The subject of today’s article is one that brings me complete and utter joy. However, I must give a disclaimer before moving forward: if you are in any way averse to hilarity, stupid adorableness, fluffy creatures, or tender love between man and animal, then this article is not for you. Today, I am going to be telling a story of tragedy, courage, adventure, and one military group’s ability to move onward in the face of adversity, all thanks to one extraordinary creature. Today, I am telling the story of Corporal Wojtek, the bear who served in WWII.

Our story begins in the modern-day mountains of Iran in Spring 1942. A group of young Polish men were traveling toward Egypt and had stopped to camp for the night. Now, what these men had been through was not pretty. They were all newly released prisoners of war who had suffered in Siberian gulags after losing to the Germans and Russians several years earlier during an invasion of Poland in 1939.

After years of imprisonment, the allied forces had negotiated for their release to gain their aid in the war. After years of hardship and loss, the group was now to make a grueling trek to join British forces in Palestine. They were described as an “army of walking skeletons” and were led by General Wladyslaw Anders, who had also undergone Russian imprisonment and torture. This army would become known as the 22nd Artillery Supply Company of the Polish II Corps.

Undoubtedly, the journey from one hell to another would more than likely not be a cheerful affair. However, on this particular night in the Iranian mountains, an odd sight appeared before the men.

A small boy with a knapsack, who appeared to be starving, approached the soldiers. The men offered him some meat, and, while there, the boy’s sack began to move. When the men cautiously opened the bag, they were shocked to see the small snout of a bear cub pop out. In the book “Wojtek the Bear: Polish War Hero” by Aileen Orr, she describes how “he was a scrawny, unkempt little thing, obviously not properly fed.” Apparently, the boy had found him in a cave in the mountains. He was orphaned after hunters shot his mother (flashback to 4-year-old me, circa 2001, crying on my living room floor after watching Bambi for the first time).

Instantly moved and smitten by the cub, the men bought it off the boy in exchange for some Persian coins, a portion of chocolate, a Swiss army knife, and a tin of beef. They named him Wojtek (pronounced voy-tek), which is Polish for “smiling warrior.” Mcfreaking. Cute. Any other opinion is wrong.

For a while, the men tried to hide Wojtek from their superior officers. They would sneak him around in their bags during the day and let him sleep in their tents at night. Often, they fed him milk out of old vodka bottles. But their sneakiness did not last long because, as it turns out, it is quite hard to hide a Syrian Brown Bear, a cousin to the North American Grizzly Bear, which can grow up to 6 feet tall and weigh as much as 200 kilograms.

In one account, Wojtek was allegedly scared by a group of birds circling overhead and ran out of the tent the soldiers were hiding him in and straight into the legs of a sergeant. However, instead of getting angry and ordering it to be gotten rid of, as the men feared, the sergeant immediately became besotted with Wojtek and allowed him to become the regiment’s mascot. Another officer was so taken with Wojtek that he let him sleep in his tent for several weeks in a wash basin by his cot.

Ultimately, though, it was Lance Corporal Peter Prendys who seemed to have been the most involved with Wojtek’s care. It was his tent which the small cub would sneak into to sleep in late at night, and it is said that Corporal Prendys would often button Wojtek up in his coat to keep them both warm from the cold. Prendys even taught the young bear to salute!

You can’t look me in the eye and tell me all of these things aren’t the cutest things you’ve ever imagined. You would be a liar. I’m just saying.

Soon, Wojtek’s military career began. He became accustomed to the regular life of a soldier: waking up in the mornings, ambling around the campsite before going to the mess tent, and finding whatever food he could scrounge up. As time went on, the cute cub grew to be a very, very large bear that was estimated to be 485 pounds. Despite his size, Wojtek was gentle-natured and never once hurt any of the men with whom he traveled. As he got older, his caretakers didn’t worry as much about feeding him milk and instead would let him drink from what was on hand: beer.

Since he was so large, he couldn’t get drunk off the one bottle they would give him, but this wasn’t the only vice they taught him. The soldiers would feed him the occasional lit cigarette, of which he was particularly fond. Apparently, Wojtek could tell the difference between a lit an unlit cigarette and would refuse to swallow any unlit ones given to him. Guess the bear had standards.

Even better, Wojtek was known to “dance” or play fight with his men. Once the regiment began traveling through more populated areas and gaining recruits, one form of hazing the Polish soldiers partook in was teaching Wojtek how to scare the unaware men by having the bear pick them up and swing them from their feet a bit, making them think that the bear was going to eat them. You know, just joshin’ around.

