World Battlefronts: Melting Down Hachiko

Short of scrap metal, the Japanese have sent little Hachiko off to war. Hachiko was a statue of a dog, which stood at the Shibuya Station in Tokyo as a tribute to canine fidelity; the real-life Hachiko had set some sort of record for escorting his master to the station each morning and going to meet him each evening.

When it was carried away to be melted down into “a vital war weapon,” said Radio Tokyo, “the statue was given a serviceman’s send-off.”