Courtesy photos "I told the drill instructor to send me where I was needed. That's when he told me about a new War Dog Platoon," Bruce Wellington said.

The trainer in charge reassigned Bruce Wellington to a 6-year-old German shepherd mix that had been rejected from service in the Army. His name was Prince.

Most of Bruce Wellington's best memories of World War II revolve around man's best friend literally.

In 1943, the 17-year-old from Brooklyn, N.Y., got permission from his mother to enlist in the Marines.

"I left high school after two years and decided that I wanted to enlist in the service," said Wellington, of Camarillo. "At the time I knew I was going to be called up soon enough, so I just wanted to get in as soon as I could. I was ready for it."

That March, Wellington went to the New York Marine enlistment office and signed up for active duty. He was sent to Parris Island, S.C., for basic training. When his training was over, he and a group of other Marines were called into the drill instructor's office and asked where they wanted to be sent.

"Most of the guys were asking to be sent straight to combat as paratroopers," he said. "I really didn't care where I ended up. I told the drill instructor to send me where I was needed. That's when he told me about a new War Dog Platoon."

In June 1943, Wellington was transferred to Camp Lejeune, N.C., to begin training as part of the 2nd War Dog Platoon, where each dog was trained to complete a specific duty as a messenger dog, guard dog, or attack and scout dog.

"It was still a new outfit," he said. "We were being trained by the first group of guys that had just come back from the war."

Best dog to work with'

Soon after he arrived, Wellington was assigned a Doberman pinscher as the dog he would train and go into combat with. But a friend reluctantly accepted an assignment with a Dalmatian, and asked Wellington if he'd be willing to trade.

"I didn't care what kind of dog I got," Wellington said. "I loved all kinds of dogs. It turned out, though, that the Dalmatian wasn't very easy to train."

The trainer in charge reassigned Wellington to a 6-year-old German shepherd mix that had been rejected from service in the Army. His name was Prince.

"I've never known why they rejected him," Wellington said, "but I can tell you now that he was the best dog to work with."

Wellington got in several discussions with fellow War Dog handlers about whose dog was the best.

"In the end, we all pretty much thought our dog was the best," he said. "They were our family, and really our best friend."

Each day Wellington and the other soldiers attached to the War Dog Platoon worked with their dogs in the field and in several training sessions.

"We taught them everything, beginning with verbal commands and then hand signals," Wellington said. "We taught them everything we could about combat."

Dogs, handlers head to war

By January 1944, the 2nd and 3rd War Dog platoons were ready to prepare for active duty in the Pacific. Wellington and the other members of the two platoons were sent with their dogs to complete more extensive training at Camp Pendleton. By early summer 1944, they were on a Liberty ship headed to war.

"It took us nearly 40 days to get to our first stop," Wellington said, "and then we were in the war."

Wellington and Prince were part of the initial wave of attacks on Guam in July 1944. Over the next several weeks, an estimated 7,000 American troops were lost on Guam. Among the dead were 25 war dogs. Both Wellington and Prince survived.

"Losing the dogs was a horrible thing for the trainers," he said. "You felt a sense of responsibility, and it was just like losing a good friend."

By early August 1944, Wellington and Prince were sent to Saipan.

"There aren't any words to describe how many lives those dogs saved," Wellington said. "They were able to get the Japanese out of the caves when no man could, and they could hear and smell things with enough time for us to react."

We knew they could save us'

Wellington recalled one moment when an officer challenged the capabilities of the dogs.

"He never worked with the dogs, so all he knew was how to depend on what he heard and smelled himself," Wellington said. "But as trainers, we knew how reliable the dogs were. We knew that they could save us long before we could save ourselves."

In the winter of 1944, Wellington received orders to report for duty in Okinawa. He remained in the region for the next nine months until September 1945, when he was sent to Nagasaki for guard duty after the atomic bombs were dropped.

In November, Wellington was told he could return to the United States.

He took a 30-day furlough and enjoyed the holidays with his family in Brooklyn. In January, he was discharged from the Marines.

But not without Prince.

"He was just as much a part of my family as anyone else," Wellington said. "During the war, I depended on his eyes and ears to keep me safe just as much as he depended on me to keep him safe."

Soon after he was discharged, Wellington married and moved to Southern California, keeping Prince by his side the entire time.

"When we got to California, it turned out that we lived only a short distance from my commanding officer in the war," Wellington said. "He had been assigned to the War Dog Platoon because he was a veterinarian. When we got to California, he was my veterinarian for Prince."

Starting a new business

Prince remained a part of Wellington's family for the next six years until he died from natural causes. Wellington said he has always been grateful to have had the chance to bring Prince home safely from war and keep him as long as he did.

"He wasn't a young dog when I got him in the war," Wellington said, "so I was grateful for every moment."

When he moved to California, Wellington began working for an interior decorator in Beverly Hills.

"I lived near the valley at the time, and my boss never liked taking calls in the valley," Wellington said. "So he'd tell me to stop by and take care of them on my way home."

Wellington turned those occasional house calls into his own business in 1977 when he left his job in Beverly Hills and opened Wellington's Custom Upholstery.

The store was in North Hollywood but served the entire region. Soon after, Wellington and his wife moved to Camarillo where he continued to operate his business until he retired in 1989.

"When I think about the war, I think about Prince and how lucky I was to have been placed in the War Dog Platoon," he said. "It was by far the best thing that could have happened to me."

— Of War and Life is a twice-monthly column by Jannette Jauregui that tells the stories of Ventura County's veterans. Veterans who want to share their stories can contact her by e-mail at jmjaureg@callutheran.edu or by mail at Jannette Jauregui, c/o Ventura County Star editorial department, P.O. Box 6006, Camarillo, CA 93011. The information included in this report is based on the recollections of the veterans.