Thread by @pptsapper

Aw hell, how about a thread of WWI animals. Might as well, since I'm deep in the @USNatArchives WWI photo collection

Here's Alaskan-born Jimmy, mascot for the 2nd Field Battalion, Signal Corps at Chaumont, France, being a good boy

Jimmy again being SO GOODEST

Wild boar mascot for the dispatch riders of the 26th "Yankee" Division, because you're never as badass until you're driving a motorcycle thru the western front with a wild boar

This is "Taps" and he's getting fitted for a gas mask by his Marine buddies near Verdun, April, 1918

He protecc now

Tom, a horse with the @FightingFirst, ready for a gas attack near Bonvillers, France, May 4, 1918

Another one from @FightingFirst, this a wild pig caught between 1st and 2d line trenches near Bonvillers by the 2d Field Battalion, Signal Corps

The men of Headquarters Troop, 26th Division seem to have gotten themselves a deer as a mascot, as they walk thru Torcy, July 21, 1918

Smol dog and fox of the 2nd Balloon Company. The original Fox and the Hound, it would seem

Guys from Company K, 167th Infantry (@AlabamaNG) with their pet crow on July 6, 1918 near Suippes

Because Alabama, I guess

Then there's the @PANationalGuard, with a 28th Division soldier and his goose, near Gland, France, July 1918

Weird AEF obsession with fowl

Mutt, the YMCA dog that runs into the trenches carrying... cigarettes.

I mean, hell, everything on the western front was trying to kill you anyways, what's one more thing?

PFC Glass and a German wolf hound at his master's grave, where after 3 days carrying the dog food and water he finally persuaded him to leave

😭😭😭😭

Messenger dogs of the 77th Division, with some Poilu who give credence to the nickname

Mrs Corey, wife of a US steel magnate, gave her home in France as a hospital for wounded officers, and had her pets roam free to comfort the patients

Pretty effective strategy, really

Lieutenant Louis Rave with the 148th Aero Squadron's mascot, "Fokker" who is very smol and apparently very angry