it was I came home from the bar afterwards and
Speaker 1: I was just eating in the dark in front of
Speaker 1: the TV, and I was like, this tastes funny. And
Speaker 1: I turned on the light and it was just covered
Speaker 1: in blue mold and I vomited. And I literally hadn't
Speaker 1: haven't had beef jerky in like fifteen years. But I'm
Speaker 1: back on it. Okay. It's good stuff and a good snack.
Speaker 1: As it turns out, it is. I have some right
Speaker 1: here if you want it. No, I'm good. I know
Speaker 1: you're a jerky enthusiast. So April eight, they find this
Speaker 1: bear traded with the boy and they were Polish prisoners
Speaker 1: of war who were being moved from Siberia from a
Speaker 1: prison there or a gulag to Egypt, and they got
Speaker 1: this bear and basically we're like, this is our little
Speaker 1: baby now. Yeah, And just one more thing. So this um,
Speaker 1: this army, this Polish division of soldiers had been captured
Speaker 1: by the Soviets and held as prisoners of war. But
Speaker 1: after Germany turned on the Soviet Union the Um the
Speaker 1: Soviets sided with the Allies, and part of that siding
Speaker 1: was to release these Polish soldiers to form a military
Speaker 1: unit known as Andrew's Army. Look at you, okay, all right?
Speaker 1: And then now they have a brown bear in their position,
Speaker 1: a little bear cub, that's right. And as you could imagine,
Speaker 1: these soldiers, who had been away from their families and
Speaker 1: their own children, adopted this little baby bear as their own.
Speaker 1: And here's the part that's terrible. As he did certain
Speaker 1: tricks like, uh, if they offered him a cigarette, he
Speaker 1: would take a puff on it and then eat it. Right,
Speaker 1: that's awful, Yeah, eat a lit cigarette. You should not
Speaker 1: do that to an animal. Or let it drink beer
Speaker 1: from a bottle. Well, that's pretty hilarious actually, so a
Speaker 1: bear drinking a beer from a bottle. And this is
Speaker 1: what one of the people who were there said, Um
Speaker 1: that votech would drink the beer from the bottle and
Speaker 1: it was empty. He would hold the bottle up and
Speaker 1: look into the opening to see where the beer went.
Speaker 1: Because he wanted more hysterical. I think it's hilarious. Other
Speaker 1: things that would happen there is votech would drink a
Speaker 1: lot of water because you were in in Egypt, of
Speaker 1: course it was very hot. Um. He would chase after
Speaker 1: these oranges that they used for grenade practice. He would
Speaker 1: break into the shower so he could drink that water,
Speaker 1: which was a problem because they were rationing water. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because they were in Egypt. It's a little scarce outside
Speaker 1: of the Nile, that's right. So um, he just basically became, uh,
Speaker 1: the mascot for this artillery unit, like just through and through.
Speaker 1: They love this bear so much, and he loved them
Speaker 1: right back. There was a uh, well just a real
Speaker 1: mascot thing going on. Yeah. And even when it came
Speaker 1: to battle there there are rules, um that say you
Speaker 1: can't have a bear in war. It's pretty much you
Speaker 1: can't have any pets unstated. And so they said, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: well we're gonna enlist this bear and give him an
Speaker 1: official number and rank private voytech. I guess and voytech,
Speaker 1: by the way, means joyful warrior. I don't think we
Speaker 1: said that. And so this was now an official uh
Speaker 1: soldier of sorts that allowed them to skirt the rules
Speaker 1: of war. Yeah, he was a private in the Second Core.
Speaker 1: I mean like that's and then okay, well then you
Speaker 1: can come along. Yes see, I thought this was pretty
Speaker 1: terrible too, bringing a bear along to the front lines.
Speaker 1: Well so, most of the time when he was in
Speaker 1: the front lines, um or anywhere with them, he his
Speaker 1: main role, aside from mascotting, was they trained him just
Speaker 1: kind of it in the cab of a truck, um
Speaker 1: so to guard it, to protect it, keep anyone from stealing.
