Category: Soldiering
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Junior Parachute Company
THE COMBAT VET BABOON
Jackie the baboon mustered off to war alongside his
human counterpart replete with uniform, pay book and mess kit.
Albert Marr was a farmer in South Africa soon after the turn of the 20th Century. Had the world seen fit to leave him alone, Marr no doubt would have lived out his life in peace and anonymity. However, the world had other plans.
Farming in Africa is not fundamentally dissimilar to farming in other places, with the possible exception of the wildlife. Africa enjoys the richest collection of animal life on the planet. From plains-grazing ungulates to enormous carnivorous aquatic reptiles to the largest terrestrial mammals in the world,
Africa has forever been the destination for hunters and naturalists serious about their craft. Africa also plays host to some of the world’s most remarkable primates.
Living and working in such a vast natural milieu, Albert Marr interacted with lions, leopards and African hoofed stock on a regular basis. One day, while out on his modest farm, he came across an orphaned baby baboon. Marr scooped him up, took him home, and resolved to raise the little monkey as his own. He named the adolescent simian Jackie.
A Curious Family Pet
To this point, this is a quaint story but little else. I have several local friends who raised raccoons as children. I myself had a brace of rambunctious fox squirrels that kept me company when I was a burgeoning man-child. However, in 1914, World War 1 conflagrated. A year later, Marr was drafted. By then, he had grown terribly fond of the family baboon.
Many of the Allied units drawn up to fight in the first War to End All Wars were regional outfits. Forming military units out of men who had been neighbors was a two-edged sword. On the one hand, the pre-existing familiarity went a long way toward fomenting the esprit necessary to establish unit cohesion.
The flip side was that the inevitable losses stung that much more. When Marr reported for conscription, he insisted on bringing Jackie the baboon along with him. Much to everyone’s surprise, his commanders were good with it. It seemed Jackie was going to war.
Smart, agile, cunning and fast, baboons are social creatures who form strong familial bonds in the wild. As Jackie had been raised on the Marr farm, humans were his tribe. Both man and monkey were sworn into the 3rd South African Infantry Regiment (Transvaal) and immediately took to soldiering. Jackie was designated the unit mascot forthwith.
The grunts of the 3rd South African Infantry Regiment
developed a deep and abiding attachment for Jackie.
The Militarized Monkey
The men of the 3rd South African Regiment scrounged up an appropriately-scaled uniform, hat and mess gear. The little monkey was even issued his own paybook. In short order, he learned to stand at attention, assume the position of at ease, recognize and salute superior officers, and light his comrade’s cigarettes.
He ate with a knife and fork like a human, washed up in his own personal basin, and marched alongside the human soldiers during close order drill.
Once serving downrange, Jackie was more than just a pet. He would stand guard duty with the unit sentries at night, his keen senses a boon to tactical operations.
Jackie invariably was the first to detect a pending attack by the Boche. However, Europe during World War I was a terribly dangerous place.
During the Battle of Delville Wood early in the Somme Campaign, Marr and Jackie were among the scant 20% of their unit that avoided being killed or seriously injured. In the winter of 1916, Marr caught a round in the shoulder during the Battle of Agagia while serving in Egypt. Jackie remained by his side, licking the man’s wounds until he could be evacuated.
The strain of combat took a toll on Jackie just as it did his human counterparts. While languishing in the trenches in France under fire, Jackie occupied himself constructing a modest wall behind which he might hide from incoming shells. However, during one particularly heavy barrage, a piece of shrapnel caught Jackie in the leg and arm. The courageous monkey was medically evacuated and treated by the unit surgeons. They reluctantly amputated his right leg and, in so doing, saved his life.
Finally Home
In the aftermath of his injury, Jackie was promoted to corporal and granted an award for bravery, the Pretoria Citizens Service Medal. I can only imagine what it must have felt like to be a human private in his unit and find oneself outranked by a one-legged monkey. Jackie eventually came home with Albert and was presented with his own discharge papers.
Jackie thrived once back home but tragically perished in a house fire in 1921. After having survived so much pain, carnage and death, to have succumbed under such pedestrian circumstances made his passing all the more tragic. His friend Albert Marr, however, lived a long, full life, eventually passing away in 1973 at age 84.
War is the most inhuman of human pursuits. Politicians make the policies, and young men do the bleeding and dying. In this poignant tale of one combat veteran and his crippled pet baboon, we see personified the raw inhumanity of the thing. Perhaps Jackie the war monkey has a message for us all today.
He led a reconnaissance team during a mission near Phú Lộc, Vietnam, in 1967. During the engagement, Capers sustained multiple wounds while directing his men and coordinating their evacuation under intense enemy fire. His actions were instrumental in saving the lives of every member of his team.
