War has always been a place of bold innovation and wild gambles. But every now and then, a plan comes along that is so truly bizarre. It sounds more like a joke than an actual military strategy.

In eighteen sixty two, during the early days of the American Civil War, one union officer came up with an idea that was as daring as it was unconventional.

It involved a night time operation. A group of unsuspecting mules and a whole ton of explosives.

The Berlin Airlift was one of the defining moments of the early Cold War, but hidden inside the story of cargo planes and blockaded Berlin is something much stranger.

American pilot Gail Halvorsen began dropping chocolate and chewing gum to children below, attaching the sweets to tiny handmade parachutes so they could float safely to the ground. The idea caught on, and Halvorsen soon became known around the world as the “Candy Bomber of Berlin.”

During World War II, the sailors at Simon’s Town Naval Base gained an unlikely new recruit: a giant Great Dane named Just Nuisance.

After repeatedly sneaking onto trains to follow his sailor friends into Cape Town, the Navy solved the problem by officially enlisting him, giving him a rank and the right to free rail travel.

From attending parades and breaking up fights to escorting drunken sailors home, Just Nuisance became a beloved wartime mascot and one of South Africa’s most unusual military legends.

This is the funny, heartwarming story of the only dog ever officially enlisted in the Royal Navy.