Speaker 1: Works pretty well, I would get um. Well. During this
Speaker 1: Battle of Monte Casino um in Italy, uh, he was
Speaker 1: there on the front lines guarding trucks and supposedly started
Speaker 1: carrying crates in artillery during this battle. There's no photo documentation,
Speaker 1: if there's plenty of pictures of Voytech and the Polish
Speaker 1: Second Core hanging out doing their thing, wrestling, having fun.
Speaker 1: Um there's no pictures from this battle, but there are
Speaker 1: witnesses who say, yeah, this this six hundred pound six
Speaker 1: ft tall brown bear was walking around carrying a creative
Speaker 1: artillery shells. Where they spent, where they knew, where they
Speaker 1: unused who knows, but he was definitely doing that. That's
Speaker 1: the story about Voytech. Yeah, I say, get that bear
Speaker 1: away from the field of battle. Sure, that's just my opinion,
Speaker 1: but I'm sure everyone loved it. Yeah. Eventually, though, sadly,
Speaker 1: the war would end and everyone was like, well, what
Speaker 1: are we gonna do with this bear. It's like when
Speaker 1: you get a bear with a significant other and you
Speaker 1: break up, or you know, like who's going to take
Speaker 1: the bear? You fight over the bear. Everyone wanted the bear.
Speaker 1: Of course, Voytech was beloved, and they said, well, here's
Speaker 1: what we don't want to do is send him back
Speaker 1: to Poland because you know, the Soviets love their bear
Speaker 1: Insignia's and they'll just scoop him up as a symbol
Speaker 1: for communism. Yeah, and after the Alta Conference, Poland went
Speaker 1: behind the Iron Curtain. That was that. And so these
Speaker 1: Polish fighters who have been fighting for Polish freedom got
Speaker 1: the exact opposite at the end of World War Two
Speaker 1: and they're like, you're not taking our bear. You're certainly
Speaker 1: not gonna make him a symbol of communism like you
Speaker 1: were saying. Yeah, And they were fighting with the Allies
Speaker 1: and the Brits by this point, so they ended up.
Speaker 1: I think Voytech ended up in Scotland because of that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: with this um the twenty second Artillery Regiment. They ended
Speaker 1: up in Scotland around Edinburgh. Um and so he was
Speaker 1: with them when the war ended and their status was
Speaker 1: kind of up in the air too. They all decided
Speaker 1: to live in exile, and um Voytech lived with them,
Speaker 1: and he eventually went to the Edinburgh Zoo and became
Speaker 1: one of the most popular attractions at the zoo for years. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and was just sort of like in the army, was
Speaker 1: a part of the community. Apparently. They would take him
Speaker 1: around to kids parties, he would go to concerts and
Speaker 1: dances and you know, just a beloved bear. He knew
Speaker 1: how to yell free bird at inappropriate times. Uh an
Speaker 1: amazing there at the age of twenty two. Sadly, Voidtech
Speaker 1: would die in nineteen sixty three. I don't know about
Speaker 1: how old bears are, but that seems like a decent
Speaker 1: life for a bear. How old twenty two? Sure, but
Speaker 1: they think, uh, partially why this bear died was because
Speaker 1: of damage to his esophagus from that cute little cigarette
Speaker 1: tra that they would play. Isn't that awful? Yes? It is.
Speaker 1: So There's a woman named um Or. Her last name
Speaker 1: is or Eileen or she wrote Voytech, the bear Polish
Speaker 1: war hero. There's a colon in there. You can figure
Speaker 1: out where it goes um And she said that she
Speaker 1: lives in this farm that Voytech lived in in Scotland
Speaker 1: right before he was moved to the zoo, and his
Speaker 1: claw marks are still on some of those trees, which
Speaker 1: that would be quite a sight to see. Amazing yep,
Speaker 1: I thought, so too, Is that how you got on Voytech?
