Smoky: The 4-Pound Yorkie Who Became a WWII War Hero
Most WWII war dogs were German Shepherds and Dobermans built for the job. Smoky weighed about as much as a bag of sugar, and she may have done more good than any of them.
Who Smoky was
Smoky was a fully grown Yorkshire Terrier, just 7 inches tall and 4 pounds, found by an American soldier in an abandoned foxhole in the New Guinea jungle in February 1944. Another GI sold her for two Australian pounds — about $6.44 at the time — to Corporal William A. “Bill” Wynne of Cleveland, Ohio, so he could get back to a card game. Wynne trained her to learn more than 200 commands and hand signals, and she traveled with him through New Guinea, Australia, Biak Island, the Philippines, Okinawa, and Korea across 12 combat missions.
The pipe that saved 250 men
Smoky’s best-known feat came when signal engineers needed to run telephone wire through a 70-foot pipe just 8 inches wide, buried under an airbase runway on Luzon in the Philippines — a job that would have meant digging up the runway and risking Japanese air attack. Wynne tied kite string to Smoky’s collar and sent her through the pipe; she came out the other side, and the string was used to pull communication wire through. She was credited with saving an estimated 250 men and 40 aircraft from the exposure that manual digging would have required.
The first therapy dog
Beyond combat, Smoky is credited as one of the earliest documented therapy dogs: starting in July 1944 at the 233rd Station Hospital in New Guinea, she accompanied nurses on rounds to visit wounded soldiers arriving from the Biak Island invasion, offering comfort in the wards. She retired in 1955 and died in her sleep in 1957 at age 14, and is credited with sparking renewed American interest in the Yorkshire Terrier breed. A memorial statue honoring her stands in a veterans park in Rossford Ohio, near Cleveland.
Smoky’s story belongs with the rest of history’s smallest and largest heroes in our hero dogs guide.
Frequently asked questions
What breed was Smoky, the WWII war dog?
Smoky was a Yorkshire Terrier — a fully grown adult at just 4 pounds and 7 inches tall — found in the New Guinea jungle in 1944.
What was Smoky’s most famous act during WWII?
Smoky ran kite string through a 70-foot, 8-inch-wide pipe buried under a Philippine airbase runway, allowing engineers to pull communication wire through without digging up the runway — credited with saving roughly 250 men and 40 planes.
Was Smoky really a therapy dog?
Yes — she’s widely credited as one of the first documented therapy dogs, visiting wounded soldiers at a New Guinea field hospital starting in July 1944, well before therapy-dog programs were formalized.
