Published 10 November 2026

In July 1944, as U.S. Marines fought to retake Guam, a Doberman Pinscher named Kurt walked ahead of a column of men. He was a scout dog: trained to notice what humans often missed in dense jungle, and to warn them quietly. His alert near the Asan beachhead helped Marines avoid walking straight into Japanese troops hidden ahead. Kurt did not survive the night. Decades later, a bronze statue modelled on him still watches over the National War Dog Cemetery on Naval Base Guam.

Marine war dogs in the Pacific

The Marine Corps trained war dogs in World War II mainly as scouts, sentries and messengers. Most were Doberman Pinschers or German Shepherds. On Guam, dogs and handlers were assigned with the Third Marine Division and the First Provisional Marine Brigade: about sixty dogs and ninety handlers in the assault force, according to the U.S. National Park Service, drawing on Marine commemorative histories. They sniffed out snipers and mines, checked caves and pillboxes, and guarded foxholes at night.

Two war dog platoons served in the liberation. William W. Putney, a Marine veterinarian, commanded the 3rd War Dog Platoon and treated dogs under fire. Roughly twenty-five dogs were killed during the battle and about twenty wounded. One dog, Tam, was buried at sea off Asan Point; the rest who died were buried ashore.

The night on Guam

Kurt and his handler, Private First Class Allen Jacobson (some memorial texts give his middle initial as S.), were scouting in front of an advancing unit of the 21st Marines above the Asan beachhead. Kurt alerted to Japanese soldiers in the bush. Jacobson engaged; soon afterwards both were hit. Accounts differ on whether a mortar or grenades caused it, but all agree Kurt was mortally wounded, with a severe wound that exposed his spine.

Jacobson was wounded too. According to Putney, he refused to be evacuated until Kurt was taken to the veterinarian. Putney tried to close the wound and watched Kurt through the night in his own foxhole. Around 3 a.m., Kurt stopped breathing. The fighting came on the second day of the invasion, on the night of 22–23 July 1944: the landings had begun on 21 July, and a 1994 Putney interview gives 23 July as the date of the first canine casualty.

Kurt became the first Marine war dog killed in the Battle of Guam, and the first buried in what became the war dog cemetery at Asan. Putney later recalled that a senior officer insisted the dog deserved burial with the Marines. That small plot grew as more dogs fell.

Putney and the fight to remember them

After the war, Putney returned to veterinary practice in California, but he did not forget the dogs. When he went back to Guam in 1989, he found the cemetery neglected: the original Asan graves had been moved inland after storm damage in the 1960s and had become overgrown. He lobbied for a proper resting place, working with the United Doberman Club and local and naval support.

In 1994, for the fiftieth anniversary of the liberation, the remains and markers were moved to Naval Base Guam at Orote Point. Putney published his memoir, Always Faithful: A Memoir of the Marine Dogs of WWII, in 2001. He died in 2003; obituaries in the Los Angeles Times retold Kurt’s wound, Putney’s overnight care, and the long campaign for the cemetery.

Always Faithful

The bronze that tops the memorial is called Always Faithful—a nod to the Marine motto Semper Fidelis. California sculptor Susan Bahary (also credited as Susan Bahary Wilner in 1990s reporting) modelled it on Kurt: a life-size Doberman, alert and composed. The United Doberman Club helped fund it. The bronze was placed and dedicated in the summer of 1994, during the fiftieth-anniversary commemorations: the sculptor’s site gives 20 June for placement on Guam; many memorial texts give 21 July—the anniversary of the landings—for the dedication.

Castings of the same sculpture also stand at places such as the University of Tennessee College of Veterinary Medicine, Auburn University’s veterinary college, Quantico’s Semper Fidelis Memorial Park beside the National Museum of the Marine Corps, and the AKC Museum of the Dog. On the memorial inscriptions, Kurt’s name leads a list of twenty-five Marine war dogs who died liberating Guam.

Sources

1. U.S. National Park Service. War Dogs in the Battle of Guam. https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/war-dogs-battle-of-guam.htm
2. Pitzer, Kurt (1 May 1994). The Dogs of War: Veteran of Guam Crusade Fights for Fitting Memorial to Heroic Canines. Los Angeles Times. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1994-05-01-me-52820-story.html
3. Oliver, Myrna (23 March 2003). William Putney, 83; Vet Trained War Dogs. Los Angeles Times. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2003-mar-23-me-putney23-story.html
4. Putney, William W. (2001). Always Faithful: A Memoir of the Marine Dogs of WWII. Free Press. Internet Archive record: https://archive.org/details/alwaysfaithfulme00putn
5. Bahary Studios. Always Faithful. https://baharystudios.com/art/always-faithful
6. O’Brien, Cyril J. Liberation: Marines in the Recapture of Guam (Marines in World War II Commemorative Series), including the “War Dogs on Guam” sidebar. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/49056/49056-h/49056-h.htm

Research note checked 10 November 2026. These sources inform the article; their authors have not reviewed or endorsed it.