Speaker 1: That sure is Chuck. All right, we're gonna take our
Speaker 1: final break and come back with the tail of another
Speaker 1: animal adopted by the military right after this. Okay, so
Speaker 1: final amazing animal story. Yet another animal adopted by a
Speaker 1: military unit. This was not a bear in Poland, though,
Speaker 1: this was a very cute dog. St. Bernard uh Bumps
Speaker 1: a B A M. S. E. That was adopted by
Speaker 1: the Royal Norwegian Navy during World War Two. That's right,
Speaker 1: and he kind of got drafted along with his owner,
Speaker 1: who's a guy named Lieutenant Erling half though great name
Speaker 1: and Erling hafto Um was a harbor master in a
Speaker 1: town called Honingsbag on the Margaroya Island. You're really going
Speaker 1: for it, huh. I don't think I got that last
Speaker 1: one right uh in Norway, right on the north coast
Speaker 1: of Norway. Um. And so, uh, bumps Of would just
Speaker 1: kind of like hang out with with Lieutenant Haft. He
Speaker 1: was like the family dog. And very early on UM
Speaker 1: he became beloved at least with the Haft family. When
Speaker 1: little Victus half to the three year old daughter fell
Speaker 1: ill and apparently bumps Of would not leave her side
Speaker 1: for like this whole twelve days when she was at
Speaker 1: death Store until she recovered. Yeah. So they thought this
Speaker 1: dog is good luck. Uh it. I don't know if
Speaker 1: they thought it healed her daughter, probably not her their daughter,
Speaker 1: but but they thought it was certainly a good omen
Speaker 1: and at the very least an exceedingly loyal dog. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And this was in thirty eight and thirty nine World
Speaker 1: War two, UM breaks out and so Hafto was called
Speaker 1: active duty. Uh. And this is you know something if
Speaker 1: you've seen the movie Done Kirk Um. They would take
Speaker 1: you know, civilian ships and basically make them into warships,
Speaker 1: not necessarily like battleships, but bring them into active duty
Speaker 1: as well. So they gave him a whaling ship called
Speaker 1: the Rod with two d's and said you are now
Speaker 1: a coastal patrol boat and you are a patrol boat captain, right. So, Um,
Speaker 1: he was part of the Norwegian Army and as a
Speaker 1: ship's dog, which Bumps so was. He was the ship's
Speaker 1: dog already. Um. When he was entered into the log
Speaker 1: he became part of the Norwegian Royal Navy himself. So
Speaker 1: he was Bumps a sea dog of the Royal nor
Speaker 1: Norwegian Navy. Right, that's right. Where did you find this stuff?
Speaker 1: By the way? Oh this uh, this came from Famous
Speaker 1: Dogs in History. I loved it. Uh, that's probably one
Speaker 1: of your favorite websites. And then Kit and Morgan Benson
Speaker 1: had something on Fine the Grave, and then there's some
Speaker 1: other ones I've seen. Um. So BUMPSA and Lieutenant have
Speaker 1: To are just kind of hanging out doing their thing
Speaker 1: coastal patrolling on the Thorod. And it's not just the
Speaker 1: two of them, but Lieutenant have To was in charge
Speaker 1: of the Thorod and there's this whole crew and they're
Speaker 1: starting to love Bumps of like more and more and more.
Speaker 1: Of course. Um. Eventually the Nazis invade Norway que the booing,
Speaker 1: and the Norwegian King says, everybody, let's get out of here,
Speaker 1: we're gonna go form a government in exile in the
Speaker 1: UK Scotland, specifically Scotland. Um, everybody regrouped there and so
Speaker 1: the Thorod and Captain Lieutenant Half too, we're put in
Speaker 1: charge of mind sweeping around Dundee, Scotland. That was their
Speaker 1: thing now keeping the UK safe. Yeah, And just like
Speaker 1: it's very similar to the to the votech story in
Speaker 1: a lot of ways. They both ended up in Scotland.
Speaker 1: They were like an hour and a half car drive
Speaker 1: apart from one another at the same time. That's crazy,
Speaker 1: isn't it. So just like with the votech story, Bombsa
Speaker 1: becomes beloved by the town, Uh, goes on the pub.