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Pity it took so long to get it to him! (Almost 60 years!!) But that’s the problem with the Blue Max. In that sometimes you get it ASAP & other times it’s almost too late. I say that it’s just pure BS and a few officers need a blow torch pointed at them. Grumpy
A couple of real STUDS in my book! Grumpy
A Japanese sword took LT George Cairns’ arm on a Burmese hilltop. He seized that same blade, kept fighting, and earned a place among Britain’s most savage Victoria Cross legends.
Mankind has been consumed with war since our very beginnings. Ever since Cain knocked his brother Abel’s brains out with a rock, we have been a species of scrappers. We venerate warriors and celebrate their wars. Along the way, we have somehow lost touch with just how ghastly real war actually is.
Everybody dies. That’s obviously a given. However, that war takes young people in their prime is what makes it so utterly repugnant. Were that not so, I’m sure we would be doing even more of it.
War Never Changes: How George Cairns Reached Burma
The development of weapons brought us such stuff as GPS, microwave ovens, and the Internet. Jet engines, digital cameras, synthetic materials, and EpiPens all had their origins in military technologies as well. However, at the end of the day, whether it is a HIMARS rocket, a ship-mounted laser, or a 16th-century Scottish Claymore broadsword, the ultimate objective is still simply to tear the very life out of our enemies. No matter how much seems to change, the unfortunate end goal nonetheless remains the same.
Modern battlefields are truly horrible things. JDAM smart bombs, shaped charges, thermobaric weapons, and depleted uranium projectiles all conspire to make a proper mess of human flesh. However, war in eras past was hardly all unicorns and butterflies. Hacking some poor schmuck limb from limb was also fairly untidy. It turns out that this propensity toward vivisection extends up into the last century as well.
George Cairns Before the Victoria Cross: Banker, Husband, Soldier
George Albert Cairns was born in December 1913 in London. He attended the Sir Henry Compton School in Fulham from 1923 through 1930. He subsequently took a job in a bank in Kent, where he met his future wife, Ena. The two were married in 1940. The following year, George answered his nation’s call and went off to war.
Cairns was a dedicated natural leader. He earned a commission and was appointed to the Somerset Light Infantry (Prince Albert’s). He was subsequently attached to the South Staffordshire Regiment and deployed to Burma. The South Staffordshire was a Chindit battalion subordinate to the 77th Indian Infantry Brigade commanded by the legendary Brigadier Michael Calvert.
By March of 1944, Cairns was 30 years old. That seems pretty young to me. However, in soldier years, he was veritably ancient.
Soldiering is a young man’s game. I look back with fondness on my time in uniform. However, I do recall being tired and sore a lot. Deprivation, hunger, and misery are integral parts of the life of any proper combat soldier in the field. Cairns and his mates found that in abundance in the fetid jungles of Burma.
Pagoda Hill Explodes: The Chindits Meet the Japanese
On 16 March 1944, Cairns and the South Staffords dug in near a place called the White City. The Japanese were rabid to stop the British advance. The Brits, for their part, were disinclined to comply. The end result was a most ferocious fight.
Near the South Staffords’ fighting positions was a pagoda on a prominent hilltop. As near as anyone could tell, neither force had bothered to take that place just yet. Both sides had actually dug formidable fighting positions within earshot of the other, apparently without either unit being the wiser. That all changed when an unsuspecting Japanese patrol wandered across the abandoned pagoda in search of something or other. At around 11 am, everything came unglued.
Brigadier Calvert led the attack himself. He later wrote, “On the top of Pagoda Hill, not much bigger than two tennis courts, an amazing scene developed. The small white Pagoda was in the centre of the hill. Between that and the slopes which came up was a mêlée of South Staffords and Japanese bayonetting, fighting with each other, with some Japanese just throwing grenades from the flanks…There, at the top of the hill, about fifty yards square, an extraordinary mêlée took place, everyone shooting, bayoneting, kicking at everyone else, rather like an officers’ guest night.”
Amidst all of that mayhem, LT Cairns strived mightily to hold the defensive line intact. While coordinating this vigorous defense, Cairns looked up just in time to spot a Japanese officer charging toward him at a dead run, waving a sword. There was no time to react properly. In the face of imminent death, Albert Cairns did what any normal person might do–he reflexively raised his left arm. The maniacal Japanese officer slashed with his weapon and all but took LT Cairns’ left arm off.
One Arm Gone, Sword in Hand: Cairns Refuses to Die Quietly
At this point, LT Cairns had a decision to make. If some screaming nutjob hacked my arm off with a big honking sword, I’m fairly certain I would just take my toys and go home. Not so, LT Cairns. Cairns shot and killed the Japanese officer who had taken his arm before snatching up the dead soldier’s blade and going to town on the rest of his maniacal buddies.
