Animals in War Service

Introduction

Animals have been used in various ways since ancient times in the military service of different armies, both as working animals and as companions for soldiers. Among other things, animals have been trained to spy on the enemy. Especially from the outbreak of the First World War until the post-war period, animals were at the side of soldiers.

Horses

Although horses have been used as draught animals or pack animals for many thousands of years, it was not until around the early Iron Age that horses were bred that were strong enough to carry a human for any distance. The horse has been used by mounted units in battle since the 3rd century BC. When the stirrup began to be used, at the latest in the 7th century AD, the horsemen gained even more power in battle. Cavalry is a mounted force that historically used horses for movement and combat. As a rule, light cavalry was used mostly to scout enemy troop movements and to disrupt gatherings and movements with rapid sorties, then retreat before the enemy had time to regroup and repel the attack. Heavy cavalry's main task is to attack enemy infantry or cavalry to break through the defensive line and knock out the enemy. Mounted troops have existed in Sweden for several hundred years before the "New Age" (starting in the 1500s), ranging from heavily armored "knights" to lightly equipped scouts. But it was only during the time of King Gustav Vasa (Monarch 1523 - 1560) and the creation of a modern Swedish army that regular cavalry units were raised. Horses were found in all parts of the army, though mostly in the cavalry. All officers, regardless of service branch, had several service horses and all transport was carried out by draught horses, which were handled by military drivers. So not only the cavalry but the whole army depended on the horse and would largely remain so into the 1940s. During WWI, cavalry existed mainly on the Eastern Front. Cavalry played no strategic role in either of the two world wars of the 20th century, but horses were important for military and civilian transport. In Sweden, in 1970, the last procurement of warm- blooded horses for the Norrland Dragoon Regiment (K 4), which had the last mounted troop of the army, ceased. Today, three cavalry units remain in the Swedish army, focused on training military police and ranger units. They are fully motorized but still maintain the traditions of the horse era. Remounting refers to the acquisition of horses for the needs of the armed forces and remount refers to a purchased young horse, which has not undergone training. Remount depots were military establishments for supplying the armies with young horses, known as remounts. Remounts were trained to having a rider, but also to fire, gunpowder smoke, explosions and other loud noises. Each Swedish cavalry company had three stallions and about twenty mares for remount production in the mid-18th century. In the 1880s, the government took over responsibility for the breeding of remount horses of the Swedish mounted and harnessed regiments. From 1885 onwards, remount depots were set up to receive all the remount horses. A special board purchased young horses each year and sent them to the remount depots to be trained and be used to saddles. After about a year, the remount horses were sent to the regiments where they underwent further training for a year. An example of a remount depot is Utnäslöt at Strömsholm outside Köping in Västmanland province. Other animals used in warfare in a similar way to the horse are mules, camels and elephants.

Related Links

• Sweden’s Military Preparedness 1939 - 1945 • Military Images, Sweden, 1939 - 1945 • Swedish military war units 1939 - 1945 • Swedish regiments • The organization of the Swedish armed forces in the 20th century - conscription • The Universal Conscription System, Sweden • Unit Designations - Swedish Military Units • Uniforms of the Swedish Army - the 1900s • Military Uniforms of the Swedish Women’s Voluntary Defense Service • Service Uniforms of the Swedish Lotta Corps (Swe: Lottakåren) • Aircraft Warning Service - Female Aircraft Observers, Sweden • Swedish Voluntary Defense Services

Source References

• Swedish Armed Forces: https://www.forsvarsmakten.se/en/ • Swedish armed forces: https://www.forsvarsmakten.se/en/about/organis ation/training-units-schools-and-centres/life- guard-regiment/swedish-armed-forces-dog- training-center/ • Svenskt kavalleri under 500 år, Militär historia, Nr 7, 2019. • Hur länge har man använt brevduvor i Europa? Populär Historia 10/2011 • Armémuseum (Army Museum) • Wikipedia Top of page

Pigeons

Birds have been used as messengers for thousands of years, especially pigeons. A message was usually attached to the pigeon's leg. The carrier pigeon is a domesticated pigeon used to relay messages, usually short letters, by releasing the pigeon and finding its way home to its pigeon loft. From the Middle Ages until the 19th century, pigeon post was used for trade, shipping, and, above all, the armed forces. The pigeon post uses the pigeon's good orientation, flying ability, and propensity to fly home when transported away. Carrier pigeons have also been bred and trained to be even better in these respects. However, the natural limitations of this activity have meant that it has never become very common or regular. Examples of limitations include the risk of the pigeon being taken by a bird of prey, the pigeon's need for light winds, and high ambient temperatures. A released carrier pigeon will seek to fly to the pigeon loft where it was bred. It is therefore not possible to get it to fly to any other locality. The first military operation with carrier pigeons in Sweden was at the Karlsborg garrison. In 1887, pigeons were trained on the Örebro-Karlsborg and Bråviken-Karlsborg routes. This particular activity was discontinued at the end of the 1890s. Until 1949 carrier pigeons were part of the Swedish Signal Troops' equipment and as late as the Second World War carrier pigeons were used on a large scale by the belligerent states.

