The story of Wojtek the bear, a Syrian brown bear who fought in the Second World War, carried ammunition at Monte Cassino, and spent his final years at Edinburgh Zoo, visited by the Polish soldiers he had served alongside.
For sixteen years after the war ended, a brown bear at Edinburgh Zoo would perk up at the sound of Polish.
The keepers noticed it early. Visitors speaking English, French, or German walked past his enclosure without drawing a reaction. But when someone spoke Polish near the fence, the bear would move toward the sound, ears forward, body alert. The Polish veterans who came on Sundays, in their coats and caps, knew exactly why. They had served with him.
Wojtek, a corporal in the Polish II Corps, was born in the mountains of Iran in 1943, formally enlisted in the Polish Army to bypass military regulations, carried 100-pound ammunition crates at the Battle of Monte Cassino in 1944, and died at Edinburgh Zoo on 2 December 1963, aged 21. His is one of the most extraordinary and least-told stories in British military history, and it ends quietly in Scotland.
Location: West Princes Street Gardens, Edinburgh, EH2 2EJ (statue). Winfield Airfield, Sunwick Farm, near Hutton, Berwickshire (wartime posting site).
Best for: Military history, WWII, unusual stories, and a short walk in central Edinburgh.
Getting there: Edinburgh Waverley station is a 10-minute walk west along Princes Street. The statue stands in the lower section of West Princes Street Gardens, below the Castle Esplanade.
Open: Princes Street Gardens are open daily. The statue is free to visit at any time.
Admission: Free.
The Story of Wojtek the Bear
A young boy in the mountains near Hamedan, Iran, found the orphaned bear cub in 1943 and sold him to a group of Polish soldiers from the 22nd Artillery Supply Company of the Polish II Corps. These soldiers had survived Soviet labour camps, marched out of Siberia after the German invasion of the USSR, and spent years fighting across the Middle East. They bought the cub on the spot and named him Wojtek, short for Wojciech, an old Polish name that translates as joyful warrior.
That first winter, Wojtek slept in the tents and ate whatever the men ate. He drank condensed milk from a vodka bottle. He learned to walk upright on his hind legs, wrestle with the soldiers, and carry things. By the time the 22nd Company reached Italy in 1944, Wojtek had grown large and developed a specific habit: lifting heavy boxes. He watched the men carry ammunition, then began carrying crates himself.
During the Battle of Monte Cassino in May 1944, a four-month siege that cost the Allies tens of thousands of casualties, Wojtek carried 25-pound artillery shells in crates that four men would normally move together. Multiple witness accounts from the 22nd Company confirm the behaviour. The precise contents of every crate he carried remain disputed in some accounts, but the act itself is not. The 22nd Company promoted him from private to corporal, assigned him the service number 253, and adopted a new emblem: a bear holding an artillery shell, painted on their vehicles, pennants, and uniforms.
When the war ended, the 22nd Company transferred to Scotland. Wojtek arrived at Winfield Airfield on Sunwick Farm, near the village of Hutton in Berwickshire, in 1945. He lived there with the regiment for two years, walking the Borders farmland and wrestling with soldiers on quiet afternoons.
The Polish-Scottish Association made him an honorary member. Local civilians came out to see him. When the 22nd Company demobilised on 15 November 1947, a Royal Signals officer named Archie Brown telephoned Edinburgh Zoo and asked whether they would take a large Polish bear. The zoo’s keeper, Tom Gillespie, drove to Berwickshire, inspected Wojtek, declared him a fine specimen, and agreed to the transfer. Wojtek left the Borders and moved to Edinburgh, where he would spend the rest of his life.
What You See When You Visit
The bronze statue stands in the lower section of West Princes Street Gardens, set back from the main path, easy to walk past if you’re moving quickly. Alan Herriot sculpted it, and the Wojtek Memorial Trust unveiled it on 7 November 2015. It shows Wojtek walking beside a Polish soldier, both the same height, moving in the same direction. The soldier looks straight ahead. The bear does too.
Edinburgh’s landmarks tend toward the grand: the Scott Monument rises 61 metres from the gardens, visible across most of the city centre. The Wojtek statue is smaller, quieter, and placed slightly to one side. People who stop at it tend to stay longer than they expected. On cold mornings, when the Castle Rock holds the early mist and the gardens are mostly empty, it has the quality of a place where something actually happened, rather than merely a place where something is commemorated.
The inscription reads: “In memory of the Polish men and women who fought for your freedom and ours.”
If you want to trace the full arc of Wojtek’s story, travel 45 miles south to Duns in the Scottish Borders, where a second statue stands in the market square, unveiled in 2016. Duns sits near the site of Winfield Airfield, where Wojtek spent his last two years with the regiment. The town is twinned with Zagan in Poland, where much of the Polish II Corps originated.
Why It Matters
Britain recorded hundreds of animal mascots during the Second World War. Wojtek was different in almost every respect. He was formally enlisted, assigned a rank and a service number, recorded on the unit payroll, and performed physical work under fire. His image became the symbol of a fighting regiment. None of that happened with other mascots.
