Stumpy, Hero of World War 1

Stubby Being Decorated by General Pershing.
Stubby Being Decorated by General Pershing.

Stumpy, either an Old Boston bulldog or a pitbull/Boston Terrier cross, was smuggled aboard a troop transport by his owner, John Robert Conroy. While in Europe, Stumpy lived and fought with the 102nd Infantry as one of the soldiers. Stumpy distinguished himself as a brave and stalwart companion: tenacious in battle, and loving in rest.

While convalescing at a military hospital from grenade wounds, Stumpy was said to have brought “comfort to the wounded and peace to the dying.” Stumpy learned to recognize the high-pitched sound of incoming artillery and, on several occasions, warned his unit of danger in time to save them from injury or death.

During his time of service, Stubby fought in 17 battles, was wounded twice, and individually captured a German infiltrator.  For his valor in combat, Stumpy was presented the Humane Education Society’s Hero Dog Medal by General John Joseph Pershing, Supreme Commander of American Forces in Europe. Stumpy became quite famous when he returned to the US, where he received lifetime memberships to the Red Cross, YMCA, American Legion, and VFW, and was mascot of the Georgetown Hoyas.

One thought on “Stumpy, Hero of World War 1

  1. see not a pit bull and pit bull mixes are bad i am tired of beting a dead horse its the owners people not the dogs

Leave a Reply to jeana kiernan Cancel reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s