Dickin Medal Recipient. A pure bred English Pointer, she was born in Shanghai, China. She was adopted as the mascot for HMS Grasshopper. In February 1942 the ship was torpedoed and sunk with heavy losses. Judy and the surviving crew members were marooned on an island off Sumatra where her ability to sniff out fresh water saved all their lives. The survivors, including Judy, were eventually captured by Japanese forces and were incorporated into a forced labor camp under brutal conditions. Judy devoted herself to fellow POW, Frank Williams, whose side she was said never to have left. She protected Williams and his colleagues by distracting the guards when they beat the prisoners; the Japanese guards responded by trying to shoot her on several occasions. After Williams persuaded the camp commandant to officially register her as a prisoner of war by presenting him with one of Judy's new pups, he secured a modicum of official protection for her. She was the only animal to have been registered as a POW (POW81A). After surviving two years as a prisoner, gunshots wounds, alligator bites, attacks from wild dogs, and of a Sumatran tiger, Judy and her fellow prisoners were liberated after the Japanese surrender in 1945. Williams smuggled her aboard a ship heading for Britain where she endured the standard six month quarantine. Upon her release in May 1946, she was awarded the Dickin Medal, known as the animal VC. Her citation read: "For magnificent courage and endurance in Japanese prison camps, which helped to maintain morale among her fellow prisoners and also for saving many lives through her intelligence and watchfulness." She and Williams spent next year visiting relatives of POWs who hadn't survived the camps. In 1948, they traveled to East Africa. After two years Judy developed a mammary tumor and the painful decision was made to have her euthanized. Her master spent two months building granite and marble memorial in her memory. After Williams' death in 2006, Judy's medal was donated to the London based People's Dispensary for Sick Animals, a veterinary charity, which in turn arranged that the medal and her collar went on display at the Imperial War Museum. A biography; "The Judy Story: The Dog With Six Lives" by Varley and James was published in 1973.