Tribute to the Cats of World War I: 1914 – 1918

An estimated 500,000 cats served in World War I. Aside from doing rodent patrol, WWI cats also detected gas. This was, after all, the first war that saw the large-scale use of chemical warfare. The Brits “drafted” 500 felines for this particular duty — which was a canary-in-a-coal-mine mission because cats succumbed much more quickly to the fumes than humans did. One cat saved a soldier’s life in a more dramatic fashion. Pitouchi had been born in the trenches. His mother had been killed when he was a kitten, and he’d been adopted by a Belgian soldier, Lt. Lekeux. Lekeux was hiding in a shell hole, sketching the enemy’s artillery works. A German soldier on patrol spotted him and called out to his comrades. Spooked by the sound, Pitouchi “jumped out of the hole onto a piece of timber,” writes Susan Bulanda in her book Soldiers in Fur and Feathers. The Germans “fired two shots at Pitouchi. However, as frightened as he was, Pitouchi was not hit, and he jumped back into the hole with his beloved Lekeux.” The