Wojtek the bear “dancing” with his pal. Please, I beg you, go look up pictures of this bear. You will not be disappointed.

When the Poles eventually moved to an Allied camp in Iraq, the furry Wojtek struggled in the unfamiliar heat. After watching the men who were wet after coming out of the bathing tent, Wojtek decided to investigate and soon learned how to turn the showers on all by himself! He would often get in trouble for this because he would quickly use up too much of the water rationed out for the soldiers.

One day, however, Wojtek’s love for showers paid off. Unbeknownst to the camp, a spy had infiltrated the premises and was sneaking around through the bathing tent. Before he could make his escape, Wojtek ambled in and found him. The spy, rightfully frightened by finding a giant freaking bear on the premises, screamed in terror, alerting the men to his presence. In reward, Wojtek was given unlimited shower privileges and two bottles of beer (what a good bear, amiright?).

When the time came for the regiment to leave for battle in Italy, the men couldn’t imagine not having Wojtek with them. Somewhat understandably, the British officers present were not too keen on the idea (#haters #heartless #rude). They insisted only soldiers could be allowed onto the ships.

According to legend, the regiment quickly issued a service number, a rank, and an official pay book (although they only ever paid him in food and love). When the British officer taking the embarkment registration tried to argue when he saw the men bringing Wojtek, he was told: “Private Wojtek inspires fighting spirit in Polish soldiers!”

Private Wojtek was allowed to board.

In fact, it wasn’t only moral support Wojtek gave to his men. In the famous Battle of Monte Cassino, Wojtek actually helped carry ammunition boxes during the battle in his arms while he walked on two legs. It was said that the bear was seen on the front lines, amidst all the noise and confusion of the battle, carrying the boxes to soldiers who needed to reload their gun. Although this is one story that is a bit disputed, one British veteran swore up and down that he was stunned to see a bear ambling by carrying a crate of mortar rounds during the heat of battle. Others claim Wojtek was too much of a lazy thing and more often than not, he was just carrying empty boxes.

Still, though, he was, apparently, just walking around casually in the middle of a battlefield. Pretty crazy, if you ask me. We love a war hero, especially if its furry.

After several days of hard battle, the Polish II Corps successfully captured the “mountain fortress” of Monte Cassino from the Germans. In honor of his bravery, the regiment’s high command soon changed their badge to an image of a bear carrying an artillery shell.

Warning: things are about to get emotional.

The Polish men of the regiment had come to care deeply for Wojtek and viewed him as one of their own. So, even after the war ended, many of the men continued to care for him. Though many of the soldiers scattered across the world, those who did not have any family to go back to kept Wojtek with them. They did not want him to be taken to Poland as many Polish leaders wanted since word of the famous bear had gotten back to the country. After the terrible treatment they’d undergone by Stalin’s gulag camps, they feared that the now Soviet-controlled Poland would make Wojtek into a mascot for communism.

Instead, the men took Wojtek to live with them on a farm in a village in Scotland, where he lived with other Polish soldiers who were being housed temporarily after the war. After a few years, however, the soldiers all moved away, and Wojtek was sent to live the remainder of his days in the Edinburgh Zoo. It was said that Wojtek would still eat any lit cigarettes thrown his way, and when he would hear Polish or a Polish accent at the zoo, he would rise on his hind legs and salute. He lived until 1963, dying at the ripe old age of 22.

Since his death, people have been fascinated by the tale of Wojtek, and many people still remember his story to this day. In 2010, Aileen Orr, who grew up on the very Scottish farm Wojtek lived on after the war, published a book immortalizing the stories she’d heard about him since she was a young girl. The following year, a documentary called “Wojtek: The Bear Who Went to War” was created, and there are even rumors that an animated movie will be made to bring his story to the big screen. In 2015, Edinburgh erected a bronze statue of Wojtek.

As many have pointed out over the years, it is no surprise that those Polish soldiers fell so in love with the little cub. Just like him, they had lost their families and were struggling to survive after great tragedy. They were released from the gulags only to be forced to fight in yet another war. In other circumstances, their journey to fight in Italy would have been nothing more than miserable and morbid. But, against all odds, they stumbled upon this small bear cub who boosted their morale’s and brought back a small amount of joy into their lives. In my opinion, that’s pretty miraculous.