The deeper story belongs to the Polish soldiers themselves. The men of the Polish II Corps had survived Soviet prison camps, marched thousands of miles across the Middle East, fought through North Africa and Italy, and arrived in Scotland after the war to find that the country they had fought for no longer existed as they had known it. Poland fell behind the Iron Curtain. Many men chose to stay in Britain. They settled in Edinburgh, Glasgow, and London, built communities, worked in industries that had never heard of them, and came back on Sundays to Princes Street Gardens to call a bear by name.
He knew them when they came. That is the detail that tends to stop people when they first hear it.
When to Go
The statue and gardens are open year-round. Summer draws the largest crowds, particularly during the Edinburgh Festival throughout August, when the gardens host concerts and outdoor events. If you want the space to be quieter, visit in early spring or late autumn. On weekday mornings before ten, the lower gardens are often almost empty, and the Castle above them catches the best of the available light.
August visitors should book accommodation well in advance. The Festival fills the city for the entire month.
Getting There
Edinburgh Waverley is the nearest rail station, served by LNER and ScotRail. Check current timetables at nationalrail.co.uk before travelling. From Waverley, walk west along Princes Street for approximately 10 minutes. The statue sits in the lower western section of the gardens, below the Castle. No entrance fee, no booking required.
By car: the nearest parking is Castle Terrace car park, south of the gardens. Edinburgh city centre charges apply throughout the day. The city is compact and better explored on foot once you arrive.
Where to Eat and Drink Nearby
Twenty Princes Street, on Princes Street directly above the gardens, serves modern Scottish cooking using seasonal produce. The kitchen serves lunch daily from noon and dinner from early evening. Book ahead for dinner.
The Scotsman Hotel brasserie on North Bridge serves food all day in an Edwardian building that housed The Scotsman newspaper for nearly a century. It is a five-minute walk from the statue.
Where to Stay
The Scotsman Hotel, 20 North Bridge, Edinburgh. A 4-star hotel in the former Scotsman newspaper building, 10 minutes’ walk from Princes Street Gardens, with views toward Calton Hill and Waverley Station.
Premier Inn Edinburgh City Centre, Princes Street, Edinburgh. A well-located, straightforward option on Princes Street, within a short walk of the gardens and the Old Town.
Worth Knowing
- Wojtek appeared on Blue Peter, the BBC children’s television programme, during his years at Edinburgh Zoo and became one of the zoo’s most-visited animals throughout the 1950s.
- The bear emblem of the 22nd Artillery Supply Company, a bear holding an artillery shell, was painted on military vehicles throughout the Italian campaign. The unit still uses it.
- Wojtek weighed nearly 500 kilograms by the time he died and stood over 1.8 metres tall.
- The Polish-Scottish Association made Wojtek an honorary member while he lived at Winfield. Several of the soldiers who settled in Scotland after the war visited him at Edinburgh Zoo until the end of his life.
- Archie Brown, the Royal Signals officer who arranged Wojtek’s transfer to Edinburgh Zoo, later described the bear as the most effective thing he had ever seen for the morale of men far from home.
Practical Tips
- The statue stands in West Princes Street Gardens, in the lower western section of the park. Walk west from the Scott Monument along the main path and look left before you reach the Ross Bandstand.
- Use what3words: ///lamp.clubs.wired for the exact location.
- Allow 30 minutes at the site. From there, the Scottish National Gallery is five minutes on foot to the west, and the Royal Mile is 10 minutes uphill to the east.
- Dogs are welcome in Princes Street Gardens on leads.
- Photography: the statue faces east and catches the clearest light in the morning. The Castle appears behind it in afternoon shots from the south side of the path.
- No AllTrails route applies to this urban site, but AllTrails offers several mapped walks through the surrounding hills of Edinburgh if you want to extend the day.
Reader Q&A
Was Wojtek the bear a real soldier?
Yes. Wojtek held the official rank of Corporal in the Polish II Corps, was listed on the payroll of the 22nd Artillery Supply Company, and carried the service number 253. He was formally enlisted as a private to comply with military regulations that prevented animals from travelling on troop ships, and promoted to corporal following the Battle of Monte Cassino.
Where is the Wojtek the bear statue in Scotland?
The main statue stands in West Princes Street Gardens in Edinburgh, sculpted by Alan Herriot and unveiled on 7 November 2015. A second statue is in Duns Market Square in the Scottish Borders, unveiled in 2016 near the site of Winfield Airfield, where Wojtek was stationed after the war.
Did Wojtek really carry ammunition at Monte Cassino?
Multiple witness accounts from the 22nd Company confirm that Wojtek carried artillery crates during the Battle of Monte Cassino in May 1944. Some accounts note that not every crate carried live shells. The behaviour is confirmed across several independent witness statements; the precise contents of individual crates are contested.
Where did Wojtek the bear live after the war?
Wojtek lived at Winfield Airfield, Sunwick Farm, near Hutton in Berwickshire, Scotland, from 1945 to 1947. When the 22nd Company demobilised in November 1947, he moved to Edinburgh Zoo, where he died on 2 December 1963.
The full story of Britain’s history holds moments like this one: a bear in a Scottish park, waiting, for sixteen years, for voices he already knew.
