Julian Kirkland

Julian Kirkland & Rusty & Artie

Julian Kirkland

Julian Kirkland

Jack Dempsey's Bar 1943
Brady Sutton, Peter Reidon,
Richard Holmquist,
Melvin Tidwell & Jimmy Reeves

Jack Tidwell & Jimmy Reeves

Jimmy Reeves & his dog Rusty
in Belgium

EUROPEAN THEATRE OF OPERATION

Italy, 1944

Twelve months before Normandy, Allied troops had crossed from North Africa and invaded Sicily; now six months later they were on the Italy mainland, and some troops had landed at Anzio, just thirty miles south of Rome. It was a hard campaign ...they were facing some of the best, that Germany had.

Seven Quartermaster Corps War Dog Platoons, in mid 1944, were deployed to the European Theatre of Operation; the 33rd thru the 38th plus the 42nd. All were scout dog platoons with the exception of the 36th QMC War Dog Platoon, it consisted solely of mine detecting dogs.

Conditions in Italy were generally unfavorable to wide spread use of dogs. Scout dogs in two platoons operating with the Fifth Army in Italy in the autumn of 1944 were reported to have been extremely gun shy under artillery fire. This was a major weakness of most of the dogs assigned to the early platoons as they were trained to become accustomed only to the firing of small arms.