Speaker 1: Crawls would sit at the bar. Apparently there was one
Speaker 1: story where there was a cat sitting up on the
Speaker 1: seat that was usually occupied by the dog, and of
Speaker 1: course Bumpsa comes in. It's like, get out of here, cat,
Speaker 1: it's my seat. And not only did he go to
Speaker 1: the bar just to hang out, he went to the
Speaker 1: bar to drink year with his um fellow sailors. Again,
Speaker 1: drink beer out of a bowl. It's not good for
Speaker 1: a dog, but kind of hilarious still. But he was
Speaker 1: also kind of the d D because he was well
Speaker 1: known for going to the bars and the pubs to
Speaker 1: get his sailors back to the ship before curfew so
Speaker 1: they wouldn't get in trouble. That's right. He learned how
Speaker 1: to open doors. Uh. He wore a little hat just
Speaker 1: very cute. You can see picture of this little sailor's cap.
Speaker 1: So once he learned to open doors, he could visit
Speaker 1: like all the businesses all around the harbor. People just
Speaker 1: like come on in. After he learned to open doors,
Speaker 1: he learned to ride the bus. Yeah, they gave him
Speaker 1: a bus pass that he wore around his neck. Yes,
Speaker 1: that is super cute. But not only that, Chuck Wick
Speaker 1: makes it even cuter is bumps Of would go to
Speaker 1: the bus stop and sit there and wait, and the
Speaker 1: bus riders would stop and let him on, and he
Speaker 1: would climb up to the top deck and sit there
Speaker 1: and like look out and be like, hey, I'm bumps Of,
Speaker 1: so great good to meet you. So I think you
Speaker 1: said that he was. He ended up being good luck
Speaker 1: still to the sold ors he was. There were more
Speaker 1: than one instance where Bumps I would either break up
Speaker 1: a fight or foil some sort of crime. There was
Speaker 1: one soldier who was getting mugged, and Bumps came up
Speaker 1: and attacked the mugger. One guy went overboard I think
Speaker 1: he was kind of drunk at the end of the
Speaker 1: night and fell in the water, and BUMPSA jumped in
Speaker 1: and you know, barked and barked and then kept this
Speaker 1: guy afloat until they could rescue him. Yeah. Like saved
Speaker 1: at least two men's life. Pretty pretty great. Um. He
Speaker 1: also was extraordinarily brave UM when when the Thorod would
Speaker 1: Um would be out patrolling and take take fire from
Speaker 1: German planes. He would sit next to the tail gunner
Speaker 1: I guess, in the tail of the boat that's what
Speaker 1: they call it, Um, and with a little helmet, a
Speaker 1: little steel helmet on his head and just sit there
Speaker 1: and probably point with his paw like there's one over there.
Speaker 1: I can't imagine the sound. I guess it just didn't
Speaker 1: didn't bother him, and he would not leave the gunners
Speaker 1: side until the attack had been all the Nazis were dead,
Speaker 1: so Um he'd swim out to the down planes and
Speaker 1: chew the throats out of the rounded. He was a
Speaker 1: full service sea dog. So at one point, Uh, this
Speaker 1: dog was transferred. I'm sorry, the uh, the owner was
Speaker 1: transferred to another ship and everybody was like no, no, no,
Speaker 1: you're not taking Bumps with you. Yeah, he was going
Speaker 1: to and they're like no, like this dog stay in
Speaker 1: the here. He's like, I'm the captain, and the dad
Speaker 1: of the dog said nope, he belongs to this ship.
