War museum salutes animal heroes

New Orleans, Louisiana: Smoky the Yorkshire terrier, Lady Astor the pigeon and a host of horses and mules are among war heroes and heroines featured in the latest exhibit at the National World War II Museum.

‘Loyal Forces: The Animals of WWII' will run until October 17, featuring the four kinds of animals most often brought into the war.

"There was a great love and loyalty between the soldiers and the animals they worked with," said registrar Toni M. Kiser, who created the exhibit with archivist Lindsey Barnes.

In the mezzanine, where a Sherman tank and a halftrack represent the period's most common cavalry, is a figure of a coast guardsman on shore patrol with his horse. The shore patrols were set up after German saboteurs twice landed on American beaches.

This may seem odd to people used to thinking of the Coast Guard as offshore duty in cutters, patrol boats, helicopters and airplanes.

"Luckily, before they could wreak havoc, they were caught," said Kiser.

Nearly 3,000 horses, provided by the Army Quartermaster Corps, let the shore patrol cover much more ground.

North Africa and the Mediterranean are represented by pigeons such as Lady Astor, which brought an urgent message to Allied forces from the front lines in North Africa in spite of pellet fire that broke one leg and took half the feathers from one wing.