Navy Base - War Dog Memorial

Guam will always remember its 1944 liberation from Japanese occupation and honor the U.S. Marines who risked and gave their lives to make it happen. But, there are also “the few, the proud, the Marines” who made the ultimate sacrifice on all fours – 25 faithful canines from the 2nd and 3rd War Dog Platoons. 

Perched prominently at a small parcel near Sumay on Naval Base Guam is a large, granite monument with a life-size noble, bronze figure of a Doberman pinscher, named Kurt. Kurt saved the lives of 250 U.S. Marines and was the first war dog to be killed in action on Guam. Inscribed in gold letters on the base of the Guam War Dog Memorial are the names of 25 dogs, most of whose graves surround it. 

Captain William Putney was a young Marine veterinarian who was present on Asan Beach during the Battle of Guam in 1944. In a subsequent memoir, Putney recalled his experience of tending to Kurt, who had been severely injured during the invasion: 



“I hastily hooked up an IV bottle and inserted the end of the tube into the vein of Kurt’s right foreleg. I put a half-grain of morphine into the tube in Kurt’s foreleg. He let out a big sigh, closed his eyes and went to sleep. The explosion (by a Japanese mortar shell) had done considerable damage; the top of his spine was blown off in the thoracic area, just behind his shoulders. The spinal cord was plainly visible because there was no hemorrhage at the site. I carefully inserted forceps beneath the muscle tissue and loosened it on both sides, pulling over just enough to cover the cord, and sutured it in place. I feared that the wound would kill Kurt if the tissue over the spine swelled enough to exert pressure on the cord, or, if Kurt lived through the first phase of the operation without swelling, infection set in. We had no penicillin or other antibiotics and no medication to stop inflammation and swelling…I could only keep Kurt out of pain and wait for the passage of time to determine the outcome. 

During the night, Kurt began to have convulsions from the pressure of the swollen back muscles forcing themselves against his spinal cord, so I added Nembutal to the IV to sedate him. Gradually, the dosage had to be increased to control the deadly spasms. Sixteen-inch shells were still coming in from the battleships offshore and shaking the earth as they hit. To protect Kurt’s fragile back from the impact, I gathered him in my arms. At 3 A.M. Kurt stopped breathing. Exhausted, I laid Kurt down and fell asleep with my head on his chest.”