Sergeant Stubby
American war dog
Sergeant Stubby (1915 – March 16, 1926) was a dog who was the unofficial mascot of the 102nd Infantry Regiment and was assigned to the 26th (Yankee) Division in World War I and travelled with his division to France to fight alongside the French. He served for 18 months and participated in 17 battles and four offensives on the Western Front. He saved his regiment from surprise mustard gas attacks, found and comforted the wounded, and allegedly once attacked and held a German soldier by the seat of his pants, keeping him there until American soldiers found him. His actions were well-documented in contemporary American newspapers. He received many awards, including a gold medal, a wound stripe, and two purple hearts.
Stubby has been called the most decorated war dog of the Great War and the only dog to be nominated and promoted to sergeant through combat. Stubby's preserved body is on display in the National Museum of American History. Stubby is the subject of the 2018 animated film Sgt. Stubby: An American Hero.
Early life
Stubby was described in contemporaneous news items as a Boston Terrier or "bull terrier" mutt.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Sergeant Stubby” as american war dog. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the history & society register because the source frames it as american war dog. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 20, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q687727. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1915, 1926 and 2018.
Institutional narratives can privilege the records that survived while minimizing voices that were never formally collected. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.
- Event chronology
- Institutional context
- Locating named record creators
Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Sergeant Stubby”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Sergeant Stubby primary sources, Sergeant Stubby archive and Sergeant research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Sergeant Stubby”?
- Which voices are present, absent or mediated by the institution?
- Who created the surviving record, and for what administrative purpose?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Sergeant Stubby” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.