During the Battle of Monte Cassino in 1944, Wojtek helped move crates of ammunition and became a celebrity with visiting Allied generals and statesmen.

On the journey from Pahlevi to Tehran, Iran, on 8 April 1942, Polish soldiers encountered a young Iranian boy who had found a bear cub whose mother had been shot by hunters.

She prompted Lieutenant Anatol Tarnowiecki to buy the young bear, which spent the next three months in a Polish refugee camp established near Tehran, principally under Irena's care.

[8] From Egypt, the Polish II Corps was reassigned to fight alongside the British Eighth Army in the Italian campaign.

[citation needed] As an enlisted soldier with his own paybook, rank, and serial number, he lived with the other men in tents or in a special wooden crate, which was transported by truck.

During the Battle of Monte Cassino, Wojtek helped his unit convey ammunition by carrying 100-pound (45 kg) crates of 25-pound artillery shells, never dropping any of them.

While this story generated debate over its accuracy, at least one account exists of a British soldier recalling seeing a bear carrying crates of ammunition.

Following demobilisation on 15 November 1947, Wojtek was given to Edinburgh Zoo, where he spent the rest of his life, often visited by journalists and former Polish soldiers, some of whom tossed cigarettes for him to eat, as he did during his time in the army.