Speaker 1: Yeah and that town, and that's what happened. They left
Speaker 1: him there, which was the right and it was temporary,
Speaker 1: of course, it's not like he was It was just
Speaker 1: for a few months. So they were eventually reunited. So
Speaker 1: Bumps was like this beloved sea dog, not just in
Speaker 1: this town of Dundee um, I think it was actually Montrose, Scotland, um,
Speaker 1: but all over the UK, and it basically became like
Speaker 1: the mascot of the entire Norwegian Royal Navy. He was
Speaker 1: beloved is a really good way to put it. He
Speaker 1: was known as a peacemaker, a lifesaver, very brave, very
Speaker 1: sweet um. And so when he died it was a big,
Speaker 1: big deal. He was only something like, I think, um,
Speaker 1: seven seven years old. Yeah, you know these St Bernard's
Speaker 1: as bigger dogs have a little shorter lifespan, I think, um,
Speaker 1: but a pretty good seven years and the whole town
Speaker 1: came out in a big way. Yeah. They canceled school
Speaker 1: so the school children could attend his funeral. They gave
Speaker 1: him um a funeral with full military honors. His casket
Speaker 1: was draped in the Norwegian flag, like it was a
Speaker 1: big deal. Soldiers came from all over the place. The
Speaker 1: town just basically stopped that day to attend bumps his funeral.
Speaker 1: That's right. Over a thousand sailors and villagers attended this funeral.
Speaker 1: Pretty great, and I think there there's there. Does this
Speaker 1: one have two statues or was that votech Voytech had
Speaker 1: two statues, one in crack Out and one in Edinburgh,
Speaker 1: and then Bumpsa has one in I believe in Dundee, Scotland,
Speaker 1: and then the other one is going to be in Norway.
Speaker 1: I don't know if they've raised it yet. And then
Speaker 1: in two thousand six to the story gets even better
Speaker 1: because Bumpsa was awarded posthumously, of course, the People's Dispensary
Speaker 1: for Sick Animals Gold Medal, uh as the animals version
Speaker 1: of the George's Cross or the George Cross right, and
Speaker 1: who accepted it on his behalf uh vigdis the little
Speaker 1: girl who was on death's door until she got those
Speaker 1: sweet sweet st Bernard legs. Pretty amazing, amazing. Well that's
Speaker 1: it for amazing animals, everybody. If you want to know
Speaker 1: more about amazing animals, just go start reading about them.
Speaker 1: It will turn your day around. Or just walk outside
Speaker 1: and look around. Yeah, go kiss your closest animal. How
Speaker 1: about that? Uh? And since I said that, it's time
Speaker 1: for a listener mail, kudos guys on the MG three
Speaker 1: seventy podcast we got that must have been a good one.
Speaker 1: We got a lot of good response from that one,
Speaker 1: as well as other people that were like, aviation is
Speaker 1: tough and you guys did an okay job. I didn't
Speaker 1: see any of those. Yeah, there were a couple of
Speaker 1: those technical details, but I think we told a good
Speaker 1: story in the end. I live in Kuala Lampur and
Speaker 1: have even flown on MH three seventy for this incident.
Speaker 1: You covered this one really well and handled the cultural
Speaker 1: issues well. To really appreciate that you reached conclusion and
Speaker 1: a logical, well reasoned and unbiased manner. This includes your
Speaker 1: reference to other UH suicide flights like the Silk Care
Speaker 1: flight you are spot on Malaysia is not interested in
Speaker 1: the truth in this case and are happy to see
Speaker 1: this as an act of God. Hence the prayer they
Speaker 1: show on every single flight since yes, they put a
Speaker 1: prayer on the screen before every takeoff, asking God to
Speaker 1: bless the flight. As Westerners, we will never understand this
Speaker 1: fatalistic approach, as we can see a real cause for
Speaker 1: this terrible event that they prefer to pass off as
Speaker 1: God's will. This riff between how we think about it
Speaker 1: and how they think about it is real. I don't
Speaker 1: mean to be bigoted or anything, but I have lived
Speaker 1: in this culture for forty years now and understand that
Speaker 1: people do think differently. My wonderful wife that is from here,
Speaker 1: even agrees with this assessment. So well done, guys. This
Speaker 1: one of your best podcasts, well researched and well presented,
Speaker 1: calling it as it is, sadly, cheers Pete. Thanks Pete,
Speaker 1: that was nice of him. Yeah, um, that's great. I
Speaker 1: don't have anything to add great. Uh. If you want
Speaker 1: to get in touch with this like Pete did, Thanks again, Pete.
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