Tribute to Voytek, the smoking, drinking fighting, soldier bear

He enjoyed a cigarette and a bottle of cold beer and could carry more mortar rounds than any other soldier. But Voytek wasn’t one of the ordinary dogs of war – he was a battling bear.

Adopted by the Polish army, the European brown bear “fought” at the bloody Battle of Monte Cassino before dying, not of a bullet wound, but of old age, in Edinburgh Zoo. Now a campaign has been started to build a monument to him.

Voytek was adopted as a cub in the Middle East in 1943, before growing into much more than a mascot. He eventually stood 6ft on his hind legs and weighed 35 stone, and he used his strength to help the armed forces, carrying ammunition at the Battle of Monte Cassino in Italy the following year. The four-month battle, one of western Europe’s bloodiest, left a quarter of a million soldiers dead.

Voytek – known as the Soldier Bear – was brought to Scotland after the war by Polish troops and was stationed near the Berwickshire village of Hutton, before moving to Edinburgh Zoo, where he died in 1963.

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