Panic that drove Britain to slaughter 750,000 family pets in one week: It's one of the war's great forgotten tragedies - now, a heartbreaking book reveals the truth



Based on false assumption that putting down pets was patriotic thing to do

Government was instrumental in the massacre

Pet owners told that their animals would not be allowed in bomb shelters

Families believed that destroying their pets was a humane alternative to having them terrified and roaming the bombed streets



During the late Thirties, my aunt Lena would walk her beloved wire-haired fox terrier Paddy across a common every evening to a suburban railway station to meet her husband Ernest off the train. Paddy would jump up to greet him joyfully, and the trio would amble home together.



But when war broke out in September 1939, Ernest coldly announced that Lena couldn’t keep Paddy. The very next day, he took the dog from her arms and left the house. She never saw Paddy again.



This might sound like an impossibly brutal response to the war, but Ernest was far from alone. For it was a scene repeated in thousands of family homes - weeping children, sobbing mothers, and stern fathers saying that it was the kindest thing to do.

It is estimated that as many as three quarters of a million adored pets were destroyed in the first week of the war

As the air-raid sirens sounded for the first time and families hastily covered up their windows with black-out curtains, countless cats and dogs were shooed out into the street, or tied up in sacks to be thrown in canals or dumped in back streets and alleyways.



It is estimated that as many as three quarters of a million adored pets were destroyed in the first week of the war.



You might wonder how the British, a nation of animal lovers, suddenly took it into their heads to kill so many animals. In fact, it was all based on a false assumption that putting down the family pet was a patriotic and humane thing to do.

I came across countless stories like that of Ernest, Lena and Paddy while researching a book about the ‘civilian’ animal experience in World War II. While much has been written about the animals drafted into the war effort - they even have their own national memorial in Hyde Park - little is known about the home-front pets who were killed by their owners in such vast numbers when war was declared.



And, as I discovered, the Government was instrumental in this massacre of beloved pets.



Not only did the Government set MI5 agents to watch animal rights activists, it also considered the mass euthanasia of all ‘non-essential animals’, sponsored a clandestine anti-dog hate campaign and sanctioned the criminal prosecutions of cat owners for giving their pets saucers of milk.

The Government was instrumental in this massacre of beloved pets

The massacre of the nation’s pets in September 1939 was foreshadowed by events the previous year. During the Munich Crisis of 1938, when Germany had occupied parts of Czechoslovakia, animal charities had been besieged by pet-owners who were terrified that war could result in mass poison-gas attacks by air on British cities.



Their fear was that their pets would become hysterical at the sound of sirens and explosions, and run wild through streets contaminated by mustard gas.



The Home Office formed a special National Air Raid Precautions Animal Committee, with a retired vet as chairman. This ‘Dad’s Army for Pets’ would act swiftly in a crisis, offering refuge to lost or frightened animals, treating injuries or painlessly putting them out of their suffering.



On the eve of war, a Home Office pamphlet was published which indicated that pets would not be allowed in public air-raid shelters, and featured a do-it-yourself guide to putting animals down. On page two was an advert for a captive bolt pistol.



The day Hitler invaded Poland, a BBC broadcast confirmed it was official policy that pets would not be given shelter.



The result was panic. A council vet in East London recorded the events of that first day: ‘The sirens sounded . . .and almost immediately West Ham Town Hall became besieged by panic-stricken people bringing their animals for destruction,’ he wrote.



‘In spite of trying to reason with the hysterical mob, we were soon inundated with dogs and cats whose owners had abandoned them in offices and corridors.’



That night, distressed animals cast out by their owners roamed the blacked-out streets.



The day Hitler invaded Poland, a BBC broadcast confirmed it was official policy that pets would not be given shelter

Five days of mass destruction followed. A local rendering firm was stacked several feet deep with dog and cat carcasses.



Not even London Zoo escaped the carnage. The black widow spiders and poisonous snakes were killed, as were a manatee (a large aquatic mammal also known as a sea cow), six Indian fruit bats, seven Nile crocodiles, a muntjac and two American alligators. Two lion cubs were put down, too. All were ‘destroyed owing to war conditions’.



After those first few days, the rate of killing slowed - but there was real shock at what had happened, and some animal lovers were appalled by the way the Government had created such a sense of panic.



Nina, Duchess of Hamilton, turned her Wiltshire estate, Ferne, into an animal sanctuary, while one Swedish aristocrat opened her Mayfair mansion as a sort of urban ark.



More menageries sprung up as kindly old ladies offered refuges. The pets from local schools, including guinea pigs and rabbits, were taken in by a farmer in West Moseley, Birmingham. The Canine Defence League dug its own air-raid shelters for dogs in Kensington Gardens.



