'Private Wojtek', seen here with a fellow soldier, was said to have carried ammunition as the Polish II Corps took Monte Cassino from the Germans (Imperial War Museum ) "It's fantastic to have a piece ...

WHEN British soldiers looked along the Italian battlefield at the height of World War Two, they were met with a surreal sight: a fully-grown bear lumbering with an armful of artillery shells. The ...

It’s Spring 1942 and Polish Armed Forces are on the move to Iran with thousands of Polish civilian refugees. It’s a long trip and en-route to Tehran they took a stop outside the city of Hamadan. While ...

Wojtek, the war bear, started life as an orphaned Syrian bear cub found by an Iranian shepherd. The shepherd sold the bear cub to the Polish Army as the soldiers made their way towards Tehran to ...

Archibald Brown had already seen a lot during the war -- but nothing like this. It was mid-February 1944, and the courier for British Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery was in the port of Naples to help ...

Wojtek used to entertain Allied troops by smoking cigarettes, drinking beer and wrestling with them, but the 30-stone bear was also a handy soldier who carried artillery shells and terrorised enemy ...

Strange tales retold again and again often turn out to be based on myth. Not so for the tale of Wojtek (pronounced Voy-tek), the war bear. His story, as preposterous as it seems, is true and based on ...