The impact of the Second World War was enormous, with as many as 61 participating countries and an area of operations of 22 million square kilometers. The number of people involved in the war is even more than 70 million, with more than 70 million deaths and 130 million injured. Not only did people participate in the war, but animals were also involved in the battle. There are also some animals that are directly involved in the war, such as the American military pigeon Forest Han, the Pacific Dog Force, and the bear to be talked about this time, its bear life can be different. Not only was he a soldier, but he was also awarded the rank of second class soldier, and it was okay to resist hundreds of pounds of shells on the battlefield.
The bear was named Fojtek, and the story began in 1939, when Germany's unexpected blitzkrieg quickly occupied all of Poland with the Soviet Union in a month' time. It was also the starting point of the European Theater of World War II, after which the Polish army was forced into a government-in-exile. They were walking around Hamadan, Iran, and there was no way, the Germans and soviets occupied the whole country. In 1942, a little boy saw a baby bear in the forest who walked shakily and abandoned. If it is not abandoned, it may be another bear shooting dead man story.
After the little boy captured it, he sold it to the Polish army in exile nearby, and the Polish army paid the boy some canned meat. When he first went there, he was not yet a year old, and the hearts of a group of soldiers were touched by the soft little balls who did not like it. They shared the canned meat with it, but it was too small to eat the canned meat. Hungry and howling, there is a saying in the soldier, and the soldier has nothing but to give birth to a child. Except, of course, the female soldiers. They quickly figured out a way to find an empty bottle of vodka and put the soaked condensed milk to feed Foytec.
In this way, Foytek survived. Soft and cute, it is very popular in the army, but there are always times when it is scolded, and whenever it is scolded, it covers its eyes with its two bear paws. If you start crying when you are single, the people in the neighborhood also like it. It rarely grew up in a warm environment, but the other side of the time was hell on earth. Nazi Germany massacred Jews and fought all the way to the Soviet Union.
In 1944, Foytek became a member of the 22nd Artillery Company. There were military ranks, and food was used as an official salary. Officially named Fojtek, it moved with large troops, from Iran to Iraq to Syria. Finally to Pakistan, Egypt, and finally to the south of Italy. I am afraid that no bear wandered around like this, and in early 1944 the Battle of Cassino broke out.
Foytek also had to go to war, it helped the troops transport all kinds of important supplies, and it was very large and powerful. A bear can be worth several people, and hundreds of pounds of shells say that the back starts to run. It also walks steadily in rugged terrain, and there will be no accidental drops of arms that cause explosions. Importantly, people panic when they hear the sound of shells bombarding, but Foytek doesn't. The commander was pleased to see this and allowed the 22nd Artillery Company to be renamed a bear holding a shell.
It was a veritable bear, as World War II drew to a close. Foytek was awarded the rank of Second Class, as well as a number of other honorary qualifications. On November 15, 1947, World War II was completely over, and soldiers began to be disbanded and returned home. Foytek, who had no one to take care of him, was sent to Edinburgh Zoo and spent the rest of his life there. At the zoo it was treated very well, loved to eat honey, jam, fruit, all there were, drinks and beer.
Whenever its former comrades came to visit, it would always smoke with them. In December 1963, its bear also came to an end, at the age of 22. After his death, a monument was erected in Edinburgh to commemorate it, and its statue was built in places such as the Imperial War Museum and the Canadian War Museum in London.