Many thousands of cats were simply turned out to join feral colonies, such as that on Clapham Common in South London, which became home to a huge number of strays.

But the worst was yet to come.



When major Nazi bombing began in the autumn of 1940, once again there was a rush to abandon pets by the thousand. The West Ham vet recalled blitzed streets ‘inundated with cats’.



Municipal parties set out on slaughtering campaigns using a mixture of electric shocks, cyanide and chloroform - 100 animals at a time was not unusual. There were so many animals that mass culling was the only option.



However, the vet refused to give up his own cat, Ginger, who proved staunch even in the midst of an air raid, ‘welcoming me home each night amid the injustice of man’s mad warfare’.



One news agency reported on a collie dog who had become adept at coping when the sirens sounded, ‘preceding the family into the private garden shelter before raids, and returning to the house just before the all-clear’. But the same writer noted: ‘Badly trained dogs however have proved a nuisance, barking loudly and rushing wildly about the place.



‘If the feeding of dogs becomes a national grievance, such dogs should be the first to be destroyed.’



Special tranquilliser mixtures to calm distressed pets were advertised; and ear muffs for dogs. One lady asked the authorities if gas masks were available for bees.



For those without private shelters, the dilemma was dreadful. Some chose to stay at home with their pets rather than go to a public shelter without them.

When major Nazi bombing began in the autumn of 1940, once again there was a rush to abandon pets by the thousand

The Mass Observation project, which recorded the responses of ordinary people to the war, spoke to a man in Poplar, East London, who said: ‘I know the missus and kids are safe, but if I went to the shelter, too, I’d be thinking about how the animals were getting on.’



As the war continued, the question of what to feed pets became more critical. In August 1940, the Waste Of Food Order was passed, making it an offence, punishable by two years’ imprisonment, to feed animals with food fit for human consumption.



Dog biscuits disappeared from shops. ‘Chappies’ pet-food factory in Slough, Berkshire, was shut and pets had to be fed on scraps.



One woman, Mrs Winifred Airlie, of Colchester, was fined £5 for giving bread to her pet white mice.



But mice were the least of it. Dogs were considered the real enemy within. One official at the Ministry Of Food recorded in the minutes of a meeting: ‘The only solution is that a reduction of the dog population should be secured.’



A policy limiting each family to one dog if rationing became worse was discussed in secret, but was never acted on.



Anti-dog sentiment was to be encouraged: ‘Tell the public they eat 280,000 tons of meat per year!’



The campaign was effective. A ‘mongrel owner’ interviewed in August 1941 said: ‘Those who feed their dogs off the fat of the land should be imprisoned for sabotage. Some of the rich society dames feed their dogs stuff which would be feast to a poor man . . .’



Cats were also a target for the Ministry, and an anti-cat briefing was leaked to journalists: ‘Too many of this country’s 7 million cats are overfed, given portions of meat and fish which, to a man, would be the equivalent of a 3lb joint every lunchtime.’



It was also widely reported that cats consumed 40 million gallons of milk a year. The Chancellor considered a cat tax.



Nothing would deter the most devoted cat rescuers, however. The Animal Defence Society reported ‘a poor old woman who lived in a tiny room . . . swarming with cats who she had rescued and befriended. Most of these people would give their last crust to their cat or dog’.

After those first few days, the rate of killing slowed - but there was real shock at what had happened, and some animal lovers were appalled by the way the Government had created such a sense of panic

The Government relented in part, making allowances for cat owners who relied on the animals to keep down mice and rats, such as the owners of large warehouses.



‘Although no liquid milk could be spared for cats, some damaged dried milk powder might be made available to cats engaged on “work of national importance”’ — in other words, catching rats in industrial production plants.

No such concessions were made for dogs, although from 1942, if a family was struggling to feed a beloved dog, they could lend them to the Army as a war dog on full rations — but many owners feared their dogs might not recognise them when they returned.



In 1949, Brutus, a demobilised German Shepherd from Syston in Leicestershire, was reunited with his master at the railway station after three years in the Army.



To the dismay of his master, Brutus seemed barely to recognise him. They walked home as strangers.



Then, as they walked through the door, Brutus heard the voice of his mistress and at once bounded up to her in transports of joy. It was as if he had never left, and he was soon a friend and playmate to the couple’s two children, the youngest born while Brutus had been away.



Brutus was one of the lucky dogs who survived. But we should never forget the hundreds of thousands of dogs and cats who were senselessly killed by panicking families and officials in those dark days of World War II.

