Page 25 - Chiron Calling Autumn/Winter 2022

Office records, Rob completed more than 20 parachute descents, three of them operational.
he went missing for five weeks but in that time, he rounded up all the widely scattered members of his 2nd SAS patrol and they returned home safely’. (Letter included with lot refers).
Rob was the first War Dog attached to the SAS to be awarded the ‘animal VC’ and was reportedly the only War Dog to have been nominated for the Dickin Medal by the War Office. He was presented with his Dickin Medal by Major
other dog, Judy, a spaniel. Extensive press coverage accompanied the disappearance, with some papers expressing the fear that Rob
might have been kidnapped, The Daily Graphic describing him
as ‘the no. 1 canine hero of the war’. Five days later he was found by a neighbouring farmer, his
face gashed and suffering from exhaustion, with Judy standing guard over him, his collar and ribbon missing. It appeared that he had been caught in a rabbit hole. His damaged collar, now missing its buckle, was later recovered. Rob died in 1952, aged 12.
Footnote: Jimmy Quentin Hughes’ book Who Cares Wins includes a controversial passage setting out to debunk Rob’s story. Hughes states that Rob’s parachute jumps can
only have been training exercises
as ‘the [SAS] regiment was not on operations in North Africa’, and
‘No one did more jumps than were necessary to train one to land safely behind enemy lines. Twenty for a dog seems excessive and unlikely.’ Hughes also refers to an anonymous letter sent to the Baynes at the end of the war, which from Jennifer Hodges’ account clearly came from her father Corporal Victor (Sam) Redhead, Rob’s 2nd SAS Regiment handler. Hughes states that an operation as described by the Radio Times in which Rob was said to have taken part ‘did not take place’.
An account included with the lot gives further details of his war-time exploits: At nearby Sousse, the 2nd SAS Regt, then virtually unknown, had their training base. Captain Burt was a very worried man. The commanding officer was away ill and stores were disappearing in a most disconcerting way. Captain Burt asked the holding section for two dogs. One
developed skin
disease and was
returned – the
other was Rob,
who proved
more than equal
to the task. He
soon became race conscious and pilfering Arabs became honest men over night.
It was from there that the 2nd SAS practised their parachute drops and one day the men smuggled Rob up in the plane for a ride. It was
all they could do to prevent him from jumping out after the men.
So, they borrowed a harness from
a nearby American base who were trying to train dogs to jump and on the next fight up, again took Rob with them. This time Rob jumped and on landing the men ran to him to release him from the parachute. He had made a perfect drop, falling silently without panic through the air. It was only at this point that the commanding officer was informed of the fact that Rob had been airborne and from then on, his training began in earnest.
The account tells how Rob later completed three separate sabotage missions behind enemy lines.
A letter from Jennifer Hodges, daughter of Victor (Sam) Redhead, Rob’s SAS handler, confirms Redhead’s account of how Rob would ‘eagerly parachute ahead of my father and his SAS group and then bring them together as soon as possible after they had landed’. The letter continues: ‘While the soldiers were sleeping Rob would patrol round them and lick their faces to bring them to instant wakefulness at the slightest sound. On one mission,
the Hon W P Sidney VC MP (later Viscount de L’Isle, VC KG), the Anzio beachhead hero, at a ceremony at the
Prisoner of War Funds Exhibition in London on 8th February 1945.
Demobilised on 27th November 1945, Rob led the Wembley Parade of 32 war dogs on 16th July 1947 in front of 10,000 spectators, being the only dog present to hold both the Dickin Medal and the RSPCA Red Collar and Medallion for Valour.
Following his wartime exploits, Rob was returned to the Baynes and settled back into family life
on the farm, occasionally making public appearances to help raise funds for returning Prisoners of War and their families. In February 1948 he disappeared for five days with his companion, the Baynes’
Rob was the first War Dog attached to the SAS to be awarded the ‘animal VC’
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