The final results will be presented at an event where the creator of the stage production Warhorse, Michael Morpurgo, will be in attendance along with the iconic animatronic puppetry. The Digging War Horse project will officially finish in March. The programme aids both physical and emotional recovery through using expertise common to both professions, such as geophysics, scrutiny of the ground, team management, mapping and the ability to cope with hard manual work in any weather conditions. Horses were such an important part of the legacy of World War I and Digging War Horse helps people to understand the significance of horses during the war years at home and abroad.”Īcademics were joined by local school children and service men and women who have been injured in modern conflicts from Operation Nightingale, an organisation that supports ex-soldiers’ rehabilitation and skills development through archaeology. Dresden ended up in the British Zone of Occupation and after the war the British arranged to have the surviving horses returned to Janw Podlaski. Half the horses were lost but the other famous W sons of Ofir, Witraz and Wielki Szlem, were spared. He said: “This project enables researchers, young people and those effected by the traumas of war to work together. The Janw herd was in Dresden when it was bombed by the Royal Air Force in February 1945. ![]() Philip Rowe, from the University’s Department of Archaeology and Anthropology, gave public presentations on artefact handling, the legacy of World War I, and a how-to guide on researching the home front. The two week project evoked the spirit of the war with chefs cooking ration-style food for the excavators and a photographer documenting the event with a World War I plate camera. No physical trace of the horse hospital buildings survived, however, horse shoes, farrier’s nails and various materials associated with equine activity were found. Test pits were dug and a controlled metal detection survey of the site was conducted. The latest phase involved the excavation of a site at Larkhill Camp on Salisbury Plain.ĭocumentary evidence suggested this to be the site of a specialised veterinary hospital which would have quarantined and cared for some of the 500,000 animals commandeered from British families or imported from the Americas and Iberian Peninsula during the Great War. The last recipient was Military Working Dog Sasha, who died while on patrol in Afghanistan, who was given the award posthumously in May.Digging War Horse is part of the First World War centenary celebrations and aims to discover how and where the huge number of horses and mules that hauled weaponry, stores and personnel to and from the front line were cared for. Since its introduction, 65 Dickin Medals have been awarded - to 29 dogs, 32 Second World War messenger pigeons, three horses (not including Warrior) and one cat. The PDSA Dickin Medal, instituted by the charity’s founder Maria Dickin in 1943, is recognized as the highest award an animal can win while serving in military conflict. He was amazed to discover the horse did not try to run away - instead he “was pretending to be brave and succeeding in his task.” Seely rode Warrior through shell fire was at the battle of Mons, on the French border. Scott has previously described how a combination of the horse’s extraordinary character and some unbelievable twists of fate helped him survive a war in which hundreds of thousands of horses were slaughtered. Jan McLoughlin, the PDSA director general, added, “Warrior’s gallantry and devotion to duty throughout World War One reflects the bravery shown by the millions of horses, dogs, pigeons and other animals engaged in the war.” This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Manage Print Subscription / Tax Receipt.
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