Seals

During the Second World War, Swedish waters were often violated by submarines from foreign powers. About 20 Swedish merchant ships were sunk on Swedish territorial waters between 1940 and 1945 by foreign submarines, some from the Soviet Union. The Swedish Armed Forces had developed a sonar early on, but it did not work well enough. The military considered how to tackle the problem. In 1940, a top-secret experimental station called Palmen (The Palm) was built on the north side of the Långgarn Bay (Långgarnsfjärden) on Gålö island in Stockholm's southern archipelago. Here some 20 seals (gray seals and harbor seals) were trained to find and attach markers to enemy submarines during the Second World War. The seals had been captured as pups on the ice in the Gulf of Bothnia and were then taken to the Gålö station. On The Palm were the psychologist and behavioral scientist Valdemar Fellenius and his family, several conscripts, a cook, animal keeper Tore Glemmefors from Skansen Zoo, diver Per Edvin Fälting, and military guards. In total, eight to eleven people worked under a vow of secrecy, in complete isolation for four years. The experimental station was named after the purpose-built vessel called the Palm, which transported the seals out to sea for training. The ship had an opening in the bottom with a sloping plane where the seals could be released and received. The basins for the seals were built so that from a distance they looked like an ordinary dock. The seals were trained to locate mines and torpedoes and to search for and mark submarines down to 50 m depth. When a seal came into contact with a submarine, a device attached to the seal in a harness would be triggered and the position thus marked. A buoy with a light signal in the form of a carbide lamp was then sent to the surface to indicate the location of the submarine. Fellenius also used magnets with radio transmitters that stuck to the submarines as the seals swam past them. At first the seals were trained on submarine dummies and then the submarine Sjölejonet (The Sea Lion) acted as the "enemy" under its commander Bengt Hedlund. The tests were successful and 19 times out of 20 the seals found the submarine. The seals eventually became very tame. In addition to the seals, Fellenius also trained pigeons for aerial reconnaissance to detect submarine periscopes, and the experiments with pigeons worked well. In July 1942, two of the station's seals, Pelle and Lotta, were deployed to search for a Soviet submarine in the Västervik archipelago on the Swedish east coast that had torpedoed a merchant ship. However, the attempt to use the seals had to be aborted due to bad weather as the custom-built vessel Palmen was unable to navigate in rough seas. In April 1943, one of the seals, Pelle, was used in the search for the Swedish submarine HMS Ulven, which had sunk off Gothenburg's northern archipelago on the west coast. However, the seal failed in its mission as it was deployed in the wrong place, several kilometers from the accident site. The project, which went under the code name "Palmen", ended in April 1945, i.e. at the end of the war. The seal station is now run as a guest- house. Sea lions have been used in similar ways in the United States, among other countries.

Moose

Olaus Magnus wrote in the middle of the 16th century in his Nordic history about moose pulling sleds across the ice at high speed, much faster than horses. They fed themselves all winter, had the strength of oxen, and were twice as fast as horses. The moose was a hardy animal when it came to hunger and thirst and could run day and night. Swedish King Karl XI, therefore, entertained plans for a mounted moose regiment in the latter part of the 17th century. However, when escapees began to use moose that could ride between Ystad and Stockholm in 24 hours, the plans were shelved. There is no evidence in the archives that any mounted moose companies, i.e. moose cavalry, were set up in the Caroline army. Karl XI's ideas about moose cavalry were abandoned, among other reasons, because the moose could not get used to shots and a lot of movement around them. During the Age of Liberty (1718 - 1772), the patriotic idea of moose as useful pets was once again put into practice. A fundamental difference between moose and horses, for example, is that the latter live in a hierarchical herd; domesticated horses simply regard humans as their leader (or so it is thought). Individual moose may become tame, but they do not have submission "in their blood" in the same way. However, there are examples of several attempts to tame moose for livestock, as draught animals, and as milk producers. A well-known example is the orphan moose “Stolta”, found in the early 1900s near Älvkarleö in northern Uppland, which was then cared for and bottle-fed. It became tame and was then used as a draught animal. In American, Australian, and New Zealand English this deer is called moose, in British English, it is called elk. In American English, elk refers to wapiti deer. The Swedish term is “älg”.

