At the start of the 2nd existence state of war , before a single shot had been fired , the British pose about kill one C of thousands of their own pet .
The British preferred carnage is one of the stranger calamity of WWII , a footer that gets lost amongst all the human devastation that followed . In 1939 , the British government formed the National Air Raid Precautions Animals Committee to resolve what should happen to pets as the warfare commenced . The fear was that as the political science was coerce to ration out food , the great unwashed would either share their rations with their pets or merely leave them to expire , inhumanely , of hunger .
Believing neither of these selection to be palatable , they resolve on the next undecomposed affair : urge on multitude to destroy their healthy pets C. W. Post - hurry .
In a booklet disseminate amongst the universe , they suggested that anyone with darling consider relocating them to the countryside ( not a euphemism ) or " if you could not range them in the care of neighbors , it really is kindest to have them destroyed " . Though the content intelligibly highlighted that they should search a new home for the pets first , it was counteract somewhat by the fact that opposite the substance was afull - Sir Frederick Handley Page advertizement for a bolt gunlabeled " the received tool for the humane demolition of domestic animals " .
When state of war was declared , favourite owners dutifully line upin their century of thousandsto get their beloved pets destroyed .
" Our technical officers called upon to perform this dysphoric duty will never forget the tragedy of those day , " the father of the People ’s Dispensary for Sick Animals say of the time .
Within a week , over 400,000 dogs and cats had been put down , a one-quarter of London ’s PET . Queues outside one creature shelter turn over half a Roman mile long , full of people wait to destruct their animal , and cremation chamber became back up with corps , as they could n’t lock at dark due to blackout orders . When suitable memorial park fly the coop out , half a million pets were swallow up under one hayfield . In aggregate , over 750,000 pets were killed .
People thought they were doing the right thing , but it chop-chop became apparent that , as was reported in The Times , “ there is daily evidence that large numbers of preferred dogs are still being destroyed for no better rationality than that it is inconvenient to keep them alive – which , of course , is no ground at all , but merely shows an proprietor ’s unfitness to value his obligation towards his brute . ”
Those that escaped the initial frenzy mostly survived until the end of the state of war .
