WW II vet learned his dog's fate from a book

By TED CZECH
The Associated Press

YORK, Pa. - The black-and-white rat terrier scampered across the battle lines on Iwo Jima, running from a Japanese cave to a foxhole occupied by U.S. Marines and Seabees.

More than 60 years later, local barber and World War II veteran Frank Renda read about the daring dog , named Banzai by a U.S. soldier , in a book about a military unit in World War II and knew that was his dog.

"They described it perfectly," Renda, of Spring Garden Township, said of his dog. "I wondered what happened to my dog."

Over the years, Renda, 81, would often page through his scrapbook, where he kept photos of a dog named Judy that he owned while serving as a U.S. Marine on the atoll of Ulithi.

He had to leave Judy on Ulithi when he boarded a ship. He hoped a fellow Marine would bring Judy to him, but the dog got lost on the island of Iwo Jima, he said.

Renda was so inspired by learning of Judy's fate that he wrote an essay and submitted it to Leatherneck, known as the "Magazine of the Marines." It was published in the magazine's June issue.

Renda's discovery began earlier this year when Harry Conard, a retired Seabee from York, walked into Renda's shop and asked for a haircut.

The two struck up a conversation about the war. Seabee, a name derived from the initials C.B., which stand for Construction Battalion, is a branch of the U.S. Navy, charged with building camps and bridges and paving airstrips. Seabees and Marines always got along, said Renda. Besides, they always had the best food, he said.

Conard lent Renda a book, "From Omaha to Okinawa: The Story of the Seabees," by William Bradford Huie, and that's where Renda read this: "With its last ounce of energy, the dog leaped into one of our foxholes, and there was a great, spontaneous shout from the Americans."


Renda got Judy as a pup while on Ulithi, in either late 1944 or early 1945.

In February 1945, he left Ulithi on a ship bound for Okinawa. No dogs were allowed on the ship, he said.

But Renda knew dogs were allowed on airplanes, and he also knew that a fellow Marine, Cpl. Eli Krueger, would be boarding a plane for Okinawa.

When Krueger reached Okinawa, Judy was not there. Renda believes that when the plane stopped on Iwo Jima, Judy got spooked by the shelling and shooting and ran away.

He figures Judy found company with the Japanese forces there.

But Judy was a Marine dog to the core, Renda said, which explains why she ran from the Japanese and back to U.S. forces in Huie's book.

"A dog knows; they're smarter than people think they are," he said. "This dog was around American troops all the time."

Leatherneck editor Walt Ford said there is a possibility that someone else might have had a similarly-colored dog on Iwo Jima and that was the one that Huie saw.

"Is it possible that (Renda) could've connected one or two of these dots to have closure? Sure," he said. "It still makes for a good story."

And one thing is for sure , wherever Marines have fought around the world, they have befriended animals, like monkeys in the Philippines and tigers in Vietnam, Ford said.

"We're known for killing, but we're also known for our softer side, (like) taking care of pets," he said.

Ellie