Smoky the Brave by Damien Lewis

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  • Smoky the Brave
  • Damien Lewis
  • Paperback
  • Publisher: Quercus Publishing
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1786483084
  • ISBN-13: 978-1786483089
  • Product Dimensions: 6.2 x 1.1 x 9.2 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 15.4 ounces







My Thoughts

I  absolutely LOVE this book!  Smoky the Brave is a phenomenal story of a heroic four-pound Yorkshire terrier.
William 'Bill' Wynne had trained as an aerial photographer in the United States.  So, Lewis begins this fascinating story by mentioning the image of Donald Duck riding on a speeding cloud which is painted on the side of an aircraft fuselage. 
As it would happen, in Feb 1944 GI’s discovered Smoky in an abandoned foxhole in the jungles of Papua New Guinea. 
Smoky was adopted by Corporal Wynne, an air-crewman with the US 5th Air Force's 26th Photo Reconnaissance Squadron.  Wynne worked with Smoky and trained her to do tricks. She slept alongside him and flew a dozen missions with him.
Smoky completed many important and dangerous task amongst these was parachuting and also running a cable through the seventy-foot pipe. This was to enable telephone lines to be run across the recently occupied airbase of Luzon, saving hundreds of lives exposed to bombing. 
When Smoky saved Wynne's life, he coined her ‘the angel from a foxhole'.

Post-war, Smoky is credited internationally for her therapy work in hospitals and care facilities. 
Bill Wynne married Margaret Roberts in 1946. Wynne trained dogs for Hollywood films, then joined NACA/NASA's Flight Icing Research Team at Lewis Laboratories in Cleveland, Ohio. 
Wynne also worked for The Cleveland Plain Dealer where he won numerous national awards, including the George Washington Honor Medal and The Brotherhood Award.

I received this heartwarming and captivating read  from Quinn Fariel, Marketing Manager at Da Capo Press | Lifelong Books | Seal Press  An Imprint of Perseus Books | A Hachette Book Group Company




About the Author
Damien Lewis has spent twenty years reporting from war, disaster and conflict zones around the world. He has written a dozen non-fiction and fiction books, topping bestseller lists worldwide, and is published in some thirty languages. Two of his books are being made into feature films.


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