FACTS

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Often, in Bytes as in life, one thing leads to another.

I started this post with an anecdote about a dog peeing on a bomb and continued the chain of topics and references to arrive at a cat and boots.

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Blue Cross is a registered animal welfare charity in the United Kingdom, founded in 1897. The charity provides veterinary care, offers expert behavioural help, and finds homes for pets in need. Their pet bereavement service supports those who are struggling to cope with the loss of a much-loved pet.

The charity works closely with a number of other organisations to help animal welfare and responsible pet ownership.

Medals have been awarded by Blue Cross to animals and people who have demonstrated bravery or heroism. While the first medals were awarded to people who helped to rescue animals, medals are now awarded as well to animals, first awarded in 1918 to honour a number of horses which had served in the First World War.

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Juliana (died 1946) was a medal-winning Great Dane. She was awarded two Blue Cross medals, the first for extinguishing an incendiary bomb and the second for alerting her masters to a fire that had started in their shop. In September 2013 the second of these medals, along with a portrait of Juliana, sold at auction for £1,100. The discovery and sale of these items uncovered the story of Juliana's heroic acts.

She was awarded her first Blue Cross medal for her actions in respect of an incendiary bomb which had fallen through the roof of a house in April 1941 during the Blitz, the house being where Juliana and her owners lived. Juliana stood over the bomb and urinated on it, extinguishing the fire and preventing it from spreading.

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The Blitz was a German bombing campaign against the United Kingdom, in 1940 and 1941, during the Second World War.

'Blitz' is an abbreviation of the German word ‘blitzkrieg’, meaning ‘lightning war’. The term ‘Blitz’ was first used by the British press.

The Luftwaffe’s almost continual aerial bombardment of the British Isles from September 1940 to May 1941resulted in heavy civilian losses. The Blitz made the home front the battlefront and it was not until the autumn of 1942 that the death toll of British soldiers exceeded the death toll of civilians.

In the eight months of attacks, some 43,000 civilians were killed. This amounted to nearly half of Britain’s total civilian deaths for the whole war. One of every six Londoners was made homeless at some point during the Blitz, and at least 1.1 million houses and flats were damaged or destroyed.

A milkman delivering milk in a London street devastated during a German bombing raid. Firemen are dampening down the ruins behind him.

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Blitzkrieg, meaning ‘lightning war in German, is a term used to describe a method of offensive warfare designed to strike a swift, focused blow at an enemy using mobile, maneuverable forces, including armored tanks and air support. Such an attack ideally leads to a quick victory, limiting the loss of soldiers and artillery.

Most famously, blitzkrieg describes the successful tactics used by Nazi Germany in the early years of World War II, as German forces swept through Poland, Norway, Belgium, Holland and France with astonishing speed and force.

Though Germany’s quick victories in 1939 and 1940 remain the most famous examples of blitzkrieg, military historians have pointed to later blitzkrieg-inspired operations, including the combined air and ground attacks by Israel against Arab forces in Syria and Egypt during the Six-Day War in 1967, and the Allied invasion of Iraqi-occupied Kuwait in 1991 during the Persian Gulf War.

Winston Churchill visits bomb-damaged Birmingham, England, during the Blitz.

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The number of reindeer characters, and the names given to them (if any) vary in different versions, but those frequently cited in the United States and Canada are the eight listed in Clement Clarke Moore's 1823 poem A Visit from St. Nicholas, the work that is largely responsible for the reindeer becoming popularly known. In the original poem, the names of the reindeer are given as Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Dunder and Blixem.

The names Dunder and Blixem derive from Dutch words for thunder and lightning, respectively. The German spellings "Donner" and "Blitzen" are now used and help it to rhyme with "Vixen".

The modern German spelling of "Donner" came into use only in the early 20th century, well after Moore's death.

The eight reindeer, as they appeared in a handwritten manuscript of A Visit from St. Nicholas by Clement C. Moore from the 1860s.

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The first reference to Santa's sleigh being pulled by a reindeer appears in "Old Santeclaus with Much Delight", an 1821 illustrated children's poem published in New York. The names of the author and the illustrator are not known. The poem, with eight colored lithographic illustrations, was published by William B. Gilley as a small paperback book entitled The Children's Friend: A New-Year's Present, to the Little Ones from Five to Twelve. The illustration to the first verse features a sleigh with a sign saying "REWARDS" being pulled by an unnamed single reindeer.

Illustration to the first verse of "Old Santeclaus with Much Delight", 1821

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The popularity of Robert L. May's 1939 storybook Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, and Gene Autry's 1949 Christmas song "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer", resulted in Rudolph often being included as the ninth character.

Gene Autry's recording of "Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer" hit No. 1 on the U.S. charts the week of Christmas 1949.

The song had been suggested as a "B" side for a record Autry was making. He first rejected it, but his wife convinced him to use it. The success of the Christmas song gave support to Autry's subsequent popular Easter song, "Here Comes Peter Cottontail".

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Orvon Grover "Gene" Autry (1907 – 1998), nicknamed the Singing Cowboy, was an American actor, musician, singer, composer, rodeo performer, and baseball team owner, who largely gained fame by singing in a crooning style on radio, in films, and on television for more than three decades, beginning in the early 1930s. During that time, he personified the straight-shooting hero — honest, brave, and true.

Publicity photo of Gene Autry for his appearance at a banquet to announce a contest for the Seattle Packing Company-Bar-S brand.

Apart from being one of the most important pioneering figures in the history of country music, along with Jimmie Rodgers, he is also still remembered for his association with Christmas music, having debuted not only "Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer" but also "Frosty the Snowman", and "Here Comes Santa Claus".

Autry served in the U. S. Army Air Corps during World War II. Part of his military service included his broadcast of a radio show for one year; it involved music and true stories. Several decades ago on an early afternoon show featuring Republic westerns, one of Gene's sidekicks said that when Gene told Republic Pictures of his intentions to join the military during World War II, Republic threatened to promote Roy Rogers as "King of the Cowboys" in Gene's absence, which it did. Republic reissued old Autry westerns during the war years, to keep his name before the public.

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Roy Rogers bought himself a pair of custom made, hand tooled, ornate boots.

That night, as he was drifting off to sleep, a cat outside his window began to yowl loudly. As much as he tried, Roy couldn’t get to sleep, so he threw one of his boots at it. The cat kept mewling and Roy threw the other boot.

The next morning, Roy went outside to retrieve his new boots and was dismayed to discover that the cat had clawed, eaten and generally made a total mess of both.

An angry Roy put an ad in Variety offering a reward to whoever could deliver him the offending cat.

The following morning the doorbell rang and Bing Crosby stood there, holding a cat by the scruff of its neck. 

Bing sang “Pardon me Roy, is this the cat that chewed your new shoes?”