The experiences of the Polish soldiers in World War II, fighting under British auspices, were almost wholly unknown to me before I read this book. I was hoping for amusing stories about a bear, and was surprised to read a detailed account of the struggles of the dispossessed men of the Polish army. They were relocated to Britain during and after the war and many resettled there after the war. Many of these soldiers were illiterate in Polish, and never learned exactly what happened to their families after they left Poland. Poland lost roughly a fifth of its pre-war population over the course of the war, so the soldiers had reason to worry about their families and friends back home. Those soldiers who chose to return to Poland were often branded traitors and many died under the Stalinist regime. Reading the story of how they were treated was heartbreaking. Of course I knew that Poland was treated awfully by the Nazis, and then by the Soviets, but I hadn't heard specific stories about it before.

Wojtek, meaning ‘happy warrior’, was purchased from a child in Iraq while the Polish army was moving through that nation. As the pet and mascot of an artillery unit he lifted the hearts of many men who had no realistic hopes for the future. He distracted them from their anxiety and "gave them a glimpse of the joy of an uncomplicated existence."

Here are my favorite anecdotes from this book.

He had lived all his life pretty much like a human being. Because of it, he confounded animal experts with his behaviour. My grandfather and other witnesses said you could walk up to Wojtek and look him straight in the eye – which in the ursine world would be interpreted as an aggressive challenge, eliciting a belligerent response. That simply didn’t happen with Wojtek. He was very comfortable making eye-to-eye contact and considered it non-threatening.

...

Wojtek often accompanied the men to the fields where they were working and was quite happy to carry fencing staves and logs for them, although it has to be said the bear was usually more interested in attempting to steal the contents of the men’s lunch tins. Nevertheless, it is proof of a sort that Wojtek was well used to carrying heavy loads for his friends. The simple dynamic at work was comradeship.

...

The bear would hold out a huge paw, asking for a cigarette and would usually be given one, which he ate with great gusto. Oddly enough, the cigarette always had to be lit. If it wasn’t he would throw it away. He only ate lit cigarettes. Perhaps there was an aroma of burning tobacco that he liked, or perhaps they had to be exactly the same as the cigarettes the men had in their mouths; no one has ever solved the mystery. He never appeared to burn himself as he chomped on them.

...

He was rationed to two bottles of beer a day when it was available. But on high days and holidays, when he talked his way into a bottle of wine, he occasionally got tipsy and would go about the camp, as they say in Scotland, ‘by the light of his eye’.

...

On many of their trips inland Wojtek preferred to sit alone in the cab [of the truck], awaiting the men’s return from whatever duties they were carrying out, just as he had done in the Middle East. Given the immense shortages of goods in both theatres of war, it was not surprising that petty theft was rife, indeed raised almost to a national art form, so Wojtek’s presence acted as a formidable deterrent. Nothing was ever stolen from Wojtek’s truck when he was in residence.

...

[Wojtek's] comrades were frantically unloading boxes of artillery shells for the Allied guns in the heat of battle. Wojtek joined them and with his paws outstretched, he indicated that he would help. Although he had never been trained to handle the unloading of 100-pound boxes of 25-pounder shells, shell fuses and other supplies, he simply observed what the men were doing and joined in, without any bidding. Standing upright, he held out his front paws into which men loaded the heavy boxes of shells. Effortlessly, he carried the munitions to their storage areas beside the artillery positions, and returned to the lorries to collect more. It was the company’s proud boast that he never dropped a single shell. However, it has to be said he did the lifting very much on his own terms: he chose when and how long he would work. At times he had to be wheedled into helping out. If he decided to stop and lie down for a bit, a titbit or two at either end of his supplies run could reinvigorate his war effort.

Some readers may suspect that Wojtek’s shell-carrying exploits have gained a little in the telling, but soldiers from other regiments witnessed the bear in action. In April 1944, in the build-up to the final battle, Black Watch veteran John Clarke and a friend, Vincent Franchetti, were foraging for food near the village of Acquafondata, some six miles from Monte Cassino. Their battalion had just been taken out of the front line and the men were making the most of the lull in the fighting. They had enjoyed a much-needed shower at the village and set off, as Clarke says, ‘on the scrounge’, into the heavily wooded countryside. Clarke testifies: ‘I remember it clearly because it was my twentieth birthday. We were making our way through the deserted fields, looking for stray hens and eggs, when a nearby artillery unit opened fire. We went to look and found a battery of Polish gunners setting up for a barrage. The gun site was hidden in a clearing within a large wood. As we watched, suddenly out of the wood came a large bear, walking on its hind legs. It seemed to be carrying something. Both Vincent and I shouted a warning to the gunners that a bear was going towards them, but nobody responded. ‘The bear went up to the trail legs of the artillery gun and placed a shell on the ground. The bear then went back into the wood and reappeared with another shell. By this time, we had realised that the bear was tame and most likely a circus bear. We just went on our way.’ There was to be an interesting postscript to Clarke’s memory of the encounter. After the war, when he told his wife the story, she refused to believe it, dismissing it as a tall tale he had invented. She would often persuade him to recount it to friends, still scoffing about its accuracy. However, the tables were turned when the couple were at a function attended by Polish veterans. Once more Clarke was persuaded to recite his tale. ‘Ah yes,’ said one of the Poles. ‘That would be Wojtek.’

...

At night, in camp, if Peter wasn’t around, Wojtek would often slip into his mates’ tents and bed down beside them; he’d been doing it since he was a cub and the men were quite used to it. He liked the companionship as well as the warmth of body contact.