Dogs

During the First and Second World Wars, the use of working dogs for special military purposes spread. They were used for patrolling and guarding, and there were also medical orderly dogs, messenger dogs, and mine dogs. The Messenger Dog was a military service dog used to send messages between military units in wars. Mine dogs are used in mine clearance. The dog is many times more effective than humans for this purpose and, unlike a metal detector, can tell the difference between metal and explosives. The military guard dog differs from police patrol dogs, which are trained to protect the handler. Military guard dogs must be able to detect and track the sounds of strangers in the area being guarded and the scent of strangers. The Government Dog-training School was a dog-training school under the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs that operated in various forms from 1978 to 1991. The dog-training school was located in the Sollefteå garrison in Sollefteå town. From its inception in 1936, the Army was the principal. In 1962 the name was changed to the Army Dog- training School (Swe: Arméns hundskola). In 1971, the school became an independent agency under the Ministry of Defense and changed its name to the Defense Dog-training School. In 1978, the name was changed again, to the Government Dog-training School, and at the same time the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs took over the management of the school. After the company was incorporated in 1991, Sollefteå town became a shareholder the following year and the name was changed to Sveriges hundcenter AB. In 1994 the Government withdrew. Since 2005, the dog breeding station in Sollefteå handles its own breeding of German shepherd dogs. Today, the Swedish Armed Forces Dog Training Unit, FHTE, is as of 2022 part of the Air Force Air Combat School. The canine training centers are based outside Märsta and in Kungsängen north of Stockholm and at the dog breeding station in Sollefteå. Between 1911 and 1914, the Swedish army began experiments with sled dogs and messenger dogs at the Västernorrland Infantry Regiment in Sollefteå. These dogs were of the Airedale terrier breed. In the 1920s, the experimental work with draught dogs was resumed, and in the 1930s it was extended to include messenger and medical orderly dogs. After 1936, guard dogs and, in the 1940s, mine dogs began to be trained. In 1941, formal cooperation with the police was initiated to train guard dogs, which had previously been carried out on an experimental basis. Between 1947 and 1953, the dog-training school developed methods for testing the suitability of service dogs for the various specializations. In the 1950s, the army draught dogs were abolished.

Dolphins

Dolphins are aquatic mammals. Dolphin intelligence means they can learn to identify different types of objects, and with superior swimming skills, they search an area much faster than a human diver can. The Soviet Union conducted training of dolphins and sea lions in the Black Sea for military purposes. When the Soviet Union collapsed, the dolphins trained in Crimea became the property of independent Ukraine. The animals were trained under great secrecy for various rescue missions and to be used in the search for sea mines. They were also trained for secret military attack missions. Speculation has centered on exactly what tasks the dolphins were trained for; for example, kamikaze missions against submarines, mine laying, and killing attack divers have been mentioned. Dolphins have also been used in similar ways in the US, including to identify and sweep sea mines. There are also dolphins trained to rescue divers.

Swedish Blue Star, SBS

SBS was established in 1917 to care for the Army horses in the field. The service’s first name was the Swedish Red Star “Swe: Svenska Röda stjärnan” (compare to the Red Cross). The mission of the Red Star was to be the animals’ counterpart to the Red Cross. Injured Army horses suffered badly during WWI and an international federation was established for the care of horses in battle conditions. The Swedish Red Star educated and trained so-called “Red Star nurses” for the care of horses, i.e. medical orderlies for the Army horses. The Red Star established also hospital stables, manufactured horse bandages, and acquired medical instruments and other equipment. In 1940, during the Finnish Winter War with the Soviets, the Swedish Red Star contributed with an ambulance for horses. In Finland, the name of the service, Red Star, wasn’t suitable since this was the symbol used by the Soviet Army. On 1 July 1941, the service, therefore, changed its name to the Swedish Blue Star (Swe: Svenska Blå Stjärnan). The image to the right shows a female member (Birgitta Gustafsson, Stockholm) of the Swedish Blue Star wearing their uniform. Photo: Stig Herbst (1916 - 1991). Image: Karlsborgs fästningsmuseum, ID: KBGF.010607.