u/Cap_Teach

The aircraft carrier United States Ship (USS) ***Lexington (***CV-2), nicknamed  “Lady Lex,” was the fourth United States (US) Navy ship to be named after the American Revolutionary War 1775 Battle of Lexington. The ship was commissioned in 1928 and would serve until its sinking in the Battle of the Coral Sea (May 4 – 8, 1942).

Gyles Mackrell (October 9, 1888 – February 20, 1959) was a British tea planter and representative for tea agents Octavius Steel & Company in Assam, India (a northeastern state in India along the Brahmaputra and Barak River valleys and south of the eastern Himalayas mountain range), and he owned a Burmese elephant transport business.

The Japanese were advancing from Burma (present day Myanmar) towards India which resulted in refugees fleeing ahead of the Japanese advance.  Mackrell received an urgent message on June 4, 1942, that refugees were stranded near the monsoon swollen Dapha River and Chaukan Pass area near the Burma-India border.

After a near 100 mile (160 kilometer) trek through jungles, the elephants arrived at the Dapha River on June 9.  The next day when the river calmed, Mackrell rescued 68 members of the Burma Rifles and Burma Frontier Force who had been stranded on an island in the river.

In late 1941, Gander was sent with the Royal Rifles to help defend Hong Kong against the Japanese invasion. Despite the terrifying noise of gunfire and explosions, Gander stayed with his men. He was known to charge at Japanese soldiers, barking and snapping at them, which helped repel several night attacks.

Gander's Ultimate Sacrifice

On December 19, 1941, during the intense Battle of Lye Mun, Gander’s unit was pinned down. A Japanese hand grenade was thrown and landed dangerously close to a group of seven wounded Canadian soldiers.

Gander realized the danger. He rushed forward, scooped the grenade up in his mouth, and ran away from his men toward the enemy lines. The grenade exploded almost immediately, killing Gander instantly.

In February, 1870, one year after the surreptitious construction project began, Alfred Ely Beach revealed his secret to a dumbfounded public. Clean, quiet, brightly lit, and smooth riding, its station equipped with a grand piano, chandeliers and a goldfish-stocked fountain, Beach's subway created a sensation in New York. In it's first year of operation 400,000 visitors paid twenty-five cents to enjoy the block-long ride between Warren Street and Murray Street, and back again.

Pic 1: Alfred Ely Beach
Pic 2: Alfred Ely Beach's 10-seater subway car

Source: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/nyunderground-secret-subway/

In February 1945, during the Allied campaign in the Philippines, Smoky was instrumental in helping lay communication lines under an airstrip at Lingayen Gulf on Luzon. Engineers needed to run telephone wires through a 70-foot-long, 8-inch-diameter pipe buried beneath the runway, but doing so manually would have taken 70 men three days and exposed them to constant Japanese air attacks. 

Instead, Corporal Bill Wynne, Smoky’s owner, trained her to pull a kite string through the narrow, sand-filled culvert. With the string in place, engineers used it to pull the heavier communication cables through—completing the task in minutes and saving an estimated 250 men and 40 aircraft from potential destruction.

This dog was Chips. Born into an ordinary family in Pleasantville, New York, he would become the most decorated war dog of the conflict.

During 1942, as America entered the war, the military issued a call for the "Dogs for Defense" program invited families to offer their dogs for military service. The Wrens, Chips family, made a difficult decision: they offered Chips to the nation.

Pic 1 = Chips with General Eisenhower circa 1945

Pic 2 = Chips Statue in Katonah, NY

Sgt Stubby was an amazing dog. He learned how to Salute & even developed a sensitivity to mustard gas after being exposed, allowing him to warn soldiers of impending attacks by barking and biting them awake.