The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Story of Stubby the stray war dog bows in New Haven
Stubby is coming back to New Haven, and there is mounting excitement about it among the volunteers at the West Haven Veterans Museum and Learning Center.
The saga of this amazing war dog will soon be told nationwide when the animated feature film “Sgt. Stubby: An American Hero” arrives in movie theaters. It will premiere locally at the Criterion Cinemas in downtown New Haven on April 13.
Carole Laydon McElrath, the events coordinator at the museum on Hood Terrace in West Haven, is excitedly planning a reception to be held there April 13 from 5:30 to 7 p.m. Participants will then be given a bus ride to the Criterion to watch the movie. (For reservations, at $25, call 203-934-1111 by April 6.)
Over the past year, McElrath has had many conversations with representatives of Fun Academy Motion Pictures, creators of the movie. The museum is an official partner with the film company.
McElrath is impressed with the diligent research undertaken by the filmmakers. Their historical sources included the Connecticut State Library and the Connecticut Military Department.
Some heavyweight actors signed up to lend their voices to the characters. (Stubby does not speak in the film.) Helena Bonham Carter narrates the film and Gerard Depardieu is the voice of Gaston Baptiste, a fictional French soldier. Logan Lerman, who was seen in “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” and “Percy Jackson & the Olympians,” voices Pvt. J. Robert Conroy, the young New Britain soldier who adopted Stubby.
Conroy was camped out and training with other members of the 102nd Infantry of the U.S. Army’s 26th Yankee Division near Yale Bowl in the spring of 1917 when a stray dog started hanging around the troops. Conroy named the dog Stubby because of his stub of a tail. They quickly formed a bond.
According to Ann Bausum’s book “Stubby the War Dog,” when the soldiers prepared to ship out to Europe that summer, Stubby followed them to the train depot and hopped on board. After the troops and their mascot arrived in Virginia, Conroy persuaded a crew member of the European-bound ship to wrap Stubby inside a blanket and walk up the gangplank with him.
Stubby was allowed to stay on board because he was so friendly. Bausum recounted the story that a commanding officer spotted the dog but before any disciplinary action could be taken Stubby showed
off his trick of sitting down on his haunches and raising his right paw in a salute.
When the American soldiers arrived and set up in the brutal trenches of France, Stubby was a godsend. McElrath noted, “He saved a lot of troops because his hearing was acute and he could smell the mustard gas before the soldiers could.”
During a tour given to me last Thursday by the museum’s all-volunteer staff, Frank Chasney, president of the veterans museum, said, “The soldiers wouldn’t go into the trench until Stubby sniffed it out. If Stubby ran out, no one went in. He’s credited with saving hundreds of lives.”
Conroy, always careful to protect Stubby, had a gas mask made for him.
According to Conroy’s accounts, Stubby saved the inhabitants of the French village of Chateau-Thierry from a gas attack. The grateful women of the town made an “Army” coat for him.
Bausum said Stubby also captured a German soldier. When the alert canine spotted the unfamiliar man in Allied territory, he barked up a storm, then knocked the soldier down and held onto him by the seat of his pants until U.S. soldiers arrived.
The April 1, 2001, cover story of Parade magazine, on display at the museum, reported: “Stubby was in 17 battles, saving U.S. lives, capturing Germans and comforting the wounded.”
But even this wonder dog was not immune to the warfare; according to Laura Macaluso’s book “New Haven in World War I,” Stubby was gassed during one of the battles and hospitalized. Even there he entertained and consoled the bedridden soldiers. One of them was Conroy, who had also been gassed.
Those who come to the museum in West Haven, which features the collection of the 102nd Infantry Regiment, will be able to gaze upon Charles Ayer Whipple’s famous portrait of Stubby. That’s what McElrath, Chasney and Arlene Painter, the museum’s business manager, were building up to as they led me on a tour of the building’s many artifacts from World War I and other wars.
“Come and see Stubby,” McElrath said. “This is our pride and joy.”
We rounded a corner and there he was, standing proudly in his Army jacket, covered with some of the medals he was awarded for his bravery. Whipple painted it in 1925.
“Notice he’s got his sergeant stripes,” McElrath said, pointing at the jacket. “So this was done after he was promoted to sergeant.”
McElrath and Painter took me back to an office where they have a thick file of Stubby memorabilia. McElrath showed me a series of photos: “Here he is as a private first class, then as a corporal, then as a sergeant.” (Bausum insists Stubby never made it beyond corporal but when McElrath was asked about this, she again cited those sergeant stripes.)
The museum’s collection also has artifacts from Stubby’s post-war years, when he went on tour with Conroy as a national war hero. McElrath pulled out a letter written by Rosa Poli of New Haven’s Poli Theater to a 102nd Regiment captain in April 1919, asking if he would allow Conroy and Stubby to come to New Haven for a Victory Loan fund-raiser. Permission was granted; the two made it here for a three-day vaudeville show in May of that year. It was held at the Bijou Theatre.
In the fall of 1920, Conroy and Stubby moved to Washington, D.C., where Conroy enrolled at Georgetown University Law School. Stubby became the mascot for the university’s football team.
On March 16, 1926, at the estimated age of 11 or 12, Stubby died in Conroy’s arms. Conroy never owned another dog.
The New York Times ran a lengthy obituary for Stubby, a copy of which is in the files of the West Haven museum. The glowing write-up included this line: “Little had he expected that he was to be known and greeted by three U.S. presidents.”
Stubby’s remains have been preserved at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.
In the lobby of the veterans museum, McElrath showed me the “Sgt. Stubby” T-shirts that are on sale. “People have been calling us up to order them. The buzz is out about this.”
Although “Sgt. Stubby: An American Hero” is aimed primarily for middle-schoolers, McElrath predicted, “Adults will love it too. I’m looking forward to seeing it. The story is incredible.”
Stubby was gassed during one of the battles and hospitalized. Even there he entertained and consoled the bedridden soldiers.