Once, the bear strayed off his section into another unit’s camp and invaded the tent of a group of Indian soldiers who were greatly disconcerted at the appearance of a huge bear in their midst. Still in their nightclothes, the panic-stricken men grabbed their rifles and levelled them at Wojtek, ready to shoot him if he made any move towards them. Alerted by the commotion, the camp guards dashed to the scene. By good fortune they happened to be Polish and knew the bear, so they were able to defuse the situation without a tragedy occurring. But it had been a close-run thing.

...

There were plenty of furloughs and he had many opportunities to indulge his passion for water sports; he enjoyed many happy days swimming in the temperate waters of the Adriatic. As ever, his mischievous nature was given full rein. The beaches where he and the men bathed were shared with civilians. Wojtek’s favourite trick was to swim underwater towards a group of unsuspecting women bathers, then suddenly surface in their midst.

Their squeals of alarm as they found themselves in close proximity to a huge bear were music to his ears. To Wojtek it was a great joke and he never tired of it. Perhaps you could say he was the furry Jaws of his time, long before cinemagoers were scared witless by the creepy music that indicated the arrival of the giant shark. It was also an excellent way for the Polish soldiers to meet young women: Wojtek would ignore the men’s shouts for him to come back, preferring to romp around in the water near his victims, so the soldiers would have to swim out and fetch him. There is no record of whether this unusual dating technique ever brought about the desired results for the soldiers.

...

When the musicians started to play he used to bob up and down to the basic rhythm, then after a time he sat down to listen; it was a very odd sight, a giant bear sitting upright on his bottom on the dance floor, his legs splayed apart to keep his balance. Usually there were mounds of crumbs in between his legs, the remnants of the many treats he had managed to beg, but his eyes were fixed firmly on the band. He seemed transfixed by the music. That may very well have been a throwback to his early years, when in the wartime camps the men would provide their own musical entertainment to while away their evenings. Being familiar with music from a young age, he must have sensed from the men that this was a pleasant and enjoyable thing. Thus he eagerly placed himself in the dance halls at a spot where he could fully experience the performance, swaying in time to the beat. Under the violins’ influence he became very calm and settled; indeed, on one dance outing he managed a nap half under the hall chairs which were placed against the walls. He was not exactly a quiet sleeper, as his army colleagues would testify. While asleep, his grunts and snorts, with the occasional wind release from either end, made him a less than boon companion. Outings were not confined to country dances. Wojtek also attended local his impromptu additions to the performances were a great source of amusement to the locals, especially the children. But it would be safe to say that he was seldom invited back by the organisers of such events. Being upstaged by a farting bear was just too much for any performer, professional or amateur, to tolerate.

( )

An interesting story but the constant (inevitable) humanising of the bear annoyed me and I completely lost interest when the bear dies. ( )

A book both heart-warming and heart-breaking.

Heart-warming because of the very real affection with which Orr approaches her subject: Wojtek's story has obviously touched her heart. And also due to the love and humanity that a little bear cub (and later a not-so-little full-grown bear) brought to a group of Polish soldiers, taken to Stalin's labour camps, released due to political expedience, but their country lost and the fate of their families unknown, though probably not pleasant. It would have been easy for them to become bitter and vengeful men, but their tender feelings were nurtured and preserved by the need to care for their little charge, and then to keep him out of trouble as he grew into a 500lb furry ball of mischief. But commanding officers, it seems, were as much putty in Wojtek's paws as were his comrades.

There is, undoubtedly, a very heavy leavening of anthropomorphism in the anecdotes that Orr has collected from those who served with and encountered Wojtek. He is ascribed motives and emotions that can only be projections and speculation. And yet, while I often find that sort of thing rather cloying, I didn't mind it at all in this case. Somehow, it seems right and probable that Wojtek, who was raised amongst humans, who was officially a private in the Polish army, should think and feel somewhat as we do. At any rate, I'm prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Heart-breaking because of the what I learned of the history of Poland, its proud heritage of democracy and liberalism, ultimately destroyed by the politico-military machinations of her larger neighbours, Russia and Germany, as their empires rose to prominence; its partition and reinstatement, and then the awful tragedy of the Nazi invasion and the death camps of Hitler's final solution; then the frankly shocking way in which the Poles were sold out to Stalin by the Western Allies at the end of the war. Maybe Churchill and Roosevelt really believed that Stalin would allow Poland to hold democratic elections, or more likely, after the years of war, neither could face the conflict with a too-powerful Russia that would inevitably follow should Stalin's demands not be met. In either event, to deny the Poles a part in the official VE Day celebrations was adding insult to injury.

I had known that Polish pilots played a much greater part in the Battle of Britain than was officially recognised at the time, indeed it's likely that we would have lost that battle without them, but I wasn't aware of the massive contributions Polish soldiers had made in other areas of the war.

I am saddened that in Britain today, Poles coming to work under European Union free-labour legislation are pilloried by the right-wing press as interlopers, "taking our jobs", forgetting that without the grandparents of these continental neighbours and comrades-in-arms, we probably wouldn't have a country for them to come to.

At the end, there is hope: Wojtek, who when he was de-mobbed lived out his life in Edinburgh Zoo, is a symbol of the friendship and long-standing links between Poland and Britain. Aileen Orr is campaigning for a memorial statue to Wojtek and (what I assume is) his beloved keeper, Peter Prendys.

This book has made me want to learn more about Poland and its history. It's also made me write what is probably my longest Goodreads review (and it could easily have been longer!), so it's a book that has clearly resonated with me. I think I need to upgrade my rating to 5 stars. ( )