Imagine a World War Two soldier who trekked the deserts of the Middle East, fought at Monte Cassino, drank beer with his unit, and never dropped a single crate of artillery shells under fire. Now imagine that soldier was a 500-pound Syrian brown bear.
This episode tells the wonderfully true story of Corporal Wojtek through Polish military records, British testimonies, and historical analysis. But beneath the novelty is a profound story about how a group of deeply traumatized refugees found a reason to keep going through the companionship of an orphaned bear cub.
How the displaced soldiers of Anders Army, survivors of Soviet labor camps, adopted an orphaned cub on the road to Tehran in 1942
The vodka-bottle baby bottle and the bear's soldier-like habits of drinking beer and eating lit cigarettes
How the Polish command officially enlisted Wojtek as a private with serial number to bypass British no-pets rules on the ship to Italy
His real work at Monte Cassino carrying 100-pound crates of shells, verified even by a British veteran's independent account
The bittersweet ending in Scotland and the Edinburgh Zoo, mirroring the exile of the stateless Polish soldiers who could never go home
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