this post was submitted on 15 Aug 2024
        
      
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very cute, I wonder how easy saluting is to teach a cat. moral boosting fluff blob
The propaganda machine was pretty strong back then. I'm guessing this involved a staple gun or taxidermy and didn't take long.
Plenty of propaganda, but Smoky was a real cat -- was rescued from a bombed-out building after an air raid by the woman in the picture - Miss Ann Twynam of Paddington (a district of London). While I'm sure his saluting trick didn't involve taxidermy, I'm sure it involved bribery. Cats basically owned the black market in tuna during the war when pretty much everything was strictly rationed.