US Working Dogs vs. the IJA?

[decaro]

I watched History Detectives on PBS last night and learned there was a (recently declassified) military operation to train "attack dogs" to hunt and kill IJ soldiers scattered on the far flung islands of the Pacific.

Oddly enough, the training was held on Cat Island!

Apparently a Euro immigrant convinced the US State Dept. that he could train dogs to hunt Japanese soldiers by their "blood scent"; to that end, Japanese-American soldiers who voluntered to help train these dogs actually ended up as "bait".

The program was tested for 90 days, but proved a dismal failure; the fall-out from the experiment resulted in a military investigation that recommended the Euro project manager be put on surveilance for threats against his superiors.

http://www.pbs.org/opb/historydetective ... etter.html

[Josh]

Nice find, I never knew that, well the Russians tried it with not much success against German tanks. Let loose the dogs of war eh?

[anarchyintheuk]

Good show. Threatening his superiors and Roosevelt when the program was cancelled was probably his second worst idea. No wonder they couldn't find any records of the guy after ww2.

[ilovestrategy]

I guess he really wanted to train dogs! [:D]

[jomni]

Call of Duty World at War had attack dogs.

[decaro]

ORIGINAL: jomni

Call of Duty World at War had attack dogs.

But the US never had "attack dogs" in WW II; sentry dogs, messenger dogs, scout dogs, but not "attack dogs".

[Knavery]

ORIGINAL: jomni

Call of Duty World at War had attack dogs.

As did the Russia vs. United States Command and Conquer series. Good times!

[NefariousKoel]

Need more flaming pigs.