h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: Smoky: Yorkshire Terrier War Heroine - A88037148
Author: Dmitri Gheorgheni, Post Editor - U1590784

September's Post challenge is 'Dogs of War'. I stumbled across this one and was delighted by the book. I hope you enjoy the story of Smoky the Yorkie.

Lovely

The phrase '£2 Australian' hides a story, though...

"An adventurous journey later" - that's another compact story! How did they get out of the desert?

That is a surprising footnote!

Excellent Entry, and great image

They ran into some motel owners who offered to hire them to run the motel. They said no, but the motel owners had another motel they could stay at in LA. It was quite an adventure, but a bit much for the entry.

I am still curious about why Bill Wynne paid for Smoky in Australian Pounds rather than US Dollars, though

It was the middle of World War II? They got paid in Australian pounds? They were required to use local currency? They'd been on leave and still had Australian currency, which they could use on leave?

I have no idea. That's just my guess. I cannot find out whether the US soldiers were paid in US currency and then had to exchange it, or whether they were paid in local currency wherever they were to facilitate their adding to the economy.

All I can find is that fights broke out between Australian and US soldiers because the US soldiers got paid about twice as much, and therefore got more dates with the local girls. (Look up 'Battle of Brisbane'.)

Thanks for investigating

Hence Tommy Trinder's well-known description of GIs as "Over-sexed, over paid and over here" (or Down Under, as in this case)...

<BB<

That's it. I did find that they sometimes got paid in pounds in the UK, but I don't know about Australia - that might have been the case there, as well. There were huge numbers of troops there during the war, and from 12,000-15,000 Australian women married US soldiers.

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