LT Norman Durant was a machine gun platoon leader assigned to the same unit. His vantage with his support weapons afforded him a fairly decent view of the battlefield. This is what he had to say about LT Cairns: “The first thing I saw on reaching the path was a horrible hand-to-hand struggle going on further up the hill. George Cairns and a Jap were struggling and choking on the ground, and as I picked up a Jap rifle and climbed up towards them, I saw George break free and, picking up a rifle bayonet, stab the Jap again and again like a madman. It was only when I got near that I saw he himself had already been bayoneted twice through the side and that his left arm was hanging on by a few strips of muscle. How he had found the strength to fight was a miracle, but the effort had been too much and he died the next morning.”
So, this brass-balled young British infantry officer had been ventilated twice with bayonets before having his left arm quite literally chopped off. Despite these extraordinary wounds, Cairns unleashed his inner monster on the attacking Japanese.
Using the dead Japanese officer’s sword, this one-armed lunatic launched himself into the remaining Japanese troops like a Dervish. When the dust settled, survivors counted 42 Japanese dead in and around the hilltop that housed the pagoda. Nobody knew who got whom. However, Cairns did most of his serious killing with the same sword that had been used to, moments before, lop off his own left arm.
The Victoria Cross Fight That Nearly Vanished With Wingate
Once the dust settled, LT Cairns understandably ran out of gas. His words were, “’Have we won sir? Was it all right? Did we do our stuff? Don’t worry about me.” The following day, this remarkable young man died.
Stripping a sword from an adversary and then using it to obliterate an attacking unit after having your own arm chopped off seemed like Victoria Cross material, no matter how you sliced it. The VC is Great Britain’s highest award for gallantry in action. It is the Limey equivalent of our Medal of Honor.
One of Cairns’ officers duly put in the work, and the award recommendation made its way up to General Orde Wingate, the commanding general of the Chindits. Wingate was a weird duck. A committed Christian Zionist, Wingate cut his teeth fighting the Arabs in British-occupied Palestine. He once attempted suicide by stabbing himself in the neck while under the depressing effects of atabrine for his malaria.
By the time he commanded the Chindits, Wingate was habitually munching on raw onions to help ward off disease and made a habit of greeting visitors in the nude. On 24 March 1944, Wingate climbed aboard an American B25 Mitchell bomber along with two British war correspondents. The pilot objected that the airplane was grossly overloaded, but Wingate insisted. The plane subsequently crashed into the jungle in India, killing all aboard. LT Cairns’ VC recommendation was on Wingate’s person at the time.
George Cairns’ Victoria Cross Citation: Valor Beyond Belief
A 1949 article in The Times revived the process. By then, two of the three required witnesses had been killed in action. Eventually, thanks to the tireless efforts of his widow Ena Cairns, George’s Victoria Cross was approved. This is the citation:
“On 12 March 1944, columns from the South Staffordshire Regiment and 3/6 Gurkha Rifles established a road and rail block across the Japanese lines of communication at Henu Block.
The Japanese counter-attacked this position heavily in the early morning of 13 March 1944, and the South Staffordshire Regiment was ordered to attack a hill-top which formed the basis of the Japanese attack.
During this action, in which Lieutenant CAIRNS took a foremost part, he was attacked by a Japanese officer, who, with his sword, hacked off Lieutenant CAIRNS’s left arm. Lieutenant CAIRNS killed this Officer; picked up the sword and continued to lead his men in the attack, and, slashing left and right with the captured sword, killed and wounded several Japanese before he himself fell to the ground.
Lieutenant CAIRNS subsequently died from his wounds. His action so inspired all his comrades that, later, the Japanese were completely routed, a very rare occurrence at that time.”
LT George Cairns Went Down Fighting and Became a Legend
We have explored a great many remarkable tales of daring and elan in this space in the past. I can’t recall ever writing about some lunatic guy who kept on fighting with the sword his attacker had only recently used to relieve him of his arm. LT George Cairns was indeed a hero of the highest order.
Will is still trying to figure out what he really wants to be when he grows up. However, shooting guns and claiming it was work seemed like a pretty sweet hustle. As a result, Will serendipitously transformed an avocation into a vocation.
Raised in the Mississippi Delta, Will flew UH1H, OH58A/C, CH47D and AH1S helicopters operationally as an Army Aviator. He is SCUBA-qualified and has parachuted out of perfectly good airplanes at 3 o’clock in the morning. Will has summited Mount McKinley, Alaska, six times…always at the controls of an Army helicopter, which is the only way sensible folk climb mountains.
Will has delivered sixty babies and occasionally wrung human blood out of his socks. He is married to his high school sweetheart and has three awesome adult children. Turn-ons include vintage German machineguns, flying his sexy-cool RV6A airplane, Count Chocula cereal and the movie “Aliens.”
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